MAKING MR. RIGHT : Servite’s Jason Frank Got Early Boost From Father to Grow Into a Quarterback

“You may not believe this, and it may sound crazy, but I honestly believe this kid is going to be a Heisman Trophy candidate.”

Bill Frank is speaking about his 16-year-old son, Jason, who has just begun his senior year at Servite High School.

It does sound crazy. Jason Frank is the first to admit that he has some work ahead of him just to become an exceptional high school quarterback. And yet, when his father makes his prediction, Jason does not balk or blush. He remains focused on his father, mouth shut, eyes wide. He has learned to believe.

When Jason was a freshman at Servite, he was 5-feet 7-inches tall and weighed 115 pounds. His father told him he would be 6-4, 220 by his senior year.

“I’d look at people who were 6-4 and I’d say, ‘No way,’ ” Jason said. “But he kept telling me, ‘You will, just keep working out and you’ll see.’ ”

As a sophomore, Jason was the third-string quarterback on the Servite sophomore team. His father told him he would be the starting varsity quarterback by his junior year.

“That was hard to believe, because as a sophomore, the only reason I would get into a game was if we were winning by 30 points,” Jason said.

But it has all come to pass. Jason is 6-4, 220 and in his second season as Servite’s starting quarterback. The boy whose arms were too weak to do pushups when he was a freshman is Servite’s strongest player, able to bench press 385 pounds.

This isn’t progress, this is the manifestation of destiny. It’s all so amazing and unbelievable to everyone except Jason and Bill, who say it’s just part of the plan that started when Jason was 9, a plan that is actually just a little more than half complete.

“It’s been a year-in, year-out program,” Bill Frank said. “It’s about 65% there. People look at him now and marvel, but he’s got a long way to go.”

They are closer than most fathers and sons, closer than most best friends. They are partners in a project--Jason. Bill is not Jason’s real father. His father is Andy Messersmith, the former Dodger and Angel pitcher. Andy and Priscilla Messersmith divorced and Bill married Priscilla when Jason was 4 months old.

Bill Frank owns a health and nutrition store and is a strength expert. He has helped to bulk up baseball players Brian Downing and Lance Parrish in the garage of his Anaheim Hills house that has been converted into a rather sophisticated gym.

But it’s Jason who has spent the most time in the gym. Bill still has, and shows off with a wide grin, the iron bar Jason used to lift when he was 9.

“When he’s rich and famous, this is going to be quite a memento,” Bill said.

Of course, visions of Porsches and talk show appearances don’t mean as much to a 10-year-old as a run through the sprinklers. Jason didn’t always go into the gym with a smile on his face.

“When I was younger, there were times I didn’t want to work out,” he said. “I just wanted to go outside and play with my friends, because it was fun. But my dad kept after me. He told me it would pay off later.”

Bill Frank, the athlete, never had a chance for the payoff. When Bill was growing up, his father would drag him off football fields and basketball courts to work one job after another.

“It was a bad home life. I was never given my chance,” he said.

He eventually ran away from home and into the open arms of the Marines. He left the Marines in 1962 and started a family with his first wife, Sandra. By 1967, he had worked himself into college, attending Ohio State. He was a walk-on fullback on the Buckeye football team in 1969. But before the start of the 1970 season, his wife gave birth to their third child and Bill was forced to quit the team to support his growing family.

“I really wasn’t given the chance to succeed,” Bill said. “That’s why I worked so hard with my kids, especially with Jason. I have the motivation. I don’t want to make the mistakes my father made with me.

“I made up my mind when I started having kids that I was going to devote my entire life to my children and see that they accomplished everything they should.”

And so, in June, he brought out a son from his first marriage, Bill, who had been living in Columbus, Ohio. Bill bulked to 190 pounds, and he is now Servite’s starting fullback.

“I only wish I could have worked with him earlier,” Bill said. “I think I could have done a lot with him and made him into a great player. But there’s still time.”

