PREP WEDNESDAY : Making An Impact : Damon Psaros Has Been a Big Hit This Season as Capistrano Valley’s Ferocious Nose Guard

Damon Psaros?

Nice kid. Step on your head in a second. That’s if you’re on the other football team, you understand . . . or on Psaros’ team, Capistrano Valley High School, but on the wrong side of the line of scrimmage.

Coaches admit they’re afraid of him, and they’re from Capistrano Valley.

“It’s a constant concern of ours that Damon is going to hurt someone,” Capistrano Valley coach Eric Patton said. “He’s not a dirty player, he’s just so obsessed. We tell him to calm down, and sometimes we just have to take him out during practice. We have to protect our players.”

As a freshman, Damon broke a teammate’s arm on a clean hit in practice. Just the other day, he bruised another teammate’s ribs when he stepped on him during a scrimmage. Both were unintentional, he says, but he makes it clear: “If nobody is looking, I’ll step on you.”

It’s all part of the game for Psaros, and the game is all of Psaros.

“It’s everything in the world to him,” said Gerry Psaros, his mother.

Overstatement?

“I feel, in all honesty, that I was put on this earth to do something,” said Psaros, who plays nose guard. “And that something is football.”

Football to Psaros is a five-car pile-up, preferably with the other guys on the bottom. He was taught the game at age 4 by his father, George, a retired Marine colonel who used to “take some good shots at me.”

From this developed a style that Gerry calls “maniacal.”

And from that, Psaros has become--pound for pound--one the best defensive linemen in Orange County. Last season, as a sophomore, he was an overwhelming first team All-South Coast Conference selection.

The cruel joke is that pound for pound, Psaros’ body adds up to 6-feet, 207 pounds. A hefty 17-year-old, someone you’d be willing to give cuts in line at the bank, but as far as college recruiters are concerned, too small.

That’s right, too small. In the high-tech, bottom-line state of Division I football, recruiters don’t spend much time looking at linemen under 6-3, 240.

There are exceptions. Damon intends to be one of them.

“I really don’t knock my size,” Psaros said. “I know I’m not the prototype, but you look at the NFL, there’s plenty of guys who don’t fit the mold. Look at (Chicago Bears linebacker) Mike Singletary. He’s only 6-foot. But he’s one of the best.”

Psaros’ size might keep him from playing nose guard at a Division I school. He knows that outside linebacker might be his future. Which is OK with him.

“I’ll do anything to play football.”

Patton, for one, has seen, and believes.

“Damon is a nose guard,” Patton said. “That’s the position he was meant to play. Whether a college coach is going to have the guts to give him a chance, that’s another matter.”

But what are his chances?

“I’ve been with coaches who have said they would not even look at a guy if he wasn’t at least 6-3,” said Rick Ready, who works for a scouting service. “If he’s a player, a real player, he has a chance. But when coaches compare him to a guy 6-3 or 6-4, the objective data is definitely going to favor the big guy.”

Big guys. Damon hates big guys. He runs around big guys, knocks them over, makes them look silly, and then they get the letters because they’re big guys.

“Basically, big guys are slugs,” Psaros said. “I can beat them every time. I love going against them because I know I can beat them to the gap. It’s when I go against a smaller guy that I know I’m in for a tough game. I know he’s there because he earned it.”

Damon can tell stories about the 6-4 basketball player who came out for a game last season and promptly received letters from Pac-10 schools. He can tell you about the big, big guy--who began last season at 300 pounds--who went by the nickname, “Food.” He wasn’t so advanced in technique, but he received a lot of stamped self-addressed envelopes.

How many letters has Damon received?

Zero.

“They (colleges) figure why waste their time on someone 6-foot, 200,” Psaros said. “They’ll get someone 6-5, 250 and teach him how to play.”

Psaros already knows how to play his way. The first time former Capistrano Valley Coach Dick Enright saw Psaros play last season, he likened him to a pit bull, recalling the dogs that killed a pony of his several years before.

“When I saw him play, it was the first image that came to mind,” Enright said. “He is a 100-mile-per-hour killer.”

Kem Lawyer, Capistrano Valley assistant, said: “Damon is in a constant state of natural aggression.”

And he is so good, this season’s Capistrano Valley team is basically built around him. Last season, with record-setting quarterback Todd Marinovich leading the way, the Cougars averaged 26.4 points a game. Defense wasn’t necessarily a high priority.

“I didn’t think our defense was that good last season,” Psaros said. “But then, we really didn’t have to be.” But Marinovich, and most of last season’s stars have graduated, and this season’s team is averaging only 13.2 points.

That makes the defense very important. And Psaros is the acknowledged leader of a defense that is giving up only 12 points per game.

“He’s the starting point for everything we do defensively,” Patton said.

Capistrano Valley, which traditionally uses a four-man defensive front, has switched to a three-man front because of Psaros.

“I think he makes every other player out there better,” Patton said.

Which means other teams have taken to double- and triple-teaming him. Against Westminster last Friday, Psaros attracted so much attention that his jersey was torn off. Normally No. 66, he played the rest of the game with No. 77 on his back.

Too bad it’s not as easy to change bodies. Psaros was listed at 190 last season, but said he played most of the season at 170.

“Sometimes I forgot to eat.”

This season he started at 198, and his weight has steadily climbed. He’s now at 207 and his goal for next season is 220.

“This is a conscious effort on my part,” he said. “I know what the colleges want, so I’m going to try and give it to them.”

Gerry Psaros says her son has eaten entire 4-pound roasts.

“When we go out to dinner, he orders two meals,” she said. “I have a pile of jeans that I bought before school began that he’s never worn. They don’t fit anymore.”

Damon might not fit in at a Division I school. He has considered community colleges or small colleges. Both would be OK. But he really wants a crack at the big time.

But are big-time programs, with their big, big players, going to give him a shot at nose guard?

“All they have to do is give me a chance and watch me play,” Psaros said. “Then they’ll see.”

SCOUTING REPORT:

Damon Psaros

Class: Junior.

Position: Nose guard.

Height: 6-feet.

Weight: 207.

Attributes: Extremely quick. Has been known to get around offensive linemen without being touched. Extremely aggressive bordering on obsessed. Nickname: Pit Bull.

Drawback: Too small.

Outlook: If he can bulk up to 220, he might make a good outside linebacker. Thinks he can play nose guard for Division-I school at 220, but he might not get the chance.

Conclusion: A bona fide player without a Division I body.