Morphing into a Leader
10/4/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
Editorial Note: This story was used as the senior feature story for Liberty's game on Sept. 24 against No. 3/4 Jacksonville State. JaRon Greene had a career game against the Gamecocks, finishing the contest with nine tackles, including 2.5 tackles for a loss and 2.0 sacks. On the season, he ranks sixth on Liberty's roster with 23 tackles (eight solo, 15 assisted), including 5.5 tackles for a loss and 2.5 sacks. With his four stops against Robert Morris last week, Greene became the fourth active Flame with 100 career tackles.
When watching cartoons, children often imitate the actions of their favorite characters. At times, doing so results in negative consequences.
For a youngster living in Wilmington, Del., by the name of JaRon Greene, mimicking television role models morphed into a positive – pun intended. Greene's favorite TV show was the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a live action series about five teenagers who transformed into karate fighting superheroes.
Greene, who is now a senior defensive tackle on the Liberty Flames football team, spent countless hours with his cousins pretending to be a Power Ranger himself – leaping off couches and throwing karate kicks in midair. There was the occasional wall that required some patchwork due to rough housing, but those holes are minor details now. What is truly significant is the one thing Greene has carried with him for the majority of his life from watching Power Rangers – the backflip.
"I can still [backflip] to this day," Greene explained. "I did it not too long ago because people don't believe it. Sometimes I don't feel like doing it after practice, so I just pull up a video of it."
The reason for peoples' disbelief about Greene's backflip may be the fact he walks around at 310 pounds. In his younger, thinner days, he was constantly performing the maneuver on the school playground. However, the days of inversely rotating his body did not end at recess.
"As I got bigger, it impressed people that at my size I could do backflips, so they always wanted to see it," Greene recounted. "Once one person saw it, it was like ‘Hey that big guy right there can do backflips'."
When he was in third grade, Greene and his family moved from Delaware to Beaumont, Texas, where he developed a love outside of imitating Power Rangers – playing football. Greene's father, Shean, strongly encouraged him to take up the sport, understanding his son was athletic even in his youth. After school, Greene could be found doing bear crawls in the yard and perfecting his technique at an early age.
The backflips continued all throughout his high school football days. Greene's agility and acrobatic athleticism stood out to a lot of coaches who were recruiting him.
In 2012, Liberty Head Football Coach Turner Gill and Co-Defensive Coordinator Vantz Singletary made a trip to see Greene in action. It was in that moment, Gill informed Singletary of Greene's not so hidden talent.
"I said ‘Coach stop it'." Singletary recalled. "There's no way that dude over there can [backflip]. "Well he did it right in the hallway and I was sold."
Like Singletary, Greene also used the word "sold" to describe his feelings following his ensuing visit to Liberty. In total he received 13 offers - three from FBS schools and another from 10 FCS programs. A week before signing day, Louisiana Lafayette made an offer to Greene. While he grew up envisioning himself as a Ragin' Cajun, Greene's mind was already made up.
"My national letter of intent was on its way in the mail," Greene noted. "I had already ordered all my clothes for signing day because I wasn't going to do the multiple hat thing. I wanted to let everybody know, ‘Hey I'm a Flame'."
Since taking the field for Liberty as a freshman in 2013, Greene has made it pretty clear he is a Flame. A mainstay in the Liberty defense at nose guard, he's steadily worked his way up. A consistent starter since his sophomore year, Greene is now one of the guys younger players go to for advice.
"He's become more of a leader on our line, taking younger guys under his wing and doing the right thing on and off the field," defensive tackles coach Bryant Lewellyn said. "It's huge when you've got players in your program that can help the coaching staff develop younger players."
Along with providing guidance to teammates, Greene also imposed discipline on himself. At the beginning of the year, he decided to go on a strict diet – eating primarily broccoli and tuna fish.
"The number one thing that prompted me to [go on a diet] was my NFL analysis," Greene said. "They said I had some extra baggage around the midsection and I did not like that because I knew it was a true. I worked on it the whole offseason, but during the summer I really took it seriously. I've never eaten unhealthy. I've always been a decent eater, but I wanted do something specific that would just shred the fat off me, especially around the midsection. I took that upon myself because I do want to take that step to the next level."
While his maturity is undeniable, Greene is still that kid at heart who is an avid Power Rangers fan. Aside from Mighty Morphin, he also appreciates later iterations such as Lightspeed Rescue, Dino Thunder and Power Rangers in Space. So maybe it's no coincidence that a guy who wanted to battle alien invaders as a child is able to operate in a very unique and intense area of the football field.
"We call it the black hole, the twilight zone," Singletary said matter-of-factly. "It's a different world in there. I try to tell the linebackers, corners and even the defensive ends that you haven't played defense until you've entered the black hole. You've got to buckle up and take a couple Advil because it's going to be a very long day."
This season, the Flames defense is off to an impressive start. After forcing four turnovers at Virginia Tech (Sept. 3), Liberty opened play at Williams Stadium on Sept. 10 with a 55-7 victory, shutting out the Dolphins' offense for the first three quarters thanks to four additional turnovers. Of course, Greene could easily be seen making plays on the defensive line, leading his team in the heart of the black hole and helping the Flames rank No. 3 in the country in turnovers gained (10).
Before stepping on the field for game day, Greene knows it's not going to be easy. However, when he puts on that Red Rangeresque uniform and places his helmet on his head, things change. It's now time to just take care of business. It's time to forget about everything else going on around him and get the job done. To put it into words Greene is familiar with – it's morphin' time.
---
By Eric Brown, Assistant Athletics Communications Director for Liberty University
