Fans of U.S. soccer know it’s a big deal when their national team beats Mexico.
The two neighboring countries share a border and a rivalry that gets even the most unenthusiastic American sports fan to take notice.
So when the U.S. Under-20 National team shut out Mexico 3-0 on July 11, soccer enthusiasts around the country rejoiced.
But perhaps no one was more excited than the man who was primarily responsible for the shutout.
For UCLA junior and U.S. Under-20 National team goalie Brian Perk, the win and his performance meant more than a shift in power between the two countries.
It meant he was back.
Finally.
Big bones and baseball
Growing up, Perk’s passion was for the game his father played, not the one he eventually would.
A multi-sport athlete since the age of 4, Perk got involved early in both baseball and soccer. It seemed natural that he gravitated toward baseball, considering his father played baseball for Nebraska when he was in college.
And even early on, his soccer coaches recognized fundamental things about Perk that were probably not going to help his career in the sport.
“The goalie thing happened because I was kind of big-boned, and I didn’t really like to run,” he said. “So they kind of put me in goal.”
But his athleticism helped the experiment stick and by the time Perk was 12, he had made a name for himself. He still loved baseball, but recognizing where his talents were, Perk threw himself into soccer for the first time.
“When I got to be 12, there’s a thing called Olympic Development, and I made that,” Perk said. “So I decided, “˜look, I’m doing real well in soccer, I might as well pursue that.’ Up to that point, I didn’t like (soccer) that much, and then all of a sudden I started watching soccer and the World Cup. That’s really what got me into it, the 2002 World Cup.”
From national team to UCLA
Perk made the state team for Olympic Development, and things took off from there.
Working through the U.S. soccer system, Perk went to camp, impressed coaches, moved up to regional tournaments and finally began playing under the watchful eye of Olympic coaches who were trying to select the best players under 15 from all the regions combined.
Perk ultimately was selected as one of a small pool of players to be a part of the Under-15 National Team.
As a part of this new squad, Perk went to more camps and was still trying to move up. And after one good run at a camp in Mexico, Perk had established himself as a starter on the team at the age of 14.
And that was when the real test began. Perk received an invitation to be a part of U.S. Soccer’s residency program in Bradenton, Fla., where he would study, live and practice at International Management Group Academy.
IMG Academy is the United States Soccer Federation’s full-time residency program for the U.S. Under-17 Men’s National Team. Since its opening in 1999, it has played an important role in the development of youth soccer’s prospective athletes.
Only the top 40 players from both the Under-17 and Under-16 teams combined were awarded the opportunity, and Perk was not about to miss out.
Among other things, the residency would allow Perk to complete high school while traveling overseas to play soccer and ultimately, to train for the Under-17 World Cup.
But it wasn’t all fun and games.
“For two years, you’re training and playing every single day in the hot Florida weather,” he said. “It’s so humid. The worst possible conditions you can imagine, we played in for two years. It was torture, but it helped out in the end.”
His time at IMG provided Perk with a very unique high school experience.
“We would go to school, but we were basically focused on soccer,” he said. “We would travel all over the world. Usually about once a month we would leave for a week to go to, I don’t know, Argentina or France or England or Germany or Spain.”
The school’s system and the difference in pace and scheduling allowed Perk to get his high school diploma by the age of 17, one year ahead of most students. The next step was college, and the choice was between UC Berkeley and UCLA.
“I visited the two campuses, and that’s what made my decision,” Perk said. “I decided to come here, came in, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.”
Becoming “the guy”
Coming into UCLA, Perk ran into the same problem he had on so many of his previous teams. He wasn’t the starter.
“We had a fifth-year senior there my freshman year named Eric Reed who was good,” Perk said. “I feel like I didn’t take things as seriously as I should have because, just the situation, coming into college at 17, I kind of got sucked into the whole social scene. There was a good fifth-year senior who probably deserved to start, in retrospect, although that’s not how I felt at the time.”
Perk may have had good reason to be disappointed. After all, he was coming from the national team. But accolades aside, what made the situation most frustrating for Perk was that fact that he never had really been “the guy.” Despite his ability, he had always played backup, and he had thought that would change as soon as he set foot in Westwood.
“When I was with the national team, I was always playing up,” Perk said. “So I never really was the guy, because I was playing with older guys who were saying “˜Oh, in a few years you’ll be the guy.’ But then in a few years, I was moved up to U-20. Getting to UCLA and still not being the guy, I still felt a little bit upset, but I knew I was on the right path.”
Perk ended up starting seven games for the Bruins his freshman season and taking over the reins completely when Reed graduated at the end of Perk’s freshman year. He would start his first 20 games as a sophomore and love every minute of it.
“I got to play every minute; I got to do my thing. Life was good, and so I gained more confidence,” Perk said. “I felt like I became a little more of a leader that season, and grew up a little bit. That really helped.”
