Ochart takes love for baseball to Sweden

Backed by a solid work ethic, Jason Ochart has gotten a lot accomplished on the baseball field over the past decade.

He received postseason recognition while starring at Hoover High and Glendale Community College before excelling at Vanguard University. It didn’t stop there for Ochart, who served as hitting coach at Menlo College the past two seasons.

Ochart has since taken his passion and teaching skills to Sweden, where he’s a player/manager for the Leskand Lumberjacks in the Swedish Elite League.

“It has been the best summer of my life. I’ve grown a lot as a coach and even more as a person,” Ochart, a former All-Area and All-Pacific League selection, wrote via email. “Being able to see and experience a different culture has been a life changing experience and I have learned a lot.

“The Swedish people are exceptionally friendly, courteous, intelligent and genuine and it’s been a pleasure to live here.”

There are plenty of responsibilities for Ochart, 26. Ochart, who graduated from Hoover in 2008 before graduating from Vanguard with a degree in kinesiology, is a pitcher and outfielder for Leskand.

Through Monday, Ochart was batting .333 (22 for 66) with five doubles, three home runs and 20 runs batted in. He’s scored 24 runs and has a .545 slugging percentage. He’s also flourished on the mound, where he’s 5-0 with an impressive 0.59 earned-run average. Ochart has struck out 33 and surrendered four runs (two earned) in 30 2/3 innings.

The Lumberjacks are in first place and own a one-game lead with three contests left in the regular season. The season began in July and will wrap up in late-August.

“It’s the highest level of baseball in Sweden,” wrote Ochart, who will begin work after the season at Driveline Baseball, a biomechanics lab in Seattle, conducting research and training professional hitters. “An ex-teammate of mine connected me with the team president when the job opened.

“I would say it’s equivalent to American college baseball. The league has quite a few ex-minor leaguers and many ex-American college players. Each team is allowed three imports, who are typically American. Otherwise, they have to be Swedish.”

Ochart said he wanted to pursue coaching in honor of Jim Delzell, who coached at Hoover from 1994-2008. Delzell died in 2009 at 50.

“I was heavily influenced to go into coaching at Menlo because of the profound impact Jim Delzell had on me at Hoover,” Ochart stated. “I wore No. 36 to honor him.

“It is great to have head coach on my resume. I am not sure if I want to go back into coaching after Driveline, but this will surely help me if I decide to take that route.”

Adam Ochart, Jason’s younger brother and a Memlo graduate after previously playing at Glendale Community College, said he and Jason spoke about him heading to Sweden.

“We looked at it as a win-win situation for Jason,” said Adam, a former All-Area and all-league honoree, in a phone interview from Northern California. “We thought it’s a great way to take America’s past time to another country and he can expand his contacts.

“Jason is a very technology-oriented person and he can spread his knowledge of the game to another part of the world and try to bridge the gap and learning curve.”