By Ed McGranahan.

By Ed McGranahan

A driven young man intent on becoming Clemson’s next starting center, Ryan Norton was forced to quit competitive swimming when he became too big to make the turns without scraping the bottom of the pool.

At 15, Norton was a championship caliber member of the Greenville County community pool league team at Orchard Farm’s pool in Simpsonville. However his future in football was quickly becoming evident.

“He wanted to swim until he was 18 which I guess was the limit in SAIL,” Ralf Norton said.

He suggested that with his son’s size there may be an advantage to getting off the starting block and into the water quickly creating a wake might distract his opponents and give him an advantage.

After another scrape on a turn, Norton climbed out of the pool disheartened. “Dad, I just can’t do this.’”

The disappointment was short-lived. Coach Doug Shaw plucked Norton off the Mauldin High School “C” team after his freshman year and installed him as the starting right tackle as a sophomore.

Norton’s father was ecstatic.

“My expectations were (such) that I was happy he made the high school varsity,” he said. “He was just hoping to get a small college scholarship.”

Norton moved to left tackle as a junior, then center as a senior at Mauldin, earning a reputation as a tough player with a head and disposition for the game. ESPN rated him No. 11 nationally among centers as most of the schools in the Southeast checked in before Norton settled on a school before his senior season.

“Vanderbilt was one of the first schools that ever wrote him,” his father recalled. “From that point on it just happened real fast.”

As a potential successor to all-star Dalton Freeman on a team that wears its ambition on its sleeve, Norton could be the key component. It has been a whirlwind ascent, though not unexpected by his former coach. Mature and focused, Norton was a bit of an enigma at Mauldin. Typically soft-spoken and well-mannered, he played almost angry. His father said Norton had the ability to flip a switch on the field.

“He played the game wide open. I don’t care if we were in shorts and T-shirts or in a game,” Shaw said. “He was going full speed all the time.

“The one thing Ryan had is the mentality you wish every player on your team had,” he said, recalling Norton telling a Clemson coach. “When I’m blocking, I’m trying to bury you.”

In a game against Laurens High School during his junior season, Norton became so angered that an interception would force the offense from the field that he sprinted 25 yards and caught the thief with a violent tackle. It became part of the highlight disc the Nortons sent to college scouts.

When Norton visited Shaw last week, he asked to watch it again. “I’m sure that young man remembers him,” Shaw said.

Currently atop the depth chart at center, Norton understood from the outset this spring that replacing Freeman wouldn’t come by default, but Shaw saw him preparing for this moment before he even left Mauldin.

Norton, a third-year sophomore, has strapped 25 pounds to his 6-foot-3 frame since high school and hopes to add another 10 or 15 by fall, so physically he should be ready. The intangibles will ultimately determine who plays. Jay Guillermo likely will push him into the season, so he couldn’t allow a rolled ankle early in camp to slow his momentum.

Freeman played all but 103 of Clemson’s offensive snaps at center last season, so Norton’s 277 also included work at guard. He also mentored Norton in preparation for the transition, which necessitates knowing every nuance of Chad Morris’ offense. That requires hours of film work, often with quarterback Tajh Boyd.

Theoretically he would be the least experienced starter on the line which could be intimidating. Norton said he won’t shrink from the responsibility. His confidence has been buoyed as he learns the offense and begins to find opportunities to assert himself as a leader. The player Shaw remembers should make the transition smoothly, one capable of seizing it, diplomatically at first.

“He knows as well as I do you’re fighting for your position every day. Nothing’s guaranteed,” his father said. “We’ve had conversations about that. If he has a tough day at practice, he knows Jay and others are breathing down his throat, and they’re just as anxious to play as he is.”

Norton wants to be a significant cog in a season ripe with potential and he knows that whoever hunkers over the ball first against Georgia will be tested quickly.

Passing that first test might be similar to getting off the blocks quickly and creating an enormous wake.

“We’re LOOKING for a national championship,” Norton said. “I feel like we have an opportunity to do it IF we keep our eyes on the prize.”