Visit coach Jorge Salcedo when he’s home and chances are he’ll be watching a soccer game.
Almost everything in his life is about soccer and the UCLA men’s soccer team that he has coached for the past 10 years.
Soccer had been passed down to Salcedo by his father. Salcedo grabbed the ball and ran with it, taking it to UCLA and the men’s soccer program he has been a part of for nearly 35 years of his life.
After 41 years of exposure to soccer at almost every level imaginable, Salcedo’s love of soccer still flows in his blood.
“My little daughter laughs at how much I watch soccer at home,” Salcedo said. “I remember one day I woke up at five in the morning and probably watched four games consecutively from 5 a.m. until the afternoon. She looked at the TV and said, ‘I hate soccer.'”
Salcedo watches soccer because he loves it, but he also watches because he believes that the more he watches, the more he can learn about the sport.
“I would say after me and his family, there is nothing that he loves more,” said Salcedo’s wife, Rebecca Salcedo, with a chuckle. “He is so committed to it, as a fan, as a lover of the game and as a student of the game.”
Bruin through and through
Ask six-year-old Jorge Salcedo where he wants to go to college and he’d scream UCLA.
His dad Hugo Salcedo was an assistant coach on the men’s soccer team in 1978 and brought his six-year-old son to practices and games. For two years, a young Salcedo witnessed what it meant to be a Bruin.
“Obviously, at six it’s difficult to really conceptualize what college is all about, but all I knew is that it’s a place that made me happy,” Salcedo said. “My dad loved being here; you feed off adults as a young kid, and I fed off the enthusiasm and passion that all the people that were here had.”
Six years later, Salcedo came back to UCLA soccer games by himself and got to know a lot of the UCLA players. As a 12-year-old, Salcedo described himself as a mascot, because he was around the team so much.
Soon, he became a ball boy at the games and even flew to Seattle when UCLA made the College Cup. That year, UCLA won its first national championship; the team mascot and everybody’s favorite ball boy was presented with a championship ring.
Salcedo had traveled to Seattle without his parents, but his dad was completely supportive of his son’s fascination with the UCLA soccer program.
“(My dad) knows about the fabric of UCLA soccer: young men that are motivated, that are committed to doing well, that work hard on and off the field and excel to try and be their best,” Jorge Salcedo said. “How can you not, as a parent, want your child to be around people who have those qualities?”
No other school
Captain of the U-17 national team, Salcedo was recruited by all the top schools in the nation, but one school clearly stood out, tugging at Salcedo’s heart.
“Obviously UCLA was a place that I had many years prior made the decision that I wanted to come to,” Salcedo said.
As a player at UCLA, Salcedo was a four-year starter. After imagining himself in blue and gold for most of his life, Salcedo made sure that he made his mark in Bruin history, and he did so quite quickly.
As a freshman, Salcedo scored a game-winning penalty kick in the shootout. The ball blasted off his feet, sailed past the goalie and immediately Salcedo’s teammates mobbed him. This was the national championship game.
“It’s a great feeling to win a game, let alone win the national championship and be the one who takes the final penalty kick,” Salcedo said.
Four years flew by and Salcedo found himself in the Mexican first division, one of three Americans at the time. When MLS was formed, Salcedo played five years for four different teams all over the country.
In 2001, after so much traveling, Salcedo came back home as an assistant coach at UCLA. In 2002, he was part of yet another national championship team. Two years later, Salcedo was named head coach of the program that he had first started going to practices for as a six-year-old.
Taking charge
Ten years in and Salcedo has guided UCLA to strong seasons year in and year out while claiming a few accolades for himself along the way.
Salcedo’s Bruins have won six of the last 10 Pac-10/Pac-12 and have been a top eight team nationally each of the past five years. He’s won two Pac-10 and two Pac-12 Coach of the Year awards.
The only thing he hasn’t done as head coach is win the national championship. But this year the Bruins enter the playoffs as the No. 1 seed.
“It’s just giving everything I have to make sure this program is one of the top, if not the top, in the nation,” Salcedo said. “We can’t ever have down years.”
A key for Salcedo has been his coaching staff. He said that it’s important to delegate and make sure everybody has an important role regarding the team. During practices, assistant coaches are the ones barking out most of the orders while Salcedo observes.
“It’s been great to work with (Salcedo), someone who’s really passionate about what he does,” said assistant coach Eddie Soto. “He’s a guy who hates to lose, an extremely competitive person, and it translates into the training sessions he puts together and the environment he’s put together here.”
More than a team – a family
Sometimes, his wife and children will visit practice with treats for the players, who all have a good relationship with the Salcedo family.
“Since day one, we just considered these boys part of our family,” Rebecca Salcedo said. “Jorge spends more time thinking about them than I think they would know. We talk about them as a family and it’s really just an extended family.”
The college years are an especially impressionable time, and Salcedo works hard to leave a positive influence on his team. He’s proud of what his players have been able to accomplish after graduation, whether on or off the soccer field.
With his family around, he hopes that he’s been able to show his team how important being a good husband and father can be. To Salcedo, off the field success matters more than wins and losses.
Senior defender Joe Sofia said that it’s really easy to talk to Salcedo about anything in life, and it seems to ring true for others on the team as well.
“There’s times when I popped into his office to talk, and he just knows that something’s wrong with me – he knows us so well,” said senior forward Reed Williams.
It’s easy for the Salcedos to integrate the team with their family. The family, who travels with the team to away games, is already deeply rooted in Bruin history. Aside from Salcedo’s lifelong tie to UCLA, Rebecca Salcedo studied at UCLA as well.
She actually met Salcedo after a soccer game at UCLA. In fact, it was on the same North Athletic Field, where the Bruins now practice, where Salcedo now watches over his extended family.
“I love being on campus, I love the practice field,” Jorge Salcedo said. “Where else would you rather be, because there’s no place I’d rather be than to be on the practice field with these guys.”