You Can Take the Boy Out of the Country . . .

A message to the Midwestern pals of Jason Minici:

Don’t worry. Southern California hasn’t gotten to him yet.

He doesn’t surf. Doesn’t do sushi. Hasn’t dyed his hair green or blue. Doesn’t talk, like, you know, all the local dudes do.

He drives a pickup, not a speedy sports car. Still orders steak, not tofu tartar .

But hey, like, he fits in just fine, you know?

That’s how it has always been for Minici, a senior quarterback at Irvine High School. He’s adaptable, perhaps because he has had no other choice.

His father’s work in retailing forced the family to relocate six times in the past 18 years--they moved to Irvine from the Chicago area almost two years ago--but Minici has always managed to adjust to his new locales quickly and painlessly.

Being involved in athletics, he says, was key.

His previous addresses read like a fifth-grade geography quiz: Richardson, Tex.; Burnsville, Minn.; Carmel, Ind.; Edmond, Okla.; Highland Park, Ill., a suburb north of Chicago, and, most recently, Buffalo Grove, another Chicago suburb.

Apparently, moving West was the worst.

“I wasn’t all that excited about moving here, to tell you the truth,” Minici says. “I mean, having a beach close by and Disneyland and the mountains . . . there’s a lot of stuff to do.

“But I’m more of a Midwest, middle-of-the-nation type of person. I’m not really a beach man. The ocean isn’t good to me.”

True, the surf is not his turf, but more on that later. At the moment, Minici’s most pressing priority is helping Irvine extend what is already the best football season in school history. The Vaqueros are 10-2 entering Saturday’s Division II semifinal against Pasadena Muir.

Minici, an accurate, high-velocity quarterback who’s also adept at scrambling, has thrown for a bit more than 2,000 yards this season with 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He has averaged 235 yards in his past three games. He also punts, averaging 35 yards a pop.

But Minici’s stats aren’t what makes Irvine Coach Terry Henigan smile. He praises Minici’s competitiveness, confidence, tenacity, athleticism, wits, poise . . . you name it, Henigan’s ready to harp on it.

“I know all coaches think their QB’s the best,” Henigan says. “But this kid, he’s a throwback to the old days. You couldn’t ask for more in a high school quarterback.”

Actually, Minici was asked for more a year ago. As one of three players battling for the starting position, Minici was often rattled during games, wondering if he was doing everything right. As the new kid on the team, he had trouble communicating with his coaches and couldn’t break into some of the players’ cliques.

But this year brought about a new cohesiveness, and Minici improved rapidly. Three weeks ago in the South Coast League finale against Capistrano Valley, he threw two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter to rally Irvine to a 17-13 victory and its first league title. Minici threw his final scoring pass, a six-yarder to Danny Kang with 1:54 to play, and dropped to the ground.

He lay there, face down, and pounded his fists into the turf.

A strange way to show jubilation, perhaps, but Minici’s not your average casual character.

When he was 18 months old, he watched some kids playing football in the yard, then proceeded to teach himself to drop kick his toy football. Even then, precision was his aim. As he got older, thanks to natural ability and a bigger body than most his age, Minici always played a couple levels ahead.

As a sophomore in Buffalo Grove, he threw for more than a 1,000 yards and led Stevenson High to a league championship. Bill Mitz, his coach at the time, said if he had to do it over again, he would’ve had Minici be the varsity starter--as a freshman.

Minici says at the time, he figured no rush, no worries. His father’s job had settled down, and he figured he’d settle on the road to being a star high school quarterback, just like those California kids, Marinovich and Johnson, he had studied on cable TV.

As it turned out, a year later, Minici was in their league--the South Coast League, that is. And while he admits he’s no Marinovich--Minici’s just 6 feet--he says he and his team deserve more respect than they’ve gotten this season.

“People say the South Coast League’s down this year,” he says. “That’s bull .”

Minici certainly doesn’t mince words. Not on any subject. Asked his impressions of California, he reports that bike paths are odd (“In other states, you’d just ride on sidewalks”), the divorce rate is unbelievably high (“I was shocked. Everyone here has a step mom and a step dad”), and traffic is atrocious (“Everyone speeds here. And there’s more accidents”).

And then there’s the ocean, which Minici had hoped to master. He wanted to tell his old friends in the Midwest that he rode the wild surf.

It didn’t quite work that way. Minici tried diving into shallow water at Huntington but plowed face first into a sandbar. He tried bodysurfing at Newport but was tossed like a Caesar salad. Gurgling, sputtering and coughing up salt water weren’t much to write home about.

Perhaps a few Postcards From The Wedge will do.