As for Jason, he was ranked 24th statistically among quarterbacks in the county last year. He threw for 1,350 yards in the regular season, completing but 44% of his passes. He had more passes intercepted (12) than he threw for touchdowns (8).

“I thought I did all right,” Jason said. “But I made a lot of mistakes. I’ve got to learn to read defenses better this year. I know I’m big enough now, I’m as big as most of my linemen.”

In his first game of the 1987 season, against Colton, Jason competed 7 of 22 passes for 101 yards and a touchdown. Servite (0-0-1) plays Marina Saturday night at Glover Stadium.

Servite coach Leo Hand attributes some of Frank’s problems last season to inexperience and the fact that he tended to depend on wide receiver Nick-John Haiduc too much.

“Sometimes he threw to Haiduc when he shouldn’t have,” Hand said. “I think a lot of that had to do with the faith he had in Nick-John. But he’s got to learn this season to see the whole field, to make the right decisions about who to throw to . . . If he can do that, he may become the greatest quarterback this school has ever had, because he already has all the physical attributes.”

Bill Frank says it’s “asinine” to talk about Jason’s completion ratio if you haven’t seen him play.

“He’s got intangibles that you can’t explain,” he said. “He can throw the ball so hard that sometimes, and this is no one’s fault, kids just can’t hold on to the ball. A lot of his passes get dropped because they’re thrown so hard.

“He was at (a football camp at) UCLA and there were receivers there who had had tryouts with pro teams. They said no one, no pro or college quarterback, had ever thrown the ball that hard to them.”

It was at the UCLA camp and a camp at Ohio State that Jason made the quantum leap from average to blue chip. One magazine named him a preseason prep All-American, another rated him the No. 2 quarterback in the West. His size and arm have attracted numerous schools to inquire about him.

“I think colleges are looking at him the same way a baseball team looks at a young pitcher who can throw with a lot of velocity,” said Bill Cunerty, Saddleback College quarterback coach. “That kid can throw a ball through a car wash without getting the ball wet. A college gets a guy like that, with all the potential in the world, and they’ll work to refine the raw materials.”

Raw material was damaged merchandise about four years ago. Jason had bone chips in his right elbow. After surgery to repair the elbow the doctors told Jason he would never throw anything again.

“They said that was it,” Jason said. “Football, baseball, I wouldn’t be able to throw anything again. Then my dad told me not to believe them.”

Bill had told the surgeon that he would build up Jason’s body and arm so, “that bone wouldn’t have to do anything except hang there.”

The condition of Jason’s elbow convinced Bill that it was up to him to make sure Jason’s body and career proceeded as had been planned. The doctors had estimated that Jason’s injured elbow occurred from pitching too much when was 10. That also was a time when Bill was out of town on business a lot.

“I thought to myself, ‘What are you doing?,’ ” Bill said. “I mean, that’s when it got down to what was really important. And what was important to me was Jason. He’s the one I devote my time to now.”

That’s why when Jason told Bill this year he wanted to change his last name from Messersmith to Frank, Bill cried.

“It was the nicest gift he could have ever given to me,” Bill said.

The Franks sent out letters to all the colleges interested in Jason to inform them of the change.

Their relationship has piqued some people’s interest and angered others, who think Bill may living vicariously through Jason. Some have compared it to the relationship Capistrano Valley quarterback Todd Marinovich and his father Marv.

“I know Marv and Todd take a lot of heat and so do we,” Bill said. “We get heat from people at Servite, from people all over. I think they’re jealous. But it doesn’t matter to me what they think. Because when Jason is playing in the NFL, with a $2 million contract, I’ll be able to say I did my job.”

Sitting above Jason, his arm curled around his neck, Bill continues.

“And that’s going to be the happiest day of my life. The day when Jason won’t need me anymore to do all this for him.”

Will that day ever come?

Jason, without a moment’s hesitation, says: “No.”