HARNESSING HIS ENERGY : Norman Trades In His Tough-Guy Image for Role as 2-Sport Star at Ocean View

When Todd Norman, Ocean View High School’s 6-foot 6-inch, 245-pound football-basketball player, was a not-so-little first-grader at Golden View Elementary School, he used his extra pounds to pound his smaller classmates.

He tried channeling his aggressiveness into soccer, but the game was not physical enough. It seemed young Todd would get the urge to reach out and shove his opponents, which was against the rules.

Then he found the sport that would change him from class bully to, by all accounts, a classy guy--football.

Norman, who plays inside linebacker and offensive guard, is being recruited for football by Notre Dame, USC and UCLA. He has basketball coaches sighing because he has made it clear he will be writing his name on a letter of intent to play on the fields, not the courts.

But in elementary school, Norman was the type to do his writing on the blackboard, 100 times please. “I will not thump my classmates,” or something like that.

“The whole reason I started playing football is I tended to get a little physical with the other kids at recess,” said Norman, grinning.

“The honest truth is I used to be in the principal’s office every other day. The little fat kid used to pick on all the scrawny kids.”

Norman was teased about his size but said that was not the only motivation for his bullying.

“I was just an aggressive little kid. You could look at me wrong, call me a name, bump into me. . . . I was ornery. Kids would build something in the sandbox and I would want to come over and play, and they would say no, so I would just kick it over,” he said.

“We used to call him ‘our bull in the china closet,’ ” said his mother, Marcia Norman.

“He had a hard time finding his identity on the street because the kids he grew up with were at least a year older--however, he was physically bigger than most of them. I think (the aggression) was his way of letting them know, ‘Hey I’m here.’ ”

It did not help that there was no organized physical education during recess at his elementary school to help him deal with some of his youthful exuberance.

Enter Junior All-American Football. Norman, then 8, found an outlet for his aggression.

“For as much trouble as I got in as a little kid, since then, I haven’t done anything,” Norman said. “I have been a perfect little angel.” Well, a big angel.

Norman, in his senior year at Ocean View, has earned the respect of peers, coaches and teachers.

“He is a super kid to be around,” football Coach Guy Carrozzo said. “I think I would miss his personality whether he was as good as he was or was fourth-string for us. He is just a fun person to be around.”

Norman, 17, also has received compliments playing his second sport. He is the leading scorer on the Seahawks’ basketball team, which is 13-7 overall, 3-2 in Sunset League play. He is the latest in a long line of outstanding post players at Ocean View, from Wayne Carlander to Jim Usevitch to Ricky Butler.

“Every great post player I have has trained the next,” Harris said. Butler trained Norman.

“For the first couple of weeks, I thought all he was teaching me was lessons in humility, how to pick myself up off the floor, how to duck to miss elbows,” said Norman, who is teaching the same lessons to 6-7 sophomore Marcel TenBerge.

Norman has learned well. He ranks in the top 10 in scoring in the county, averaging 21.4 points. He is the county’s third-leading rebounder with almost 11 a game, and has made almost 67% of his shots.

“He is just too strong and too mobile for his opponents,” Harris said.

Norman has grace uncharacteristic of a player his size, said Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight, who has coached Norman on summer league teams. “For a kid his size and weight, he is extremely coordinated,” McKnight said. “If a kid is that graceful on a basketball court, he is even that much more valuable on a football field. I can understand why (football) coaches are going after him.”

Harris and McKnight believe Norman could use his skills in a Division-I basketball program, but they know football is his future.

“He is a very good player, but he is not a true basketball player,” McKnight said. “He is a big rugged kid who is incredibly coordinated. He is not like a Carlander or a (Johnny) Rogers or a Matt Beeuwsaert or a LeRon Ellis. Here is a kid splitting his time and doing just a solid and great job.”

Said Harris, “As a basketball coach I would love to see him play basketball in college, but he may make money in football someday, so that is the way he is going to go.”

Football scouts seem to agree with his choice.

“We think Todd Norman is one of the better linemen in the state of California,” said Dick Lascola, owner of the Scouting Evaluation Assn., which provides scouting reports to some 90 universities nationwide, including USC, UCLA and Notre Dame.

“One of the biggest assets he has is his lateral mobility. He has extremely quick feet. He is an aggressive kid and he has a lot of intensity. But the thing we were impressed with is his quickness off the football.”

Norman led his Ocean View team in tackles as a senior with 95 despite teams double- and triple-teaming and running away from him.

“Obviously, he is one of the most dominant players I have ever coached or been around,” Carrozzo said. “The physical mismatch created when he blocked or tackled somebody was pretty overwhelming.”

With all the success he has enjoyed, it would be easy for Norman to become a bit conceited, but he is not, according to his best friend, Greg Szuba.

Szuba, a strong safety and tight end for Ocean View, played youth football with Norman and attended Hope View Elementary School and Mesa View Junior High School with him.

“Because of his size, he is so intimidating, so he is kind of shy,” Szuba said.

“The kids who don’t know him, sure they are intimidated. . . . Walking down the hallway, I’m sure there are little freshmen and sophomores who jump out of his way. . . . But once you get to know him, his nature is not intimidating at all. If you got to know him, you would know that he is a pussycat.”

He has come a long way from his days as a bully.

“We really stress the kids showing class on the field and off,” Carrozzo said. “Todd certainly embodies that.

“If (Ocean View football) ever opened up an embassy somewhere, he would be the guy we would send because he would represent the school so well. He would also defend the embassy really well, too, because he is a pretty big guy.”