HANCHETT FACES DOUBLE DUTY.

Byline: Bob Rodman The Register-Guard

CORVALLIS - For a long, long time, the envelope had been sitting there, enticing, almost teasing, Jim Hanchett.

He decided to push it.

The son of an Army chaplain, Hanchett has bounced around basketball most of his athletic life, yet he dived head-first into the college football world on Wednesday, joining more than 90 other athletes for the first day of Oregon State's fall practices as the Beavers launch preparations for their Sept. 4 season opener at defending BCS national champion Louisiana State.

It's a big change for a guy whose vocabulary has been dominated by words like fouls, field goals, fast breaks and free throws.

The 6-foot-6, 248-pound senior, a high-octane member of the Oregon State men's basketball team last season, talked his way into the uniform he will be wearing as a tight end for the Beavers.

He even did a good enough sales job to get coach Mike Riley to pony up a football scholarship.

"None of us as coaches have ever seen Jim play football but we're not scared at all, not with him the kind of guy he is," Riley said.

"I've taken on a lot of things, and I believe things happen for a reason," said Hanchett (pronounced Han-SETT). "I want to live life to the fullest."

Hanchett, a pre-dental major at OSU, made no end run there.

He will not turn 23 years old until November but already has been married for a couple of years, is a new father, took a two-year Church of Latter Day Saints mission to Brazil, and resided in a couple of foreign countries and 11 states.

While not a starter, he was a rough-and-tumble member of the OSU hoops team last season - second in rebounding and field-goal percentage, and fourth in scoring.

Years ago, two-sport - even three-sport - major college athletes were not that uncommon. They are a rare breed today.

"It takes a special kid to even attempt it," said LeCharls McDaniel, an Oregon State assistant football coach in charge of the team's tight ends. "He came to us. He has size and he is an athlete.

"Jim has a lot to learn but he is smart. You don't get into dentistry school by being too slow. This is the kind of chance you can take."

Hanchett has not played a down of football since almost forever. As a senior in high school, he tried to play the game, but before the season began he injured a shoulder and that was that.

Basketball he mastered, however.

Hanchett was a three-year starter at McIntosh High in Peachtree City, Ga., but a scholarship to Brigham Young slipped away with a broken ankle, which is how he landed first at Utah Valley State (where he played for current OSU assistant basketball coach Jeff Reinert), and then, eventually, at OSU.

But the young man could never shake the dream of playing football. Somewhere. Somehow. Some place.

"As long as I've known him," said Destiny Hanchett, his 25-year-old wife, "Jim has talked about playing football. I kept telling him, `Why not do it?' Finally, he did."

But why?

Tim Euhus, the tight end who had a career year last season and was a fourth-round draft pick of the NFL's Buffalo Bills, took on the two-sport task at Oregon State and lasted one season in basketball.

"I talked to Tim," Hanchett said. "He said it was tough. But I'm at a different point in my life. I'm not trying to do this for four years."

Hanchett is expected to rejoin the Beaver basketball team once the football season is completed. That could mean as late as January if Oregon State plays in a bowl game.

"The conditioning is different for the two sports," Hanchett said, "but for what I bring to the basketball team, I don't need to shoot 1,000 three-pointers.

"I'm a hard-nosed defender and rebounder. I love contact."

So true. He led the Beavers in personal fouls with 85 and disqualifications with four last winter, his first season at OSU.

Hanchett's basketball eligibility is up at the end of the 2004-05 season. He has one more year of football eligibility, if the plan works.

"It's not an easy transition but if a guy can do it, he can," Riley said.

"I want to do this," Hanchett said. "I know it's a challenge, but I'm not going into this thinking it won't work out."

Hanchett said, and Riley agreed, that most college football players see an NFL career in their futures, realism be danged.

"Hey," Hanchett grinned, "I've got a better chance as a 6-6, 250-pound tight end in the NFL than I do as a 6-6, 250-pound forward in the NBA."

Could be, but he truly understands the mountain he intends to climb is a tall one.

"I have a lot of learning to do," Hanchett said.

Riley said Joe Newton, a 6-7, 244-pound sophomore with a load of tight end talent, is No. 1 on the depth chart.

"But we often use two tight ends in the offense, the other being the H-back," Riley said. "Jim can compete to play the H-back, where Tim (Euhus) played."

Hanchett is well aware that "the best guys are going to play."

He just wants to be one of them.

CAPTION(S):

Jim Hanchett was the fourth-leading scorer for the Oregon State men's basketball team last year. A gritty rebounder and defender, he takes that attitude to the football field this fall, where he will be a tight end and H-back for the Beavers. Kevin Clark / The Register-Guard Jim Hanchett and this is light text and this is more light text