His helmet-rattling hits bring fans to their feet with amazing regularity.

He’s in on seemingly every tackle for the Livingstone Blue Bears, making his presence known on every play.

So it’s hard to imagine Jason Ocean sitting in his dorm room at tiny Voorhees College, reading, studying, listening to music, talking to friends —doing anything to keep his mind off college football.

Weekends were supposed to be Ocean’s time to shine. The leading tackler in the state of South Carolina had his pick of colleges to attend. He starred at the North-South All-Star game following his senior year.

Then he went to Voorhees:an Episcopal school of 700 tucked away in Denmark, S.C. There was no football team, and that was just as well.

Ocean had failed to qualify academically. He was trying to forget about football.

“It was in the country. I wasn’t watching football. We didn’t have cable,”Ocean said. “I was just getting my grades right, trying to graduate.”

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That Ocean went to college at all is a testament to one person — his mom.

Betty Ocean raised her son in a single-parent home. She got him involved in football when he was 5, and Jason almost immediately chose to play linebacker

“I loved to hit all the time,”he said with a smile. “That’s all I used to do.”

Jason did it all the way through high school. His 5-foot-11 frame limited his opportunities at the Division-I level, but I-AA and D-II schools were left drooling at the top prospect. Livingstone head coach Greg Richardson first saw Ocean at a North-South practice, and he never forgot him.

“Jason came up and knocked the lights out of some guy,”Richardson said. “From that point we started recruiting him.”

There would be no winners in this recruiting war, however. Ocean got the news that his grades weren’t good enough to play football at the next level.

His mom took it from there.

“She played a major role,”Jason said. “She always told me there’s something other than football out there for you. She always let me know that. Always.”

With those words of encouragement packed away with his things, Ocean spent a year at Voorhees.

Richardson heard about Ocean’s travails. He was impressed.

“Even though his grades didn’t suffice in the beginning, he had the initiative to go to college, to seek an education,”Richardson said. “Normally, a lot of guys just say, ‘That’s it, I’m done,’ and they try to find a job.”

Richardson loves defensive players. He used to coordinate the defense at Virginia Union before tackling head-coaching duties in Salisbury. He wondered if Ocean, with a year of college under his belt, was ready to don the shoulder pads again.

He made the call.

“I thought it was a prank, somebody playing around,”Ocean said of his first impression. “He wanted me to come play for him. I took him up on his offer and it’s been worthwhile ever since.

“I wasn’t going to even play football any more. But he opened another door for me. He made me realize what I missed, my love of the game. Now that I’m here, I’m hungry. I want it.”

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Ocean wasted little time proving his desire. Last year, Livingstone’s opponents marveled at this 6-foot, 225-pound missile in the middle of the defense.

Ocean led the league as a freshman with 119 tackles and earned a spot on the all-Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association team. He also grabbed league Rookie of the Year honors.

There hasn’t been any sign of a sophomore slump. The preseason-All-CIAA selection is in a league of his own this year: a 16 tackles per game average and 14 tackles for loss, easily tops in the CIAA. His 80 total tackles are 14 better than second-place Brian Holliday of Fayetteville State.

Despite the heady numbers, Richardson insists that Ocean remains a work in progress.

“Jason’s just now beginning to scratch the surface of his abilities. He’s playing on natural abilities, but there are some finer techniques of the game to linebacking that he’s learning,”Richardson said. “Jason probably reads and diagnoses plays as fast as any linebacker I’ve ever coached. What we have to get him to do now is be disciplined and execute his techniques so that his 16 tackles turn into 24 tackles.”

Ocean laughs ruefully when asked about ways he can improve. It’s obviously a sermon —a whole series of them, in fact — that he’s heard time and again.

“Improve on stop flying out of the box; keep my head up when I get ready to make the tackle; get back on my pass routes more,”Ocean reported. “That’s about it.”

Ocean found himself on the losing end of a 43-13 score against Fayetteville State two weeks ago, yet was named defensive player of the game with his 16 tackles. He made several bone-crushing tackles, but also missed an interception.

After reviewing the game film, Ocean and the coaching staff didn’t think it was one of his better games.

The learning curve stretches on.

“If Jason does everything he’s supposed to do athletically and academically, there’s no question in my mind that Jason Ocean should be a four-time All-CIAA player in this conference,”Richardson said. “I don’t think there’s a linebacker in this conference that can touch him.”

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Fayetteville head coach Lou Anderson thought Ocean played pretty well against his Trojans.

“He’s a hitter, and one thing about a guy like that, he’s going to be around the football,”he said. “We try to keep somebody in his face, but you can’t always deal with a guy who moves around and can get to the football like that.”

No matter where you are on the field, you’d better know where Ocean is.

“If you’re tip-toeing through the middle on a slant or anything, you’d better have your eyes wide open, because No. 11’s coming after you,”Blue Bear running back Tracy Blair said. “I’m glad to be on his side.”

Ocean said he doesn’t worry about his reputation as one of the league’s top players. He also doesn’t play the numbers game concerning how many tackles he racks up.

He does pay attention to one non-football factor during games, though: Betty Ocean.

“She came to all my games,”Jason said. “You could probably hear her screaming my name out. She plays a great role in my life.”

Thanks to her influence, football still plays a great role in Jason’s life.

“We felt like we needed to take a chance on him,”Richardson said. “Everything else has taken care of itself.”

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Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4287 or shanf@salisburypost.com .