Click-click.

World champion shot putter Reese Hoffa sits in a University of Georgia training room, a small box in his massive hands. He whistles a little, cocks his head to the side, grimaces.

"What's wrong? It's still not there yet."

Click-click. Click-click.

Victory comes in less than a minute. He sets the perfectly aligned Rubik's Cube aside and beams.

"It's actually pretty comparable," says Hoffa of his hobby and the sport he hopes to medal in this August. He happened upon both by chance: He spotted a kid on a bus working a Cube and decided to try it. And a high school coach encouraged the former left guard at suburban Augusta's Lakeside High School to try his arm at the shot.

"When I first started doing the Rubik's Cube, people were like, 'Why are you doing this?' " says Hoffa, whose Web site, www.reesehoffa.com, features video clips of him throwing and working a Cube. "In shot putting, I'm sure there were people who'd say, 'Why are you wasting your time?' "

He hasn't. A member of the 2004 U.S. Olympic team, he has amassed a slew of titles, including 2007 world outdoor champion, 2007 USA outdoor champion and 2008 world indoor silver medalist. His likeness appears, along with those of swimmer Amanda Beard, sprinter Tyson Gay and gymnast Nastia Liukin, on the cover of Sega's Beijing 2008 video game.

Hoffa's coach, Don Babbitt, is confident going into the U.S. track and field trials, held Friday through July 6 in Eugene, Ore. He says throwers at Hoffa's level all have lots of talent, but Hoffa's consistency sets him apart.

"He has a lot of attention to detail," says Babbitt, who's been working with Hoffa for 11 years. "All we're trying to do is duplicate the successes of the past."

Hoffa, 30, picked up the sport as a high school junior.

"It just took off," he says. "I had it in my mind I was going to be a professional shot putter. I have the dream of being the No. 1 shot putter in the world."

A rocky childhood set the stage for the self-assurance he booms today. He was born to a teenage mother in Kentucky, and many of his earliest memories are harrowing.

"When I was about 3, I burned down my house," he says matter-of-factly. He and his older brother were playing with a lighter and ignited some curtains. It didn't take long for the inferno to consume their home. Within days his mother dropped her sons at an orphanage. Hoffa remembers watching her fill out paperwork, then leave.

"She gives me one final hug and starts walking away," he recalls. "People behind me are holding me back."

After about a year, Steve and Cathy Hoffa, who had four children but felt a call to adopt, showed up at the Louisville, Ky., orphanage.

"Here's this little kid who came running up the hallway," Steve Hoffa remembers. "He wore glasses, and his glasses were taped together. He had a smile on his face, even after all he'd been through. My wife at the time and I looked at each other and said, that's it."

The Hoffas, who had one more child, moved from Kentucky to Augusta in 1984. They have since divorced.

"For a long time, [Reese] was kind of a scrawny kid, believe it or not," says Steve Hoffa, who lives in Harlem, a small town outside Augusta. His son started playing football in middle school and applied himself to his studies as well as sports. "Anything that Reese does, he does it to the best of his ability. He used to work on his schoolwork until 2 or 3 in the morning."

Reese Hoffa says the tumult of his early years shaped his character.

"It's made me very determined," he says. "It would probably take a lot to knock me off something I want. I was a pretty driven kid. I always tried to overachieve as much as possible."

Hoffa graduated from UGA in 2001. During his junior year he began searching for his birth mother. After some Internet research, the two connected.

"The first couple of weeks waiting for her to e-mail me back were nerve-racking," he says "All of a sudden she gives me a call while I'm studying for an anatomy exam."

Right away, he wanted to know whether the fire caused her to put him and his brother up for adoption. She assured him that as a young, unmarried mother of two growing boys, she had simply become overwhelmed. Today he is close with the family that raised him and stays in touch with his biological mother and brother as well. He tells his story, through photos, videos, and blog updates, on www.ivillage.com/familyroom. He's pictured holding a portrait of himself with birth mother Diana Watts, who now lives in Florida, and adoptive mom Cathy McManus of Martinez.

"She's a wonderful lady, and I'm glad she's in our family," McManus said.

Hoffa's wife, Renata, teaches trigonometry and algebra at Oconee County High School, where she coaches track and volleyball.

"We just discovered karaoke," he says. "I'm a budding star in my own mind."

He has a lovely singing voice, if he'll let you hear it. Though he could be persuaded to croon a few bars from a Backstreet Boys ballad before practice, he wouldn't let journalists trail him to one of his karaoke haunts. Instead, he prefers to focus on his sport, and his goal.

"What drives me currently is trying to win a medal," Hoffa says. "I just have the sense that I should have a medal. It would be awesome if it was the gold, but I want to walk away with something."