To call Brigham Harwell and Aaron Perez an odd couple might be
to understate the differences between Felix and Oscar.
One is a 286-pound defensive lineman who is one of the key
players on a rebuilt UCLA defense that has experienced a
renaissance through its first four games.
The other is the punter.
The stereotypes of a rough lineman and a lowly specialist
don’t match, but the differences between Harwell (the
lineman) and Perez (the punter) go far below the surface.
Their paths to Westwood crossed before they were even part of
the UCLA football team, but that’s about the only experience
that Harwell and Perez share in their respective backgrounds.
For Harwell, working toward a scholarship at UCLA has defined
success. For Perez, replacing one of the country’s best
punters was an awkward and trying proposition. As they’ve
become solid contributors in their third year with the program,
they have used their unlikely friendship as a source of strength to
achieve what they hope is only the beginning.
Harwell and Perez met during their senior year of high school at
the California Bowl, a high school all-star game for the
state’s top talent. Harwell was a product of Los Altos High
School in Chino Hills, while Perez went to Charter Oak in
Pomona.
Their schools were bitter rivals (Harwell still brags about Los
Altos beating Charter Oak his senior year), but the two athletes
only met face to face at the bowl game, each knowing that the other
might be heading to UCLA.
“We sought each other out,” Perez said. “I
think it was a matter of trying to get to know somebody who I was
going to college with. Four years later, we’re best
friends.”
Two years ago, Harwell and Perez lived together along with
defensive tackle Kenneth Lombard, and in 2005 Harwell and Perez
were roommates once again.
Harwell and Perez ended up at the same all-star game, but the
ways in which they got there were very different. And once they
took the field for UCLA, their friendship was the only thing they
had in common.
One of nine children, Harwell grew up in Chino Hills with his
mother, Ruby Williams, a former principal with a master’s
degree from Mississippi State. Harwell’s mother’s began
to suffer from manic depression, and the family slowly dropped
further into poverty. They went from living in low-cost apartments
to hotels to cold nights inside a car.
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The state turned Harwell and his two younger brothers over to
foster care when, as Harwell puts its, “My mother just became
unfit to take care of us.” For a short while, Harwell slept
on friends’ couches before he moved in with a foster family
in Fontana.
Harwell’s older brother, Joe Williams, wanted to take him
under his roof but several obstacles had to be overcome in order
for that to happen. Joe needed to prove to the state that he was
fit to be Harwell’s guardian.
Joe, 37 and with his own children to provide for, could only
take in Harwell if the youngest brothers were in foster care. Once
Harwell graduated from Los Altos, the youngest siblings moved in
with Joe.
Harwell enrolled at Los Altos and started playing football.
During his sophomore year, he backed up future USC and Philadelphia
Eagle lineman Shaun Cody. When Cody graduated after Harwell’s
sophomore year, Harwell started for the varsity team and his
playing career soared.
“I started to play football and things just stared to
click,” Harwell said.
Harwell was recruited by a number of schools, notably Oklahoma
and Nebraska, but ultimately chose UCLA over Arizona State because
he wanted to be close to his brothers, who had been such a big
presence for him during some bleak times.
“I think about making it to the pros all the time.
It’s a goal I continue to work for,” Harwell said.
“But just making it to UCLA, going to college, is a
blessing.
“People in my position might use it as a crutch or just
give up on life. I never wanted to think of childhood as something
to hold me back.”
As his closest friends on the team, Perez and Lombard are
familiar with Harwell’s past. They speak of Harwell’s
history as a tribute to the tackle’s toughness, which they
say far exceeds anything he does on the field.
“He’s just got a strong character,” Lombard
said. “He’s not going to be a guy who looks for reasons
to get down on himself.”
Perez, on the other hand, had a relatively tame upbringing in a
middle-class neighborhood in Pomona. For the junior punter, getting
to UCLA wasn’t the hardest part; rather, it was adjusting to
unforeseen criticism once he got to Westwood that has driven his
performance.
Coming out of Charter Oak, Perez was stationed behind Chris
Kluwe, one of the program’s best punters and now a member of
the Minnesota Vikings. In 2004, Kluwe set a UCLA record with 90
punts in a season marred by offensive inconsistency. Just as it was
a dubious honor for Kluwe to be such a defensive weapon for a team
that had trouble scoring, Perez had the dubious honor of trying to
follow Kluwe’s success ““ with as few chances as
possible.
“To be totally honest, I have been lucky,” Perez
said. “I got to follow Kluwe and then Drew Olson takes our
offense and turns it into one of the best offensives in the
country.”
Perez’s numbers weren’t staggering, he averaged 39.9
yards per punt for eighth best in the Pac-10. He said last year was
really the first time he received high-profile criticism, which
confused him a lot of the time.
“I read one story that said one of the keys to the game
was not letting Aaron Perez punt the ball,” he said.
“My position on the team is different. The less I have to do
my job, the better for the team.”
Perez said that with a little over a year’s worth of
punting duties behind him, he’s been able to block out the
critics who think the job of a punter is easy.
He concedes that he’s often referred to as merely a
“punter” by some of his teammates. It’s a
division, as Perez often finds himself standing near the side of
practice with the rest of the specialists while the rest of the
team runs up and down the field. The segregation makes his
friendship with Harwell that much more important.
For one thing, Harwell thinks that the only punting statistic
that matters is “inside the 20″ ““ a mark that
tallies how many times an opposing offense is pinned near its end
zone.
“Having guys like Brigham or Kenneth (Lombard), who are
always pushing me and giving me positive feedback, it’s a big
boost,” Perez said.
“There are all the jokes about how easy it is to be a
punter,” Harwell said. “I get to see how hard Aaron
works and I treat him like a defensive player.”
Harwell and Perez are each coming into their own in season
number three.
Perez has already helped make the special teams unit one of
UCLA’s strengths ““ noticeable in UCLA’s 31-0 win
over Stanford last Saturday ““ with seven of his 16 punts
downed inside the 20, even if he has registered a modest 37.4 yards
per punt.
Harwell has locked down a starting role on a defensive line that
is allowing just 65.8 rushing yards per game.
They each attribute a lot of their success to the energy their
new position coaches have brought. Amid the coaching changes, Todd
Howard is Harwell’s new defensive line coach and John Wristen
is Perez’s new special teams coach.
“We could feel the changes coming, everybody knew it was
time for a change,” Harwell said.
Harwell and Perez have experienced the drastic changes in UCLA
football ““ from 6-6 to 10-2, and everything in between
““ together, and often in parallel ways, even if they seem to
be playing on completely different fields.