Mahelona is featured front and center, with teammates Kevin Simon and Jason Allen. According to Tennessee's Web site, magazines are on newsstands nationwide.

"They told us to just do whatever, so we were just goofing around," said Mahelona, who appears to be showing his right biceps. "I didn't know that was the picture they were going to use. They just said suit up and meet us down at the field. I thought we were just taking the team photo.

"We did that picture a long time ago, way before I came home."

It isn't the only magazine in which Mahelona will appear.

Athlon also ranked Tennessee the No. 2 team in the Preseason Top 25 Poll.

"We have a lot to live up to, that's the bad thing about the hype," he said.

He is also featured in Lindy's SEC magazine, and will be in the September issue of Playboy — "so let everybody know," he said — after being named to the publication's preseason All-America team.

He took the picture with the top preseason offensive and defensive players in Arizona in April, before returning home.

He said he was happy for all of the attention, because "a lot of them promote me pretty well," but he said the magazine he is most proud of is Athlon's SEC edition, because, "The cover of the magazine tops the list."

It wasn't the first time he saw his name in a national magazine, however. He was in ESPN The Magazine in February 2004, before he got to Tennessee, and was rated as one of the top junior college transfers.

He said the school provides media training, "for people who really need it," but he is used to it from "all the phone interviews and being in front of cameras."

"The media helps you more than it breaks you," he said. "There are people that say too much and it ends up biting you in the butt."

"That was pretty nerve-racking," he said. "But when I got up in front of everybody, all the attention, I was used to it.

"I was just flowing up there."

Not all media attention has been positive. In March, he damaged a fire truck after getting angry at seeing his condominium on fire.

"It wasn't as bad as the paper made it sound," said Mahelona, who pulled a handrail off the truck. "I just pulled it, I didn't punch or hit it or anything and it just came off.

"Gotta be the screws were loose."

Mahelona, in Knoxville taking summer school classes and training with his teammates, will graduate in December with a degree in criminology.

He was also chosen as a first-team All-American by Blue Ribbon Yearbook, joining USC players Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush, and Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson.

Men's Golf

• Purdue senior Ryan Masuda (Waiakea of Hilo) was named to the Big Ten Conference Academic All-Conference team. Masuda is a management major.

Men's Track and Field

• Michigan junior Todd Iacovelli (Punahou '02 of Kailua) was named to the Big Ten Conference Academic All-Conference team. Iacovelli is an economics major.

Men's Tennis

• UCLA senior Chris Lam (homeschooled from Kaimuki) was named to the Pacific-10 Conference All-Academic first team. Lam earned a 3.45 GPA in business-economics/accounting.

SIGNING

• Iolani's Torin Ching signed a late period national letter of intent with the University of San Francisco, according to the school's athletic Web site.

"Torin will definitely surprise some people," USF coach Peter Bartlett said on the Web site. "He is a very smart player with great quickness and tremendous will."