Tumultuous Two Years in Past, Vlcek’s Life Is Back to Normal : Soccer: Foothill goalie finally adjusting after dealing with parents’ divorce and gangs at former school.

Jason Vlcek batted away one soccer ball after another. It almost looked easy.

This is where he is at his best, in the goal for Foothill High School. A place where he’s comfortable.

Another shot, another save. It was only practice, but practice makes perfect.

Vlcek, a junior, appeared almost carefree, a kid playing a game. This is the way it was supposed to be.

“Soccer has kept me going,” Vlcek said. “It was something to do that took my mind off the problems.”

Vlcek doesn’t look warily over his shoulder these days. The next corner he turns doesn’t lead to a confrontation.

It has been a little more than a year since Vlcek left Orange High School, where gangs made life intolerable for him. He has found peace of mind at Foothill (4-2-1).

Along the way, he has had to weather his parents’ divorce, which left him numb, and the change of schools, which left him an outsider.

The end result, though, has been good.

“There’s been a lot of pressure and it’s been hard,” Vlcek said. “It’s made me tough.”

Vlcek doesn’t mince words. With him, you get an honest, sometimes sharp, answer.

It’s a personality that some have found abrasive.

“People either love Jason or they hate him,” said Candy Vlcek, his mother.

No matter the personal feelings, people had to admit that Vlcek was a good soccer player.

He began playing at 8, when he made the the Orange Earthquakes, a club team, as a forward. However, he missed the first two weeks of practice because his family went on vacation.

“When I got back, the coach told me that all the positions had been filled except the goalie,” Vlcek said. “It was either play goalie or sit on the bench. I wasn’t going to sit on the bench.”

The move paid off. Vlcek became a good goalie, good enough to make the Orange varsity as a freshman.

He even started the first four games of the season while senior Tres Martin was still playing football. Vlcek posted four shutouts.

“There was no doubt that Jason had really good skills,” Orange Coach Ed Carrillo said. “He was going to be my goalie for the next three seasons.”

But off the field, things weren’t going so smoothly.

Vlcek crossed a senior, who began bullying him. On one occasion, the senior threw him against the wall, threatening him. Another time, he followed through on that threat, beating up Vlcek.

The matter might have died, except the senior had ties to a gang. Vlcek and a friend became targets around school.

“You just had to be careful at that school,” Vlcek said. “You couldn’t look at anybody the wrong way or you’d be in trouble. I know my friend used to get it all the time.”

At the same time, Vlcek was going through a family crisis. Three days before his birthday, his father left, leaving he and his mother to fend for themselves.

Vlcek has not talked to his father since.

“It was hard enough for Jason to go through the normal problems a 15-year-old faces, plus the gang situation,” Candy Vlcek said. “But having a mother struggling to make ends meet and not speaking to his father made it difficult for him.”

Candy Vlcek went back to school, taking 18 units, and also had a part-time job. Jason had to take care of himself, help around the house and try to keep up with his studies.

“It was tough on Mom,” Vlcek said. “She wouldn’t get home until 8 or 9 p.m., so I did as much as I could. I had to be responsible.”

The situation at school didn’t help matters.

The gang troubles continued throughout the soccer season. Candy Vlcek said that after one match, she, her mother and Jason were hassled on their way to the car.

“Jason would always walk around school with a couple of friends to be safe,” Candy Vlcek said. “I even held him out of school a couple weeks, hoping that they would forget about him. But those kids don’t forget.

“I talked with a vice principal and he told me, ‘If it were my son, I wouldn’t bring him back to this school.’ That scared me.”

At the end of the school year, the Vlceks moved to a small apartment within the Foothill boundaries.

Although the school was safer, Vlcek adjusted slowly. He knew a few other students through soccer, but he was mostly a stranger.

“Jason is definitely a social person; I see him wandering around school talking to people all the time,” Foothill soccer Coach Barry Turner said. “He’s a character.”

Which wasn’t always good. Turner and Vlcek got off to a rocky start.

“Call it a personality clash,” Turner said. “Jason is a joker, but sometimes he goes a bit too far. It took a while, but we straightened things out.”

Turner had no complaints about his goalie’s play.

Vlcek had 13 shutouts last season, leading the Knights into the second round of the Southern Section 3-A playoffs. Foothill lost to South Torrance, 2-1.

“I remember one game against El Modena where he was incredible,” Turner said. “He was blocking shots with his body, legs, anything he could. One kid came in one-on-one and I thought the shot was past Jason. But, somehow, he got a piece of it.”

What Vlcek remembers most about last season were the two Century League matches against Orange. He didn’t allow a goal in either game--a 0-0 tie and a 1-0 Knight victory.

“It was fun,” Vlcek said. “Those guys are still my friends. I never had any problems with them. But I sure liked shutting them out twice.”

There was a hint of satisfaction, maybe even happiness, in Vlcek’s voice. After nearly two years of dealing with problems, life is more or less back to normal.

Vlcek and his mother recently moved into a condominium near Foothill after spending the past year in a small apartment. Candy is working for Project Independence, an organization that works with developmentally disabled adults, as a community relations coordinator.

Jason, meanwhile, is comfortable.

“Everything is falling into place,” he said.