A CROSSOVER IN THEIR ATHLETIC CAREERS BASKETBALL PLAYERS FINDING SUCCESS ON THE NFL'S GRIDIRON.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

When Oakland Raiders receiver Ronald Curry hauled in a touchdown pass from Kerry Collins last Sunday, he quickly made his way from the corner to the middle of the end zone, took a few chopped steps and dunked the ball over the crossbar.

If Curry, a former point guard at North Carolina, was trying to make a point that he can score no matter what kind of ball he has in his hands, it turns out he wasn't the only one.

Also scoring touchdowns that afternoon were Chargers tight end Antonio Gates, a former swingman at Kent State, and Raiders tight end Teyo Johnson, a forward at Stanford.

As NBA physiques increasingly resemble football players' - think Ben Wallace and Shaquille O'Neal - and NFL pass catchers increasingly make Jordan-esque moves in the air, it shouldn't be surprising to find a number of football players with basketball skills thriving in the NFL.

Cross-over moves, indeed.

Vikings receiver Randy Moss, who excels at snatching lobs away from defensive backs, has dabbled in pro basketball summer leagues and once explored moonlighting for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Eagles' Terrell Owens, who has a NFL-best 13 touchdown catches, played basketball for three years at Tennessee-Chattanooga and like Moss dipped his toe into the USBL, a developmental league.

``What I think you're seeing is that the skill sets are getting similar,'' said Seahawks president Bob Whitsitt, formerly the general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Supersonics. ``You watch the Vikings on TV and you hear (commentators) say, 'Throw Randy Moss the jump ball.' ''

This link between basketball and football moves to center court, er, stage on Sunday in Kansas City when the NFL's two best tight ends and arguably its two best basketball players - the Chargers' Gates and the Chiefs' Tony Gonzalez - share the field.

Gonzalez, who has been to five consecutive Pro Bowls, was a good enough basketball player at Cal to score 23 points in an NCAA Tournament game. Gates, who shares the NFL lead with 62 receptions, was Kent State's leading scorer and rebounder when it nearly reached the 2002 Final Four.

That both are tight ends is no coincidence. It is a position where many of the tools needed to play basketball - footwork, hands, size and agility - are a requirement.

``You're going to find a guy who's (usually) the power forward type, who is 6-4 or 6-5,'' Gonzalez said of the typical basketball-playing football player. ``We're not tall enough for the NBA, we're kind of `tweeners for the NBA, so the next best thing is to go out there and play football. I think you see that in Gates, you see that in myself. It's the evolution of the position.''

It used to be that the tight end was viewed as a sixth lineman, the lucky one who was allowed to catch. Now he's more often a third receiver who can also block.

Whereas John Mackey, Kellen Winslow and Ozzie Newsome used to be the exception, now they are the rule. Through last week, four tight ends - Gates, Gonzalez, the 49ers' Eric Johnson and the Cowboys' Jason Witten - were among the NFL's top 11 receivers.

``Until about 10 years ago, when you looked at a defense, on many occasions you'd find the tight end with a guy toe-to-toe with him,'' said Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, who has coached Gonzalez and now Gates. ``Nobody plays it that way anymore. Everybody gets outside of him. They put a defensive lineman on him and he can release off that guy without much difficulty.''

Rule changes, such as the one in the early '90s that prevented defensive players from making contact more than five yards downfield, have also put a premium on those skills.

``Now they're looking for guys who can turn a 10-yard pass into a 50-yard gain,'' Whitsitt said.

While some of those assets may be intuitive - running, jumping, body control, hand-eye coordination - others are learned, or improved through repetition that basketball provides.

Teyo Johnson says the two seasons he spent playing basketball at Stanford honed his football skills. Sealing your man off in the post is like shielding a defensive back or linebacker from the ball. The footwork used in making a back-door cut isn't much different than losing your man on an out.

``All the things beside flat-out impact aggression help a tight end,'' Johnson said. ``Running routes, catching the ball in traffic, going up over people like a rebound. Playing basketball really helped me.''

