What Would TON Do?

Arizona freshman Chase Budinger chose basketball over volleyball even though he had the potential to make the U.S. volleyball team for the 2008 Games in Beijing.

"What would you do if you were Chase Budinger, two-sport schoolboy folk hero? Would you pursue your unlimited potential in volleyball, nurture the talent that could earn you an Olympic gold medal, fulfill the promise that Mike Rangel, the longtime coach and trainer for Karch Kiraly -- the sport's Michael Jordan -- casts in historic terms? "As a high school senior, Chase was head and shoulders better than anybody we've ever seen at his age in the game of volleyball," says Rangel. "He's the closest thing we've seen to Karch Kiraly in 30 years."

Or would you follow the white-haired basketball sage, forsake college volleyball and cast your lot with Arizona coach Lute Olson, who started watching you during your freshman year of high school and predicted to his staff, audaciously and accurately, that you would become the finest player from San Diego since Bill Walton? After all, the sport's Michael Jordan -- Jordan himself -- raved to Olson about the 6'7" redhead with the 42-inch vertical leap ("Man, I love that kid") after guarding Budinger at his Flight School camp last summer.

Basketball or volleyball? The sport in which Budinger was named the co-MVP of the McDonald's High School All-American Game last March, joining the select company of Kevin Garnett, LeBron James and Dwight Howard? Or the one in which he admits he has more skill? Budinger's decision was crystal clear at the start of McKale Madness, the annual fanfest that kicked off hoops practice at Arizona on Oct. 13. While his teammates danced and shimmied onto the floor as their names were announced, Budinger sauntered out wearing sunglasses, with a beach towel draped over his shoulders. Then he symbolically chucked a volleyball into the crowd. Guess I won't be needing that for a while."

"It was such a tough decision," says Budinger (pronounced BUD-ing-grr, with a hard G in the last syllable). "I love both sports, but basketball has always been my passion. If I had to choose between a volleyball game and a basketball game on the same night, I'd always choose basketball. Focusing on basketball was something I'd never done before, and I really wanted to try it." In the near term, volleyball fans hoping to check out Budinger's skills will have to settle for grainy YouTube clips and familiar moves transferred to another sport. As his father, Duncan Sr., points out, "You'll see him go up for a dunk, a block or a rebound with a quick jump -- boom, one-and-a-half steps, up! -- and recognize that it's a volleyball approach." Not that volleyball is entirely out of the picture. Budinger is still holding out the possibility of making the U.S. Olympic team, either in 2008 or further down the road. (Olson says he'd have no problem with his young star playing in the Beijing Games.)