THE COLLEGES : This Time, Bobby Perez May Keep His Loyalty for USC Under His Hat

If you were at last year’s National Collegiate Athletic Assn. men’s tennis championships at Athens, Ga., you may have noticed a small, wiry man first hanging around with the UC Irvine team and then sitting in the stands wearing a USC hat.

He’ll be at Athens again this week when the Anteaters start playing in the NCAA tournament. Irvine will play its first match today against Arizona State.

“But this year, I think he’ll be wearing an Irvine hat,” Irvine Coach Greg Patton said. “At least, I hope so.”

The man with two allegiances is Bobby Perez, a volunteer assistant coach with fifth-ranked Irvine. On a young team that has no seniors among the top six players and a 35-year-old head coach in Patton, Perez, 63, is a grandfather figure for the Anteaters.

“Working with these guys keeps me young,” Perez said. “Can you believe they call me Bobby?”

That Perez is associated with the Anteaters might surprise anyone who followed USC tennis in the late 1940s. After all, once a Trojan, always a Trojan, and for most of his life, Perez has worn the cardinal and gold on his arm.

Perez grew up in the shadow of USC and attended Manual Arts High School. He learned to play tennis on the public courts near the Coliseum.

Perez attended USC on a tennis scholarship and competed for the Trojans from 1946 to 1950, playing No. 1 singles and doubles on a team that won two national championships. After graduation, he played competitive tennis for five years and became one of the top-ranked doubles players in the country.

But Perez retired from tennis to support his growing family (he has three children) and soon moved to New York, where he worked his way up to a vice president of sales for CBS.

In the mid-1970s, Perez moved back to California and started playing tennis again on the senior circuit. In 1976, Perez was the No. 1-ranked 50-and-over singles and doubles player in the country.

Through it all, Perez remained a loyal USC booster, attending games and staying involved in the tennis program. But Perez moved to Orange County in the early ‘80s, and it became harder to get to Los Angeles to see matches.

One day in 1986, Perez wandered over to UC Irvine, just a short trip from his Irvine home, to watch his Trojans play the Anteaters, a team he knew virtually nothing about.

“I was terribly impressed with the Irvine team,” he said. “I liked the way the boys conducted themselves . . . like gentlemen. I met Greg Patton and I admired the things he was doing, and he invited me to drop by and watch them practice.”

So Perez did drop by, a lot. He started hanging around at practice and games, offering advice here and there, working unofficially as an assistant to Patton. This season, the title became official.

“Here was a chance for me to give back everything I had gotten out of tennis,” Perez said.

Patton ran what amounted to a one-man show in his first seven years at Irvine. He had his first assistant last season, and this year Perez is one of three.

“I had to wear all the hats,” Patton said. “I had to kick them in the butt and pat them on the back at the same time. Now there are other guys to listen to them, give them individual attention.

“Bobby’s been through the trials himself. He brings all his expertise. And, in turn, it’s given him a new lease on life.”

Perez works with the players individually, particularly on service and doubles play.

“He’s really helped with the team’s service game,” Patton said. “He works on a lot more power-type serve than we normally do.”

Richard Lubner, the Anteaters’ No. 3 singles player, said: “One of the most instrumental people in my success this year is Bobby Perez. He’s given me a whole strategy with the way he coaches. He has so much knowledge.”

Perez says he has enjoyed working with the young team.

“I’ve been watching them grow right in front of my eyes,” he said. “I think they could beat any team in the country.”

There’s one team the Anteaters haven’t beaten this season and might face in the playoffs: USC. The Trojans, seeded third in the tournament, defeated Irvine, 5-2, in April.

“Bobby is a Trojan die-hard from Day 1; he has tremendous loyalty for USC,” Patton said. “But now, I think, he’s a true-blue Anteater. The only team he wants to beat USC is Irvine.”

“I’m kind of torn,” Perez said recently at Irvine. “I’ll never stop being a Trojan supporter, but I’ve become a very strong UCI guy.”

And Perez checked his blue Anteater wrist watch and headed for his car, the one with the USC decal on the back.