But just as everything seemed to have finally fallen into place for Perk, a single collision brought everything crashing down again.
Injury cuts Perk’s sophomore season short
UCLA’s first playoff game against New Mexico was typical of their entire season. They played well, but they couldn’t score, and the game was knotted at 0-0 as the clock wound toward the 90th and final minute.
This time though, in the 88th minute, the Bruins managed to score and take the lead. What followed, however, subdued the team’s excitement.
“(New Mexico) come(s) down the field, and they have a long throw,” he said. “And so I come forward, I jump up in the air, I catch the ball. I have it in my hands, there are probably 30 seconds left in the game and one of our players, Tony Beltran, got pushed into me by one of their guys. I got my legs cut out and I landed not on my feet, but on my neck and my shoulder. I got my shoulder dislocated, and as a natural reaction, you got to put it back in. When I put it back in it caught cartilage, the labrum, and tore pretty much all of it. It was pretty painful.”
Initially, at least, it seemed like the injury wasn’t too severe. Perk suited up for the Bruins’ next playoff game and wanted nothing more than to have a go at it. But near game time, Perk had to admit to himself and his coaches that the injury was something to worry about.
“The trainers were trying to tell me that it wasn’t too serious,” he said. “I got a cortisone shot, which is supposed to take away the pain, and I could tell. There’s a difference between being hurt and injured, and I knew I was injured.
“I did go to Santa Clara, and I warmed up, and it was some excruciating pain, some of the worst that I’ve felt. I could have gone, but that was one of the few times I put myself above the team and I felt that if I went, maybe I wouldn’t ever be able to go again. I talked to (coach) Jorge (Salcedo) and said, “˜This isn’t the right move for my future.'”
The Bruins went on to lose to Santa Clara 3-1, and a frustrated Perk was forced to begin the recovery process.
Playing the waiting game
Perk had to undergo arthroscopic surgery to fix his torn labrum.
“Cartilage is one of the worst things you can tear because it takes forever to heal,” he said. “I had to sit out for six months, which was one of the most frustrating points of my life. I’ve been hurt, but not like that.”
But the surgery itself was only the beginning. Perk, who had been active since he was 4, was forced to be totally immobile for the first six weeks after the surgery. Even after that, he had to proceed slowly, practicing range-of-motion exercises for nearly three months just to work out the stiffness that had accumulated in his joints and muscles. After that, the final step before the soccer field was strengthening.
He did all this under a cloud of frustration ““ frustration with waiting, frustration with missed opportunities and frustration with the entire situation.
“The people around me probably took a little bit of (the frustration), which, I’m ashamed to say that, but they did,” Perk said. “I was depressed. I felt good ““ I had some things lined up overseas where I was going to go immediately from school for some training session with some clubs overseas. That got turned down because obviously with the surgery I couldn’t go. And that was on top of the fact that I had felt so great with everything. Coming from such a high to end up on such a low, it’s not that easy.”
But perhaps the scariest part of the entire experience for Perk was wondering whether he would ever be in front of the net again.
“It was pretty tough mentally because obviously soccer is the thing I like to do more than anything,” he said. “And when it’s taken away, it’s tough. The shoulder was going to come back to normal, but was I ever going to be back to normal mentally? It’s not easy when something you love the most is taken away, and you’re questioning if you’ll ever get it back. It feels unfair.”
Back in the net
Ever so slowly, Perk’s persistence and work ethic helped the rehabilitation pay off. By the three-month mark, Perk was playing soccer again, and by the five-month mark, a little early, Perk was back in goal.
In late May, Perk traveled with the U.S. Under-20 National Team to England, where he found himself back in the same box he left nearly six months earlier. He jumped ““ he dove, and he felt relief. Things were getting back to normal.
“It felt like it was right before the injury,” he said. “I felt good. I was so happy. I was relieved. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. It was like taking all the weight off your shoulders because I was always worried, “˜Is everything going to be back to normal? Am I ever going to be healthy again?’ It was just the relief to finally realize, “˜Yes, it is.’ I sat out, I did everything they told me to do for five to six months, and it worked.”
Yet Perk still had much to prove.
Although this was his second run on the Under-20 team, Perk was coming off of an injury and had eager and talented keepers behind him, ready to nab the starting spot that had eluded him so long if he faltered at all.
But he wasn’t about to lose the spot he had worked so hard for, and it was the Mexico game in which he solidified his position.
Playing in front of a huge crowd under the pressure of an intense rivalry in what turned out to be a pro-Mexico venue in Laredo, Texas, Perk slammed the door on the Mexican national team and on any doubters who thought he might relinquish his starting job. His five saves weren’t anything spectacular ““ simply solid, but enough to ensure that he was back to being “the guy” once again.
“I had the injury, so everyone was just kind of questioning, “˜Who is going to be the guy?’ I think, although I have a lot to do still, I think I was able to put it back in people’s minds that I still am probably the best one.”