Soccer runs in the Hollingshead family. Ryan and Kevin Hollingshead’s older brother, Scott, who also played soccer for the Bruins in 2007. However, the brothers say that they did not influence each other’s college decisions.
It’s commonplace to see students, typically the younger ones who live on the Hill, swiping in their older peers who live off-campus into dining halls. While these students will occasionally share a meal with each other, for two members of the UCLA men’s soccer team, talking over dinner together has taken place for their entire lives.
Junior midfielder/forward Ryan Hollingshead is reaping the benefits of having his brother, Kevin, who is a freshman goalkeeper on the practice team, living on the Hill.
“He’s in the dorms now, so he’s got 19P, so we’ll get some meals and hang out,” Ryan Hollingshead said with a laugh. “So we’re able to spend some quality time together.”
“I didn’t even know what meal plans were, so my brother talked to my mom and he told her to sign me up for 19P, and so it’s great now,” Kevin Hollingshead added. “I’ll just walk into the dining hall, and if I see some big bulky guys that look like my brother’s friends, I’ll just invite them in and swipe them in to keep everyone happy and keep things flowing.”
As impressive as it is for the Hollingshead family to have two members currently playing soccer at UCLA, Ryan and Kevin weren’t the first Hollingsheads to represent the Bruins.
Their older brother, Scott Hollingshead played as a defender for the Bruins in 2007 after spending time as a team manager and practice player.
Although both Ryan and Kevin Hollingshead had an older sibling attend UCLA while they were making their college decisions, the brothers didn’t sway each other’s decisions to come to Westwood.
“He wasn’t that big of an influence because I had wanted to go to UCLA for a long time,” Ryan Hollingshead said. “So if I ever got the opportunity to come here, I would have taken it, and he wouldn’t have made that much of a difference anyway.”
Although their older siblings didn’t influence the college decisions, the interaction between these brothers on the pitch when they were growing up impacted their love for the sport.
Unlike most siblings, rivalries didn’t exist between these brothers ““ instead, their camaraderie bolstered their willingness to stick with the game.
“We competed with each other; we weren’t really competitive against each other,” Ryan Hollingshead said. “We were always on the same team against somebody else, and that’s kind of why we stuck with soccer, because we all liked competing with each other and playing on the same team.”
But just because they did not play against each other does not mean the Hollingsheads never felt the pressure of each other’s success on the field.
“You always want to compete with whoever you’re with, so just how Ryan wanted to work and play at the top level, I wanted to play at both Ryan’s and Scott’s level so they pushed me harder, trained me harder, and it was a good environment to be able to work hard in,” Kevin Hollingshead said.
Now that Hollingshead has joined his brother at UCLA, the two couldn’t be happier to be Bruins together. Reunited and it feels so good, right?
“Whenever they’re hanging out, they always look like they’re best buds, which is really good to see, and the same thing goes for the oldest brother as well,” junior defender Matt Wiet said. “They sound exactly alike, they talk exactly alike, so it’s kind of funny.”
“I love being around him, and I’m glad he’s on the team,” Ryan Hollingshead said. “It’s fun to have him around and it’s good to be able to play with him again and be with family.
“It’s cool to have brothers going through the same thing so when we all graduate we’ll still have pride in being a Bruin and watching UCLA athletics. It’s great that we’ll have that together for our whole lives; we’ll always be Bruins forever.”