DeLeone gets back at it

In the Coast Guard, they call it “getting underway,” embarking on week-long ocean voyages once a month on which crew members float on call, awaiting dispatch to any emergencies that may occur in their vicinity.

For Orange Coast College defensive end Dean DeLeone, it was less than his favorite part of his four-year enlistment, during which he was stationed out of Newport Harbor. But between standing watch in the engine room and his other assignments, his weeks at sea gave him time to think.

He thought about football, about the importance of a college education, and about how his body had transformed, morphing from a chubby 240-pound high school football player of little note, to a lean, muscular, 6-foot-3, 238-pound athlete better suited to pursue the gridiron promise of the son of a former 12-year NFL center who played collegiately for Woody Hayes at Ohio State.

So, when DeLeone’s time in the Coast Guard was up last spring, the then-23-year-old, who turned 24 in August, enrolled immediately at OCC and looked up football coach Mike Taylor.

Taylor said Dean’s father, Tom, came up in casual conversation and the veteran coach, himself a collegiate player at Oregon State, immediately recognized the elder DeLeone’s name as an Ohio football hero.

Tom DeLeone, a first-team All-American as a senior in 1971, who played in two Rose Bowls and helped the Buckeyes win the national championship in 1969, played two seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals, before adding 10 more with the Cleveland Browns.

Dean DeLeone, born a year before his father retired from the NFL, said he recalls nothing of his father’s football past. And, when the family moved from Ohio, where his father was routinely recognized in public, to Park City, Utah when Dean was 6, football became barely a footnote in family history.

Dean DeLeone said his father, in fact, prohibited him from playing tackle football until his freshman year in high school.

“I wanted to play, but my Dad didn’t want football to be my only thing,” the younger DeLeone said.

When he finally did play, helping the Park City High Miners reach the state title game as a senior defensive end, there were no all-league honors, nor interest from college recruiters.

With little interest in college himself, DeLeone, a self-confessed ski bum, was content to work, ski and dodge his father’s persistent sales pitches about the merits of Coast Guard service.

But, finally, he chose the military over college. He lost 30 pounds in boot camp and slowly gained an appreciation for hard work and the value of an education.

“Even though I didn’t want to do it, the Coast Guard was probably the best thing I could have really done with my life at the time,” DeLeone said.

These days, however, are the best of times for the Pirates’ starter, whose 25 tackles in three games, including one sack, rank second on the team heading into tonight’s 6 o’clock game at Santa Ana College.

Having earned a 3.5 grade-point average in the spring semester, he said he routinely does his homework and is pursuing a business administration degree, as well as a Division I college football scholarship.

“I’m a late bloomer,” DeLeone said of his success on the field, where he utilizes quickness and improving strength and technique to avert being flattened by offensive tackles who are between 50 and 100 pounds heavier than he.

“Once in a while they get me and put a pretty good push on me,” he said. “But I’m getting better every week. My main focus right now is just being able to read run or pass, so I can react and get to the quarterback faster.

“My main disappointment, as far as my performance right now, is my pass rush.”

He had a season-high 10 tackles in last week’s home loss to Pasadena, including a 15-yard sack.

“He’s a great kid, who is very athletic and is still learning after not having played football for a few years,” Taylor said. “He’s putting in a lot of time and he really hustles in practice.”

DeLeone was nicknamed 300 in the offseason, both for his work ethic and for what assistant coach Junior Tagaloa and some teammates say is a physical resemblance to King Leonides, the Spartan warrior featured in the popular 2007 movie 300.

“Even before the movie came out, I had known about Leonides,” Tagaloa said. “Usually guys who do my summer workouts struggle and sometimes throw up the first two weeks. But Dean showed up and was taking the workouts right in stride.”

Though he said he is sometimes kidded by teammates for being the elder statesman of the team, DeLeone doesn’t regret delaying his football career.

“I’m a 24-year-old freshman, which is kind of funny,” he said. “But I definitely have higher hopes for myself now than I did coming out of high school.”

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at [email protected].