William Arthur Johnson, a mild-mannered 51-year-old executive with the Atlanta Falcons, thinks the NFL's enforcers are full of prunes.

He says the league showed its humorless side by fining New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn $30,000 for making a cell phone call in the end zone to celebrate a touchdown.

This is, after all, the same organization that has imposed $10,000 fines on defensive players guilty of late hits to the head.

"I don't think what happened is any big travesty, other than Joe has been fined excessively," Johnson said in an interview yesterday.

Known as Billy "White Shoes" Johnson during his 14-year NFL career as a player, he also ran afoul of the NFL for touchdown celebrations. In 1985, the league banned Johnson's end-zone dance, known variously as the White Shoes Wiggle and the Billy Johnson Shuffle.

By then, he had been gyrating for 10 years, first with the Houston Oilers, then with the Falcons. Johnson's spindly legs seemed to be made of jelly when he performed his post-touchdown Charleston. His dance became the league's most enduring and copied celebration.

Johnson actually began his touchdown dances at Widener, a Division III college in Chester, Pa. Widener had been a military school, but its football coach, Bill Manlove, did not believe discipline equated to straight-laced behavior. He let Johnson, then a 150-pound running back, dance any time he scored. Johnson had 62 touchdowns at Widener from 1971-73, so he got plenty of practice at end-zone celebrations.

Many, then and now, considered his act a slap at football etiquette.

Penn State's Joe Paterno never has tolerated end-zone celebrations. Pitt's Walt Harris orders players to immediately hand the ball to an official when they score. Larry Fitzgerald, Panthers receiver and the Heisman Trophy runnerup, said his splendid manners were molded by Harris, who told him he would suffer through a 100-yard bear crawl if he ever strutted in the end zone.

Johnson, though, knows the power of a good touchdown dance. Coupled with his formidable skills as a receiver and kick-returner, the White Shoes Wiggle made him famous.

Nobody except a few scouts and coaches had heard of Johnson when he joined the Oilers as a 15th-round draft choice in 1974. He set out to change that by giving fans something to remember.

"We are entertainers on the field. I don't see anything wrong with being entertaining," said Johnson, who, in 1995, was named to the NFL's 75th anniversary alltime team as a returner.

But he admitted he initially was worried about alienating the coaching staff, especially the Oilers' stern head man, Sid Gillman.

After his first dance, Johnson did not have the nerve to approach Gillman. Instead, he asked assistant coach Bum Phillips what he thought.

"I hope I get to see you do that many more times," Phillips said.

With that endorsement, Johnson danced every dance. Phillips, who succeeded Gillman as the Oilers' head coach, thought White Shoes and his wiggle made football more fun.

Johnson had many imitators. Not all of them, though, are sympathetic with Horn.

Elbert "Ickey" Woods, the former Cincinnati Bengals star, is one soft-shoe man who says Horn went too far.

"Personally, I don't think much of what he did," Woods said. "When I did the Ickey Shuffle, it was for the fans and to get my team riled up. He seemed to be celebrating individually, to call attention to himself."

That said, the Ickey Shuffle irked the NFL almost as much as Horn's cell phone. Woods scored 15 touchdowns as a rookie in 1988, and his dance became the rage. Even Bengals owner Paul Brown performed it on camera during a news conference.

Unhappy league administrators ordered Woods to move his celebration from the end zone to the sideline.

Woods, who had been largely unknown as a second-round draft choice from Nevada-Las Vegas, said the Ickey Shuffle captured the public's imagination for two reasons: the Bengals were a winner, on their way to a Super Bowl that season, and the dance contained no hint of taunting. By Woods' recollection, he performed the shuffle only at home games.

Old photos, though, indicate that he danced at least once on the road, after scoring in a nationally televised game in Cleveland.

Woods says he never set out to shuffle. His original idea for an end-zone celebration involved nothing more than some elaborate ball- handling.

Fellow Cincinnati rookie Ricky Dixon, a defensive back, saw Woods rehearsing one day and panned his act. "Ricky said, 'That's whacked. Throw in some steps.' ''

Soon after, Woods performed his shuffle so deftly that he drew comparisons to John Travolta's Oscar-nominated footwork in "Saturday Night Fever."

Like Johnson, Woods could make a even a dark day at the stadium seem a little brighter when he scored.

Worries about taunting and the fallout from it are at the heart of the NFL's concern about end-zone celebrations.

Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets inflamed opponents with his sack dances during the 1980s. Denver Broncos receiver Butch Johnson, who simulated a pistol-shooting routine when he scored, seldom took heat from the league. Many opponents, though, did not appreciate his act.

White Shoes Johnson, now director of player development for the Falcons, says taunting is a valid concern for the league. But, he said, he never heard a discouraging word about his dance from other players.

His main concern, he said, is orchestrated group celebrations, such as the Washington Redskins Fun Bunch and the Broncos' Mile High Salute. Both were carried out by four or five players at a time and seemed aimed at humiliating the opposition, Johnson said.

"I never tried to intimidate, denigrate or embarrass anybody," he added.

Not everybody agreed. The NFL's powers that be banned his dance during a stretch when the Falcons had lost 12 of 13 games.

Before Horn and his cell phone, the most recent target of public scorn was San Francisco receiver Terrell Owens. After a touchdown last season, he pulled a Sharpie pen out of his sock, signed the ball and handed it to his financial adviser in the stands.

"The main difference today in celebrating seems to be the use of props," Johnson said. "Otherwise, not much else is being done that hasn't been done already."