Still in Vogue

As Chad Hutchinson stood on the mound in perhaps the most important baseball game of his college career, he realized the rigors of being a two-sport athlete had finally caught up with him.

After 4 1/2 months of football that culminated with him quarterbacking Stanford to a 38-0 win over Michigan State in the Sun Bowl, Hutchinson had gotten just four days off before beginning five months of Cardinal baseball.

As Stanford’s No. 2 pitcher, he had helped lead the team into the College World Series. He was facing defending champion LSU, with Stanford on the brink of elimination, when his arm went dead.

After going 8-3 with two complete games and 110 strikeouts in 104 1-3 innings, he lasted just two innings against LSU--allowing six runs, walking four and hitting two batters.

“It just really shut down and there wasn’t anything left. It was a long year of throwing a lot of balls,” he said. “I couldn’t find the strike zone. My arm, my body--I really didn’t have anything left.”

Though there are many rewards for two-sport athletes such as Hutchinson, there are also risks. The mental and physical strain can be overwhelming, and only a rare athlete succeeds in both sports.

Deion Sanders is the most prominent athlete to handle football and baseball. He’s currently playing baseball with the Cincinnati Reds and football with the Dallas Cowboys. Others include Bo Jackson, John Elway and Brian Jordan. Charlie Ward won the 1993 Heisman Trophy at Florida State but now plays for the NBA’s New York Knicks. And Danny Ainge played baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays and basketball for the Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns.

This season, Hutchinson, a 6-5, 230-pound junior, is one of college’s most high-profile dual athletes.

His peers include Florida quarterback Doug Johnson, who played minor-league baseball this summer as a third baseman for the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Doug Clark, a wide receiver at Massachusetts who has been drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers as an outfielder.

Miami has two such athletes--freshman quarterback Kenny Kelly spent the summer playing outfield in the rookie leagues, and wide receiver Andre King is a walk-on freshman for the Hurricanes after four years as an outfielder in the minors.

“You’re constantly moving from one competition to the next. Football is so draining physically and mentally, and then you have baseball to deal with,” Hutchinson said. “And then you really don’t have a summer.

“But the thing is, what else would I rather be doing? I love the grind of competition. Competition is very addictive. Competition is something I thrive on. If I didn’t have two sports, I’d be itching for something to do.”

Stanford offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dana Bible said Hutchinson may miss out on a couple of hundred throws by skipping spring football to play baseball, but gains much more in return.

“I look at it this way--we may be getting a better football player because of all the baseball experience he has,” Bible said. “You can’t put a value on top-shelf competition, putting a guy in a situation where it’s winner-take-all.”

During the spring, Bible often roams over to the baseball diamond to watch his starting quarterback on the mound. He doesn’t bother looking at technique--he focuses on how Hutchinson deals with success or failure.

“I think the baseball part of it has sped up his development,” Bible said. “He’s been under fire, been the guy--I’ll take that kind of training every time.”

Hutchinson is following in the footsteps of Stanford quarterback-baseball players such as Elway of the Denver Broncos, who also played in the minors for the Yankees, and Brian Johnson, the starting catcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Brian Johnson said one of the biggest challenges is not listening to critics.

“People are constantly telling you to pick one. As soon as you make a bad pitch, as soon as you make a bad throw, everyone wants to pigeonhole you into doing one thing,” he said. “But the true two-sport athlete gets even more determined to do it then.”

Hutchinson, whose fastball has been timed at 95 mph, was drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Braves in 1995 but chose to attend Stanford. He was red-shirted as a freshman and started slowly last year, but improved significantly as the season progressed.

His best game came in the Sun Bowl, where he was named MVP after going 22-of-28 for 226 yards and a touchdown.

The football success has made it tougher for him to predict his future.

“In high school, I was more known for baseball. But I’ve developed as a football player,” he said. “This will probably become more confusing, because I’m developing in both sports.”

Doug Johnson, a sophomore expected to start at quarterback for Florida this season, hit .201 with 56 strikeouts and just 28 hits in the Appalachian League this summer. He remains undecided about his goals after college.

“I have four years to be in college, four years to play football, and I have the rest of my life to play baseball,” he said. “If I’m successful here, I could have a chance to go to either league.”