Houston Rockets guard Charlie Ward, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback at Florida State, may be the only ``football player'' in the NBA, though fellow point guards Allen Iverson and Jason Williams were star quarterbacks in high school, Williams being a teammate of Moss.

``If you're a point guard and a quarterback, it's all the same,'' said Ward, whose size (5-11) kept him from getting drafted by the NFL.

Eric Reveno, an assistant basketball coach at Stanford, where he coached Johnson, now has two other two-way players - sophomores Evan Moore and Mark Bradford, starting receivers on the football team. He believes playing both sports can sharpen a player's mind as well as his body.

``Sometimes, there's not a correlation between being book smart and athletic smart,'' Reveno said. ``But there is a correlation in understanding how a team works, formations, being coachable, the part of the mind that allows you to handle defenses and react. That translates.

``If somebody shows it to you on a white board, if you're good at it in one sport, you can probably do it in another.''

Nobody has mastered that translation better than Gates. He's become one of the NFL's most dynamic players in just his second season - this despite not playing football since high school, when the Detroit native was a first-team all-state player in both sports.

Gates went to Michigan State planning to play both sports, but left when then-football coach Nick Saban wanted him to give up basketball. He bounced from Eastern Michigan to College of the Sequoias (in Visalia, Calif.) before landing at Kent State.

When there was no interest from the NBA as a senior, he began to think about football.

``I was always told I was a good football player, but I didn't care because I didn't work at it,'' Gates said. ``I played basketball all summer then showed up for football. It was natural for me. Basketball was totally opposite. I was always in the gym working because people said I couldn't do it because I was 6-4. I just said, 'You know what? I'm going to take that same mind-set I had in basketball and apply it to football and see where I get.''

Football teams have always been willing to look at athletes in other sports after the success former Cowboys personnel director Gil Brandt had with sprint star Bob Hayes and cornerback Cornelius Green, who played only basketball in college.

Gates worked out for more than a dozen teams, then signed as a free agent with the Chargers just after the 2003 draft. He came to camp as the fourth tight end, made the team and moved into the starting lineup last November.

``The fact that he's as young as he is with as limited experience as he has, it's remarkable what he's accomplished,'' Schottenheimer said.

In the Chargers' 23-17 win over the Raiders, Gates caught eight passes for 101 yards and a touchdown, but his impact went well beyond that.

Gates drew a defensive holding penalty on safety Jarrod Cooper that kept a second-quarter drive alive. Two plays later, he drew a pass interference penalty on linebacker Napoleon Harris, giving the Chargers a first down at the Raiders 8. Two plays later, they scored.

The Raiders were so concerned about Gates, they often used cornerback Charles Woodson, their best cover man, on him. Finding Gates wasn't always easy, either. He lined up at tight end, split end (where he caught his touchdown pass), bunched with other receivers and in the backfield.

What Gates is doing this season, Gonzalez has been doing virtually since he came into the NFL in 1997 as the 13th pick overall. There isn't anyone on the other side of the ball that can match his size, speed and athleticism.

One person who isn't surprised to see either one's success is UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, who coached against Gonzalez when he was at Northern Arizona and against Gates when he was at Pittsburgh.

He believes another NFL star awaits in one of his former players at Pittsburgh, Chevy Troutman, a husky 6-6 forward with good feet and soft hands. But it's when recalling the basketball talents of Gates and Gonzalez that he becomes wistful.

``You know, we'd like to have either one of them right now,'' Howland said. ``They'd start hands down.''

And that may be as nice a compliment as a football player can get. Just as Ward believes he could have succeeded in the NFL, Johnson, Curry, Gonzalez and Gates all believe they could play in the NBA, if only they had the chance.

When Gates is asked where he would be if was 6-foot-8, he doesn't hesitate. ``We'd be in the Lakers' locker room right now talking about this,'' he said, with a smile.

It turns out that all his basketball experience might have taught him something else. He knows a slam dunk when he sees one.

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com

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The Kansas City Chiefs' Tony Gonzalez, a perennial Pro Bowl tight end, also was a college basketball star at Cal.

Orlin Wagner/Associated Press