PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Shanda Barnes was not going to let even the most heartbreaking event derail the plan she and her son Jawan Jamison had drawn up.
No, not even the shocking, emotionally pulverizing death of Jamison's father, James Lewis Jamison, was going to keep her son from getting out of Starke, Fla., keep him from going to Rutgers, a college program that valued academics as much as athletics — a combination the family searched out.
The timing could not have been worse.
It was the summer of 2010, the last few months the running back would be near his parents, who, despite their divorce, retained respect for each other and a shared love for their son.
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Jawan Jamison
And then the call came — a crash on a back-country road. James Lewis Jamison's car slammed into a tree in nearby Lawtey. He was killed. His son's spirit badly dented.
"He loved his dad and there were a lot of moments, for both of us, when the tears came,'' Barnes said. "But I told him, 'We'll be OK. I promise you, we will be all right. You have to go on with your life.'''
Go on?
It was going to be tough enough going some 1,200 miles from home, to a place with cold winters and classmates with Jersey accents.
But as much as Barnes, a hair stylist who attends every game, had sacrificed to get her son out of public school and into the prestigious Bolles School, it was James Lewis who taught his son right from wrong and that his mother, ''was a good woman and she was never going to steer me wrong,'' said Jamison.
"I thought about staying home,'' said Jamison. "I sat down and I talked to my mom and she said, 'We need to stick to the plan. I want you to do it for me and also for yourself. You need to show everyone in the family you can be strong.'
"I did it for her — and ultimately, for him, too.''
The loss took its toll. Instead of arriving at Rutgers in the summer and getting a jump on conditioning and academics, Jamison, who chose Rutgers over Clemson, South Carolina and Wake Forest, arrived in the fall, slightly out of shape and emotionally fragile.
Kyle Flood, then the assistant head coach and the man many of the players viewed as a surrogate dad, had a heart-to-heart with Jamison.
"When you're an assistant coach or a head coach on a team with a hundred-plus players, tragedy finds its way into every season,'' said Flood, now the Scarlet Knights' head coach.
"This is what I said to him, 'I know that the one thing that your dad would never want would be for his passing to get in the way of your success and what you should do.'''
Jamison got the message, but the hurt and the homesickness were a shadowy, constant companion. Barnes said her son met regularly with Scott Walker, the executive director of academic support, and Gene Bataille, director of football relations.
They kept Jamison's mind right when he red-shirted as a freshman. Last season he beat out highly touted Jersey recruit Savon Huggins.
Rutgers fans looked at the 5-foot-8, 198-pound Jamison and saw a lot of former Scarlet Knights star Ray Rice, who was 5-8, 212.
"He's got excellent vision,'' Flood said of Jamison. "I think every great runner has it. I have no doubt he has it. He's got one-step burst. Those would be the things that I would say are similar to Ray.
"But the last thing he has is the ability to make you miss. That's a unique piece to his game. He has a natural ability to break people down in space.''
Jamison, a junior, caught the nation's attention in Rutgers' 23-13 win at South Florida on a prime-time telecast in September. He broke through the line, did a complete spin and burst 41 yards for the game-deciding touchdown.
Turns out Jamison has been making people miss all his life.
"You could never catch him when he was a toddler,'' said Barnes. "He would get under tables or run around chairs. All of my friends can attest to that.''
Jamison is first in the Big East and 20th in the nation in rushing, averaging 111 yards per game. He never carried the ball more than 13 times a game at The Bolles School, which he led to state titles in 2008 and 2009. But he has become a Rutgers workhorse, averaging about 25 carries per game.
He admits to running angry, to running for his mother and his father and the hurt inside.
"I'm proud of Jawan because some kids make a bad decision in times of crisis and it ends up hurting them for the rest of their lives,'' said former Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. "Jawan stuck to the plan.''
lenn.robbins@nypost.com
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