J.P. Oliver hits the books, so he can hit on the field

Published 11:15 pm Saturday, July 5, 2008

EVERETT — J.P. Oliver wasn’t much of a student in high school.

“I was caught up in the high school world,” he said. “There was so much going on and I wanted to do so much.”

Yeah, like play football and hang out with his buddies. But crack the books? Hardly.

“I’d wake up late,” he said, “and skip classes.”

When he graduated from Cascade High School in 2006, he found that he’d awakened too late to the fact that he needed better grades to get into a Division I school to play football.

So he had to take what he calls a “detour.”

That detour led him last year to Feather River Community College in the small town of Quincy in Northern California.

It was there that the light clicked on inside his head. Or as his Grandmother Marriam Oliver, who raised him from a baby, put it: “J.P. always had a light, but he kept it dimmed.”

It is dim no longer.

The lad who “didn’t know what a 3-point was in high school,” in the words of his plain-spoken grandmother, buckled down and earned a 3.5 the last semester to raise his overall GPA to 3-point.

Not only that, but instead of taking the summer off, he’s taking courses to earn 20 credits through Everett Community College so he can graduate from Feather River after the fall semester and be ready to enroll at a four-year school come January.

What caused this turn-around?

“I’m a little older,” Oliver said, “a little more mature.”

There’s no more sleeping in and missing classes. “I have no time to cut classes,” he said recently at Bally Total Fitness, where he had come for one of his five-day-a-week, 2-3 hour workouts.

“When I want to go out, I ask myself, ‘Is your homework done J.P.?’” Oliver said. “If it isn’t, I’m not going out. ‘Is this going to help me or hurt me?’ I just think about that when I wake up in the morning: Should I take a nap later on or go to the learning center and do some more homework? I spent a lot of time in the learning center this semester to keep my grades up and it paid off.”

You’ve heard of jocks sitting in the back of the classroom so they can sleep? It’s Front-Row City for Oliver nowadays.

“That’s what our coach told us to do,” he said. ” ‘Don’t be the backman. Sit in the front row, pay attention and do your homework.’ You can’t fail if you just do your homework so that’s really what I did.”

All of this has made his grandmother immensely proud. Which was J.P.’s intention.

“If I want to be the best, I have to strive to be the best,” he said. “I want to make my grandmother and my aunt and my high school coaches proud.”

His high school coach, Jake Huizinga, is ecstatic with the way J.P. is handling his life. “He really wants to do the right thing,” Huizinga said. “It’s so much fun to see him with direction and a goal in his life.”

Just as he was in high school, J.P. is still very passionate about football, but he realizes that he can’t play the game at the desired D-I level until he makes his grades in the classroom. Hence, front row and center, baby.

What he has learned is that he can immerse himself in football — just as he did in high school — and still be a good student.

The light in his head was always turned on in football. It never dimmed.

Not back then, and certainly not now.

He has a goal: He wants to play in the NFL.

“Yes sir,” he said, when asked if he was going to play on Sundays. “I have the motivation I’ve never had before. Nothing’s going to stop me now. My grades are right. My attitude is right. I’m a leader on and off the field. I’ve got so much drive now.”

As he prepares for the 2008 season at Feather River, a football program now in its seventh year, he comes with a stellar report card on the gridiron as well as in the classroom. The 5-foot-11, 220-pound middle linebacker earned first-team all-conference honors as a freshman in the Nor Cal League, which is regarded as perhaps the best Community college conference in the state of California.

“He’s a very good football player,” said his coach, Tom Simi. “I couldn’t say enough good things about him. He’s unquestionably our leader.”

Simi ranks Oliver right up there with Mark Dodge, a former Feather River linebacker who has gone on to star for Texas A&M. “Mark’s a great player, the best overall player we’ve had come through here,” Simi said of the 6-2, 220-pounder who made honorable mention all-Big 12 last fall. “I think J.P. is better in some respects. He doesn’t do everything as well (as Dodge), but he does certain things as well.”

Oliver has very good instincts when it comes to finding the football and is a skilled pass defender, Simi said. And he’s very explosive, as his former high school coach can attest.

“There wasn’t one drill that he didn’t dominate on the other side of the football,” Huizinga said. “We’d put our biggest kids against him and he’d still make the play.”

His Feather River teammates found out about his explosiveness — and his passion — on the first day they put on pads in practice last fall. The team had an offensive lineman they called “Big Fred.”

“Three-hundred and sixty-five pounds,” J.P. said ominously.

In this one drill, J.P. was assigned to take on Big Fred, to try and shed him and tackle the ball carrier. Being a newcomer and an unknown to the program and a relative “little guy,” J.P. was kind of dismissed by the giant lineman. “Get somebody in here who can play,” he said, or words to that effect.

J.P. interjected, welcoming the challenge. And then he showed that explosiveness. “I hit him and drove his helmet upwards,” J.P. said, a smile creasing his handsome face.

It was then and there that everyone knew “J.P. was coming to hit.”

After practice, he went from No.3 on the depth chart to No.1. And that’s where he stayed the rest of the season.

“He was all-league in a very good league,” Simi said. “He did well enough to be on people’s radars.”

Some of the schools which have shown interest in him: Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona State, New Mexico, Kansas State, Tennessee State, and University of Nevada-Reno.

His school of choice: Oregon.

It wouldn’t exactly be home-cookin’, but it’d be close enough for his Grandma Marriam and his Aunt Angie to come watch him play.

Grandma Marriam, who is reputed to be a wonderful cook, might even fry up some catfish for the Duck players using her own family recipe.

On a visit to the Feather River campus last fall, she prepared a meal for about 20 of J.P.’s teammates with catfish they had caught.

“She cooked ‘em and we ate ‘em as they came out of the skillet,” J.P. said. “We had players comin’ and goin’ out of my room.”

Even when grandma’s not around, players can get a home-cooked meal in that room, prepared by J.P. himself. “He can really throw it out in the kitchen,” Marriam said. Then with perfect comedic timing she added, “He’ll make a good husband for someone … probably when he’s 40.”

“I cook a lot of meals,” he said. “Guys want a home-cooked meal? Come to room four-oh-six, I’m gonna feed you. I turn nobody away. If I’ve got a little something extra, I’m gonna make you a little plate.”

His specialty: “I’m pretty good with fried chicken.”

Good at fixin’ and eatin’ it.

“He’ll eat anything that’s not nailed down,” his grandma said.

She said it with a lot of love contained in her voice. After all, she’s been looking out for J.P. most of his life. And he wants to be able to repay her someday.

If he gets to the NFL, he’d like to build a big house with a smaller one out behind for his grandma, whom he calls “Mama,” and his Aunt Angie. “And I told Mama if I want my laundry done,” J.P. said in a mirthful manner, “I’ll throw it over the fence.”

And Grandma Marriam came right back with, “I just may not want to do his laundry.”

“He’s quite a character,” she said. “Either you love him or you don’t.”

It’s obvious that she loves him with every ounce of her being. She even makes sure he has his game-face on every Saturday in the fall.

“She calls me before every game and says, ‘Baby, you got your lunchpail and your workboots?’

“And I say, ‘Mama, I’ve got ‘em. They’re strapped on tight. I’m ready to ride.’”

His grandmother has always urged him to make something of himself. “Don’t just be a statistic. Don’t be a nobody. Be a somebody.

“He knows what he wants,” she said, “and he knows he has to work to get it. That’s what he’s done. He’s made us proud.”

Just don’t be throwing the laundry over the fence, J.P.

It might come right back at you.