JETHAWKS NOTEBOOK: TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVES : JETHAWKS' MARCHIANO CHOOSES BASEBALL OVER FOOTBALL.

Byline: Chris Cocoles Daily News Staff Writer

Football or baseball? Baseball or football? Football? Baseball?

For years Mike Marchiano was torn between the two sports he loved, a tug-of-war spanning the diamond and the gridiron. Everyone, including himself, asked the same question: Which sport will it be?

Marchiano came up with the correct answer: Football was once Marchiano's passion, baseball is now his career.

The JetHawks' left fielder, he of the sizzling start at the plate, once considered baseball something to bide his time between football and spring football.

He was the big man on campus at Jefferson Township High in Oak Ridge, N.J. As a running back, Marchiano rushed for 4,000 yards in his prep career and earned a full scholarship to New York City's Fordham University.

``Everyone in high school always told me I'd play football,'' Marchiano says now. ``As a kid I always dreamed of playing college football. I loved it.''

For two years Marchiano had the best of both worlds. Fordham baseball coach Dan Gallagher convinced him to try out for baseball while maintaining football as his first priority.

Marchiano had to honor his football scholarship first - Fordham tuition is roughly $29,000 per year - and could participate only in other sports that didn't conflict with football.

While he was a two-year starter at receiver for the Rams, Marchiano couldn't work out with the baseball team in fall practices or compete in the summer baseball leagues, in which collegiate players prepare for the professional level by using wooden bats.

Marchiano accepted the niche baseball had in his brutal schedule. He found time to manage the two sports and his classwork at a school known primarily for its academics.

``Sometimes I felt I didn't get to have the college experience,'' said Marchiano, a dedicated student who earned a bachelor's degree in economics and turned down lucrative job offers from such investment companies as Paine Webber, Dean Witter and Northwest Mutual upon his graduation.

During football season, Marchiano's days started at dawn and often wouldn't end until he collapsed in his apartment near midnight.

Playing two sports required a juggling act that only a circus performer could truly appreciate. A Saturday afternoon his freshman year was typical of Marchiano's zany routine.

``I was playing in a spring football scrimmage. One of the trainers came up to me and said, `The baseball team needs you,' '' Marchiano, now 24, recalled. ``We were playing a doubleheader against Navy and I rode over from the school we were playing the football scrimmage at. I was still in my pads.''

Once he arrived on the Fordham campus in the Bronx, Marchiano shed his pads for his baseball digs, entered in the second game and delivered a pinch hit.

``It was insane,'' he said.

Two years of this and a football-related shoulder injury had Marchiano doing some soul searching in his apartment one day.

He pondered whether it might be to his advantage to give up football and devote himself 100 percent to baseball, as his Fordham baseball coaches urged. They knew then that he might have talent to play professionally.

Clearly, at 6-foot, 190 pounds, without blazing speed and playing for a Division I-AA school, he wasn't headed to the NFL.

``My high school baseball coach (Mike Yankho) would always tell me, `You're going to play baseball.' Back then, I didn't listen to him,'' Marchiano said with a laugh.

A possible snag, the fate of his scholarship, worked itself out as Fordham moved from the Patriot League to the Atlantic 10, providing the baseball team with an extra scholarship.

``I miss football now,'' Marchiano said. ``All of my roommates were on the football team and they'd come home talking about it. I still stood on the sidelines and watched every game.''

However, for his final two years of college, Marchiano was a true baseball player rather than a baseball participant.

He was able to spend the fall sharpening his skills at the Rams' fall practices. And, perhaps more important, he spent two summers in the Atlantic Collegiate League swinging a wooden bat.

``When you get a chance to hit with wood, the sooner the better,'' said JetHawks manager Darrin Garner, who has watched Marchiano lead the California League in hitting for much of the early season. ``If I was (a college coach), I would make it mandatory to practice some with a wooden bat.''

The additional practice time had a dramatic impact on Marchiano's performance. He had a big junior season and a gargantuan senior campaign.

He crushed 29 homers, knocked in 85 runs and batted .493. He edged out two marquee names, Florida State's J.D. Drew and Cal State Northridge's Adam Kennedy, to claim the NCAA Division I batting crown.

A 20th-round selection of the Seattle Mariners in the 1997 draft, Marchiano batted a cumulative .287 while averaging 15 homers and 69 RBI his first two pro seasons.

``I love his work ethic. He's a guy that makes adjustments to the pitchers,'' said Garner, also citing Marchiano's leadership skills that will probably send him to a job on Wall Street once his baseball career ends.

``That's what I like about him. If he was struggling right now, he'd still be the same guy, helping his teammates and cheering them on, encouraging them. It's not just about himself.''

Marchiano doesn't regret the years his managed to play two sports.

He graduated in four years, a rarity among the five-year (or longer) plan that many student-athletes tend to follow. Nor does he regret passing up the big-money job offers in favor of his modest salary as a minor-leaguer.

Marchiano remains close friends with Yankho, his Jefferson Township coach who bucked the trend while everyone else foresaw football in his future.

``Whenever I see him,'' Marchiano said, ``He tells me, `I told you so.' ''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Ran in AV Edition only) Mike Marchiano, once torn between baseball and football, chose to make his living on the diamond.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(2--Ran in SAC Edition only) MARCHIANO