Tim Adrian held the phone to his ear and listened.

He heard then-Syracuse track and field throws coach Candy Roberts do her best car salesman impression, trying to pitch SU to a thrower her program wanted badly.

But images of red — Cornusker and Seminole red — flashed through Adrian’s mind. While Syracuse offered a track and field scholarship, Florida State and Nebraska countered with football offers.

The Seminoles wanted Adrian so much that he met with head coach Bobby Bowden. But Bowden didn’t count on Roberts, who threw a question at Adrian that sealed his future.

“She asked me, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ “ Adrian said. “I started weighing out my options on the phone, and before I was even off the phone, I decided I was going to stick with track and pursue it further.”

Adrian, now a junior, has pursued it for three years at SU. Tomorrow, he and his team will attend the Brown Invitational in Providence, R.I. Adrian plans to continue until he reaches his goal —– the Olympics. That benchmark, along with aspirations of running his own company, drove Adrian away from football, a sport in which he excelled during high school.

At Moorpark High in Moorpark, Calif., Adrian landed a spot on the varsity football team his sophomore year, something no one in Moorpark history had ever accomplished. A year later, Adrian received recruiting letters from the likes of Colorado State, Nebraska and Florida State.

“I watch Colorado State, and I watch Nebraska on TV,” Adrian said. “A lot of times you see those big-time schools, and you think you got letters from their head coaches coaching on the sidelines. You kind of wonder what it would be like.

“You might wonder what it’d be like to be throwing though, too. You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

Formerly an offensive and defensive lineman, Adrian picked up track and field his freshman year of high school to stay in shape for football. His father, Bill, who also played football and threw in high school, served as his throws coach.

By the time Adrian reached his junior year, his track and field stock skyrocketed. He added 35 feet to his discus throws and moved to No. 5 in the state and top 20 in the country. By his senior year, he advanced into the top 10 nationally.

“We were probably kind of naive to the fact of how good he really was,” Bill Adrian said. “It’s probably since he was gone that people realized how good he really was. No kid has ever come close to what he did.”

Senior year, a decision loomed. The options — be a football player, be a thrower or be a two-sport athlete.

He chose track and field, thinking his then-6-foot-1, 260-pound frame would never cut it in the NFL. That left Florida State or Syracuse. After the fateful phone call from Roberts, the rest was academic.

“I’m really looking into what I want to do after college because it’s not just about college,” Adrian said. “I thought I’d have a better chance at a good career with a degree from Syracuse than a degree from Florida State.”

A consumer studies major, Adrian already owns his own disc-jockey company — Adrian’s Entertainment — back home.

It started his freshman year of high school, when a teacher lent Adrian equipment for free. He began with a partner but spun off on his own a year later. He has done everything from purchase business cards to build his own coffin, which is what professionals use to carry their sound equipment.

“We thought it was just a cute way of making money in the beginning,” Ann Adrian, Tim’s mother, said. “When he started making pretty good chunks of money, we thought it was a pretty good way of making money without working steady.”

Since he can’t deal with the 50s dances, kindergarten sock hops and high school dances when he’s in Syracuse, Adrian leaves the business to friends from September to May.

He’s too busy taking care of business on the field, where Adrian needs to add about 15 feet to his best discus throw of 182 feet, 3 inches to have a chance to qualify for the U.S. National Team.

“Everything has to go right in the next two years,” Adrian said, “and I have to get some good training in. But it’s very attainable.”

His father has no doubt.

“If he makes up his mind that that’s the goal he’s going to set for himself, the only thing separating him from that is hard work,” Bill Adrian said. “He’s capable of enough hard work to get that done. We’ll wait to see if he decides to go the rest of the way.

“No question he’s capable.”

Published on April 11, 2002 at 12:00 pm