PREP WEDNESDAY : Some Guys Just Can’t Get Enough : DAILY DOUBLE : So They Play Two Sports During the Same Season : For Adams and Clifton, Serving Two Masters is Just Part of the Game

Two-sport, one-season athlete, this is your life:

In this picture, your track coach is stretching your leg toward the starting blocks while the baseball coach is yanking your arm toward the pitching mound. What a grimace.

Here you are trying to putt a low fastball with a golf club. Boy, do you look confused.

In this one, your leg’s tied in sailor’s knots from trying to play baseball the day after a track meet.

Here you are again, wondering what’s coming up next.

Tommy Adams, Richard Clifton, this could be your lives.

Oh, the problems of being good at two sports played in the same season.

But Adams of Capistrano Valley High School and Clifton of Edison are two who manage to juggle a life style that is something between hectic and impossible.

Even in an age of athletes specializing in one sport, some still move from football to basketball to baseball seasons.

Nathan Call, who played in three different Orange County all-star games with Capistrano Valley, had a car so full of basketballs and practice equipment that it looked like a road gymnasium. His brother, Burt, reportedly once played games in three sports within a five-hour period.

None of them, though, ever had to find a season-long way to help two coaches and two teams with only one body. That is exactly what players such as Adams and Clifton must do.

Adams runs the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the second leg on Capistrano Valley’s 400-meter relay team. He also plays right field for the baseball team. He is hitting .435 and leads the team in home runs (4), RBIs (16) and runs (19).

Clifton pitches for Edison when he isn’t hitting golf balls, scoring in the mid-70s.

Serving two masters is rarely easy.

After running five races in last week’s Orange County championships, Adams began playing in the Bolsa Grande baseball tournament. He went 9 for 14, including three home runs. But when he hit what appeared to be his fourth home run and Coach Bob Zamora waved him home, the wear and tear was a little much.

“I was kind of struggling around third and I could feel my legs dying,” Adams said. “I think Coach just wanted me to hit my fourth home run.”

Adams was tagged out at home.

On any other day, Zamora says, he would have made it home.

Clifton has had similar experiences. A mandatory photo session for the baseball team went overtime and almost caused him to miss a golf tournament.

Because he’s a pitcher and doesn’t have to play every game, Clifton says he can afford to miss some games and practices.

“It’s worked out pretty well, there’s not too many conflicts,” said Clifton. “At the beginning of the year my golf coach said it would be all right if I was only there half the time. But I’ve been there a lot more than that. It would be more difficult if I played any other position but pitcher.”

Adams has no such luck. For a long time, he practiced track during his lunch hour, occasionally practicing handoffs with the other members of the relay team. He has stopped that now.

“My legs get sore, that’s the only thing about it (the lunchtime practices),” Adams said. “They feel OK now for the first time in a week and a half.”

The satisfaction of winning in track, he says, makes up for any additional soreness. Capistrano Valley has won the 400-meter relay in the eight meets in which it has participated.

Perhaps the most delicate part of juggling two sports is communication.

“I don’t like telling the coaches I’m not going to be there on a given day, but they understand,” Clifton said. “They don’t get on my case.”

Said Adams: “They work it out pretty well because baseball is my priority. I put baseball ahead of everything. Some track coaches wouldn’t let you do that. You would have to put track ahead of everything.”

Two-sport athletes have to put competition ahead of everything, even their personal efforts. Adams says he could be doing much better in track if he concentrated on it more. He loses speed with legs tired from baserunning. Moreover, legs tired from sprints aren’t nearly as fast in the outfield.

“The problem now that I see is Tommy’s very sore on a Friday game day (track meets usually are on Thursdays), but his performance hasn’t really suffered,” Zamora said. “It hasn’t presented a real big problem, but there’s always the concern he could play better. (Track Coach Tom) White’s concern is if it weren’t for baseball, he probably could run faster.”

As the “other guy” in the coach-athlete relationship, White stresses communication.

“Bob and I have a good understanding,” said White, whose classroom is two doors away from Zamora’s. “We’ve always had a very good working relationship. We never let a situation develop that wouldn’t benefit the individual athlete or the team concept we both work to achieve.

“Without communication between the coaches and athletes, I don’t think the situation is workable. In a lot of sports, the baseball and track coaches don’t get along well--they fight for athletes--the end result being the sports don’t get along. My experience is the individual personalities have to get along in order for the thing to work. If a coach is adamantly opposed to an athlete doing this, it’s never going to work.”

White says a two-sport, one-season athlete could take advantage of his status and play one sport against the other, using practice from one sport as an excuse for not practicing or doing well in the other.

That doesn’t happen at Capistrano Valley. When Adams was preparing to race in a recent meet, the baseball team cheered him with its own version of the wave. A few days later, Adams ran three bases in 10.83 seconds, breaking his own record and winning a case of soda from Zamora that he’ll split with the team.

Clifton says he sometimes feels apart from his team, especially when he has missed a baseball game or a golf tournament.

“Some people think I shouldn’t pitch because I’m not at practice that day, or I’m not at golf practice that day so why should I play in the match,” Clifton said.

“Nobody’s really said anything, but I’m sure some people feel that way. If some players aren’t there every day, they’ll sit out a game.”