OAKLAND — Welcome to the place where Marshawn Lynch does talk.

Without the threat of a fine hanging over his head. With his jovial spirit on display. It’s a place where he is accepted for who he is, rough edges and all, and respected for what he does.

It’s Oakland Technical High School.

“He’s a regular here,” said Karega Hart, the boys basketball coach and a special education instructor. “The kids have even gotten over him being a superstar. He’s just Marshawn.”

Walking these halls, which I used to call my own many years before Lynch’s arrival, there is little sense that a beloved son is on the cusp of greatness. With the Super Bowl days away and Seattle Seahawks All-Pro running back Lynch and his epic noninterviews a national story, you might expect more fanfare at his alma mater.

But it’s as regular as always here in the aging palace on Broadway in North Oakland. Security harassing students for hall passes. The principal getting stopped repeatedly by administrators as she makes a beeline for her office.

The posters in the foyer letting you know Black History Month is around the corner. The display cases lining the halls celebrating the school’s centennial year.

But there is no shrine at Tech dedicated to its Super Bowl winner, one of the most accomplished athletes in school history.

Lynch was a four-sport star (football, track, basketball and wrestling), then a standout running back at Cal, and he is now drifting into Pro Football Hall of Fame conversation as the Seahawks try for back-to-back titles.

‘Beast Mode’ origins

He also provided one of the most legendary moments in Oakland Tech athletic history.

In 2003, Lynch and the Bulldogs faced powerhouse Skyline in the Silver Bowl, the title game for the Oakland Athletic League. Lynch totaled 238 yards and five touchdowns to lead Oakland Tech to the upset win, still the school’s only crown. He clinched the game with a 46-yard touchdown run in which he broke several tackles at the Oakland Coliseum.

According to local legend, it was that run that inspired the term “Beast Mode.”

This week, there is a shout-out to Lynch on the school marquee. One of the display cases was vacated so that Lynch’s No. 24 Seahawks jersey could fill it. And some kids tossed around a football during P.E. Other than that, there is no sign of Super Bowl fever as Lynch is about to take the NFL’s biggest stage yet again.

It’s not just Lynch. You won’t see any of the many other sporting phenoms that came through Tech being honored. Not Leon Powe, who won an NBA title with the Boston Celtics after starring at Cal, or Terrell Lowery, who played college hoops with Hank Gathers at Loyola Marymount before turning to baseball. No tribute to John Brodie, an All-American at Stanford and MVP winner with the 49ers, or Jim Pollard, the Basketball Hall of Famer from the great Minneapolis Lakers teams.

Yeah, the baseball field is named after Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, who joins Clint Eastwood, Huey Newton and the Pointer Sisters among Oakland Tech’s most famous alumni. But nothing celebrating Curt Flood, the former St. Louis Cardinals center fielder who helped reshape Major League Baseball by initiating free agency. Nor Alexis Gray-Lawson, who led the Bulldogs to the state title before starring at Cal and making the WNBA.

It’s little surprise there is no athletic hall of fame. The emphasis at Oakland Tech is on scholastic achievement, and officials devote a lot of time managing the obstacles many of their students face. But there’s a sense at the school that individual accomplishments are outweighed by something bigger.

In some ways, making a big deal out of Lynch would violate the very reason this place is home for him.

No celebrity alum spends more time at Tech than Lynch. He holds football camps at the school. His foundation — Fam 1st Family, which he cofounded with Josh Johnson, his cousin and an NFL quarterback — uses the campus for its charity events, including an annual turkey giveaway.

Tech is home

This is also the place Lynch likes to chill. He’ll drop in occasionally to run three-on-three with the boys basketball team. And, rather than go to some state-of-the-art workout facility, Lynch loves to spend time in the old rusty weight room at Tech.

It’s not a strange sight to see Lynch cruising around the athletic area on a borrowed bicycle or play wrestling with a kid on the turf. The students know him to be a prankster, always ready to chat, always down to horse around.

On my visit to Tech, just bringing up the name Marshawn got Ricardo Loza-Hernandez excited. He was all too happy to label Lynch a “people person” and “down-to-earth.” Lynch once gave him a ride home when he needed it.

“It wasn’t a Ferrari or anything,” Ricardo said. “It was a regular car. Like a Honda or something.”

Here, they feel the sting of every last Lynch criticism or negative story, the frustration with every fine he receives.

“The media doesn’t want to see the positive,” said K.C. O’Keith, a social science teacher and Lynch’s JV coach. “They want to talk about him grabbing his crotch. How many stories have they done on his foundation?”

“People don’t understand Marshawn,” athletic director Jim Coplan said. “The good things that he does for the community and for Oakland Tech more than offset any kind of negative publicity that he gets. I would love to see Marshawn be more outgoing. But that’s not the way he is. And he doesn’t have to be anyone other than himself here.”

They get to see the playful guy who’d much rather someone else get the attention. They see the impact he has on the young people, dishing advice and echoing their bent on education.

“It means a lot to these kids,” said school treasurer Rosemary Whisenton, Josh Johnson’s mother. “They look up to him. He comes back and he gives these kids all kind of support.”

Said Hart: “He’d do anything for any kid.”

O’Keith brags to his students about his relationship with the All-Pro. He often tells them the story of when he was battling a life-threatening illness. Guess who paid him a surprise visit?

“He left Seattle practice and he came to see me,” O’Keith said. “That touched my heart.”

Another reason they stick with Lynch? They know how hard he has worked.

It was a major feat for him to avoid the usual pitfalls that snagged many of his friends. He had to grind to meet the academic standards of Cal.

“He got better,” said Johnson, who spent last season as a 49ers backup QB. “He started off OK. Then he started applying himself. Just like most students in Oakland.”

The ‘real deal’

And even though he was a “man-child,” as his coach Delton Edwards called him, nobody worked harder than Lynch. He spent Saturday mornings running Strawberry Canyon or bleachers as if he were already a pro.

When Lynch was a sophomore, he worked out with former McClymonds coach Alonzo Carter, now the coach at Contra Costa College. USC back Sultan McCullough was there, too.

“We were running hills and Sultan asked me ‘Who was that?’ ” Carter recalled. “I told him it was Marshawn Lynch from Tech. He said, ‘He’s going to be the real deal.’ That was a starting tailback in the Pac 10 talking about a sophomore in high school. People don’t know about that man’s work ethic.”

Oakland Tech has a rich tradition of producing successful students despite inner-city constraints. Most point to a philosophy of letting individuals flourish in their own way, and that includes accepting and embracing some things. No cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approach here.

“Our kids are individuals,” O’Keith said. “They think for themselves. We don’t try to change them. We try to help them be the best of who they are.”

In Lynch’s case, the best Beast he could be.

Read Marcus Thompson II’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/thompson. Contact him at mthomps2@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ThompsonScribe.