‘Mr. Transfer’ Says He’s Found a Home in Berkeley : Football: Perry Klein, coming off a redshirt season, is ready to challenge for Cal quarterback job.

Don’t talk about changing schools to Perry Klein these days. He won’t hear of it.

The peripatetic Klein, who earned the nickname “Mr. Transfer” while playing quarterback for several Southland high schools, claims he has found a permanent home at UC Berkeley.

“I’m there (at Cal) for the duration,” Klein said last week from his family’s Malibu home. “There will be no more transferring. I like it there and am very committed to helping turn the football program around.”

Klein is battling for the starting quarterback job, which makes his decision to return to Cal an easy one.

He was a redshirt as a freshman, and the lack of playing time led him to thoughts of changing schools. But the arrival of spring ball found Klein engaged in a battle for starting duties with junior Mike Pawlawski.

With his interest renewed, Mr. Transfer seems content to stay put. At least for now.

“I know there was a time last year when Perry was feeling a little low,” Cal offensive coordinator Steve Mariucci said. “Then he found a role on the scout team and he was a new man. Perry came in with high expectations, but he just had to learn to be patient. There’s a lot to learn.

“Believe me, though, Perry has a very bright future here. His picture eventually will hang alongside all of the other great quarterbacks that have played here. I have no doubt about that.”

Although blessed with much natural talent, Klein has never been a patient player. His much-publicized prep career led him through a maze of transfers starting at Santa Monica High, then to Palisades, on to Carson and finally back to Santa Monica.

Klein led Palisades to the City 3-A Division final his junior year, then helped guide Carson to the 4-A championship as a senior in 1988. What he did off the field, however, is what grabbed most of the headlines. The press hounded him and his parents, Danny and Diana Klein, through most of his senior season, questioning his transfer habits.

“All of the negative press really never bothered us because we knew what we were doing,” Diana Klein said. “There were some tense moments, of course. One time a Channel 4 helicopter was flying over our house in Malibu because they thought we were supposed to be living in Carson. But my husband and I always just supported what Perry wanted.”

Klein attended Palisades as a sophomore and a junior. Since the Dolphins weren’t returning many starters for Klein’s senior season, he decided to transfer to Carson, which annually fields one of the best teams in the City Section. His parents rented a house in the area, and maintained their Malibu residence.

The move from Palisades to Carson sparked many hard feelings. Palisades Coach Jack Epstein said the Klein family abused the transfer rule and made a mockery of the system. Students and football players at Carson called Klein a rich, spoiled white kid.

Klein eventually earned a place on the team and made friends. He earned a scholarship to Cal, making his transfer seem worthwhile.

“I still don’t have regrets about what I did,” Klein said. “I left Palisades to make me a better player, and I accomplished that. You have to look out for yourself in this world. I just wanted to improve my game.

“My only regret is that I didn’t stay at Carson.”

After his senior football season, Klein transferred to play volleyball at Santa Monica, where he graduated. When he was chosen as a replacement player for last summer’s Shrine Game, there was a joke about which school Klein would represent. He chose Carson.

The negative publicity didn’t end when Klein graduated. The San Francisco Chronicle’s sports section ran a front-page story on Klein’s school-hopping habits the day he arrived for fall practice at Cal.

“Here I thought I could put that all behind me at Cal, and now everybody on the team knew who I was and all about my past,” Klein said. “A lot of guys were saying, ‘Who is this guy coming in here and stealing the headlines already?’

“Believe me, I don’t like being called Mr. Transfer. I find it annoying. A lot of the people who write about me don’t really know the whole story. I guess since most people haven’t seen me play at Cal, they can only write about my past. I figure once I start playing, they’ll forget about my transfers and write about me as a player.”

Saddled with a back injury suffered while playing volleyball over the summer and sidelined by the incumbency of Troy Taylor, he was redshirted, then played on the scout team the second half of the season. He impressed the coaches with his strong arm and quickness.

“No matter what role you give Perry, he goes all out,” Mariucci said. “Believe me, he is no prima donna. Perry is a very confident young man, but he works as hard or harder than almost anyone else on the team. He expects to be in there competing for a starting job all of the time, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

Klein also was introduced to the weight room. He admitted he never lifted a weight in high school, which may explain why he was 6-foot-3 and only 170 pounds when he arrived at Cal. He is now 6-3 1/2 and 195 and bench-presses 245 pounds, almost 50 pounds more than a year ago. “I haven’t lost any of my speed, but now I can take those hits a little better,” he said.

Klein, though leaving high school with a 3.3 grade-point average, found college difficult early on. He failed his first midterms in three classes, which added to his depression over not playing football. He regrouped and finished with a 2.2 GPA, which he improved to 2.4 last semester despite a course load that included classes in nuclear technology and physics.

“I’ve learned the importance of academics,” Klein said. “I breezed through all of my classes in high school, but I can’t do that here. Getting my degree will require as much work or more than earning a starting job on the football team.

I know that it’s important to have a degree to fall back on since you never know when your football career will end.”

Although home for the summer, Klein hasn’t slowed his pace. He is working out six days a week, following a strict regimen of exercise. He regularly throws the ball, runs three miles on the beach and lifts weights. He recently began working out with USC quarterback Todd Marinovich, a close friend. And he’s also enrolled in a math class at Christ College in Irvine.

Klein admits he still has a lot to learn about Cal’s offensive system, but fully expects to be starting in the team’s opener Sept. 8 at Wisconsin. Mariucci said Klein has already beaten out sophomore Mike Beebe and shares the depth chart’s top spot with Pawlawski. Pawlawski played backup to Taylor last year, but saw limited action and has little varsity experience.

Klein’s commitment to earning the starting job has meant a temporary end to a promising volleyball career. A prep All-American, he had to bypass the volleyball season this spring to concentrate on football. He said he hopes to start up again after he establishes his role on the football team.

Cal finished a disappointing 4-7 last year, 2-6 and last place in the Pac-10. Since Klein prefers playing for winning programs, some may wonder how he will adjust to the possibility of leading a losing team.

“I knew what I was getting into when I decided to come here,” Klein said. “But building a winner is what excited me most about this place. When people ask me how it feels to be on a losing team I tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about.

“I was part of a rebuilding team at Palisades and that’s why I came here. I like that challenge. I think we’ll be very good in a couple of years. It may not happen until I graduate, but if I can have a hand in the rebuilding process that will make me happy.”