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As a senior at Bradenton Southeast High, Adrian McPherson's options seemed limitless.
"Because he was such a good football-basketball player, he was one of the most sought-after players in the whole nation," ESPN recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said.
Much has changed in two years.
McPherson, 20, the former Florida State quarterback, faces a gambling charge for allegedly betting on his own team via the Internet last fall. He has maintained his innocence. His trial begins this week.
The second-degree misdemeanor carries a maximum 60-day in jail, but the NCAA metes out far harsher punishment for gambling.
Student-athletes found to have gambled are suspended for a year, after which they can apply for reinstatement. If they bet on their own team, which raises the specter of point shaving, the suspension becomes permanent.
"It's totally derailed his career at this stage," Grady Irvin, Jr., McPherson's St. Petersburg based attorney, said of the allegations.
Although he refused interview requests, McPherson has told friends he expects to resume his collegiate career.
"He's looking forward to proving people wrong, that he's not this guy that everyone's making him out to be," Southeast High basketball coach Elliot Washington said.
Regardless of what happens in the Leon County courthouse, the NCAA will render its own judgment and can base that on the entire police report, including statements that McPherson had bet with a Tallahassee bookie and run up an $8,000 debt from January to March 2002. The one-year statute of limitations passed, preventing prosecutors from charging him with gambling with a bookie.
If the NCAA believes the police report as well as whatever information it gathers independently, it could ban McPherson. The NAIA would adhere to that ban, too.
That would force him to try the professional ranks, such as the Canadian Football League, NFL Europe, the Arena Football League, the NBA Developmental League or an overseas basketball team.
"I feel he does have that ability," Washington said. "Whether that would be football or basketball, I think football is at his forefront right now."
Former FSU basketball coach Steve Robinson, the Seminole coach who initially wooed him the most zealously, agreed that McPherson is "pretty talented" but stressed he would be much better now if he had spent more time on basketball.
Despite his natural gifts, McPherson would have to approach a pro team with a spotty resume -- he also faces multiple felonies -- and a dearth of big-time experience. He started just four collegiate football games, completing 59 of 118 passes for 734 yards and eight touchdowns and one interception. He played all of five minutes in three FSU basketball games in 2001-02, scoring five points.
Irvin said McPherson, who had been working at a Bay area Gold's Gym, has been working out rigorously since his dismissal from FSU in late November and has added about 20 pounds, up to about 210, to his 6-foot-4 frame. That would help him make the jump, if options are available.
"Once again," Irvin said, "we're trying to put trains back on the track and get the trains moving again."