Hoover Still Determined to Succeed : Football: Quarterback, who set records at Canyon, is learning a new passing system on the North all-star team.

It’s already been quite a year for Adam Hoover.

He spent his senior year at Canyon High as the student body president. He also played a pretty fair game of football, winding up The Times’ 12th-ranked passer in the county.

But before he heads off to Brigham Young this fall, there is some final local business to take care of--the 36th North-South All-Star football game Friday at Orange Coast College.

Hoover will play on the North team. “It’s a great honor,” he said.

Hoover is considered by Bob Hughes to be the best quarterback he’s had in his six years as Canyon’s head coach. What made Hoover good, in Hughes’ estimation, was that Hoover made himself into a top player.

“He was very dedicated,” Hughes said. “He was a good athlete, but he was also willing to do anything it took to improve. And I don’t think he has peaked. I think he’ll continue to improve.”

Hoover, 18, certainly set some impressive standards for future Comanches.

In his senior season (including Canyon’s playoff game against Loara), Hoover completed 156 of 280 passes for 2,063 yards. He threw for 15 touchdowns--against 12 interceptions--and ran for five more scores.

In his two years as a starter, Hoover passed for 3,878 yards and 27 touchdowns. Both are school records, Hughes said.

More important to Hoover, Canyon went to the Southern Section playoffs his two years as a starter, after the team had not qualified for several seasons.

“I like to think of myself as an all-around player,” Hoover said. “I don’t have the strongest arm in the county; I won’t run the fastest 40-yard dash or know every defense, but I think I have a good combination of the three.”

Hoover attracted the attention of Stanford, and was being recruited by Bill Walsh’s staff. When Walsh resigned and a new coaching staff was installed, the interest was not the same.

He was accepted at BYU, however, and has secured a spot on the team as a walk-on player.

“When I talked with [Coach] LaVelle Edwards, he said they had seen me play and had gotten a highlight film,” Hoover said. “So it was not like they had never heard of me.”

Which was pleasing to Hoover, since BYU is a school he says he has always wanted to attend.

“When Bill Walsh resigned that turned the tables on me. But things happen, and sometimes for the better,” Hoover said. “You may not always understand it then, but they do.

“I’ve always wanted to go to BYU and that’s where I’m going. It’s been a childhood dream since the fourth grade. There’s no guarantees I’ll become a starter or the All-American quarterback I’ve always wanted to be, but I’m going to give it every chance I’ve got.”

Friday’s all-star game is another dream, Hoover said. During his freshman year at Canyon, he was taken to the game by friend and Canyon assistant football coach Don Clark, who told him he could have a good high school career and be a part of the game.

“It became one of those milestones you wanted to reach,” Hoover said.

But playing quarterback in these affairs can be anything but fun. Unless your school’s coach is selected to be the all-star coach--an advantage Esperanza’s Chris Stretch enjoys with Gary Meek as the North’s coach--you have precious little time to learn a new offense with unfamiliar players.

Hoover said there are some similarities between Meek’s and Hughes’ offensive schemes, but so much centers on timing and togetherness.

For example, Hoover said, Canyon’s passing routes were option routes, meaning the receiver could decide what direction he was going and the quarterback had to find him. Under Meek, the receivers run predetermined routes, and it can take them longer to work free from defenders.

Hoover’s learning to wait for those longer routes to develop, but it hasn’t been easy.

“There have been times when I should have stayed in the pocket longer, but I haven’t clicked with that as well as I’d like to,” he said. “But it’s nothing I can’t adjust to.”