1st-Rate 4th-Stringer : Playing With Half a Left Arm, Glendale’s Perez Inspires Teammates

Listen closely. Those aren’t boos.

Cruuuz, Cruuuz, Cruuuz resonates in baritone from a pack of more than 50 Glendale College football players clustered along the sideline.

It is the fourth quarter, another victory is securely in hand, and the Vaqueros are cruising. So their attention has turned to free safety Cruz Perez.

Perez is stationed in the middle of the Glendale secondary, eyes darting, his brain assimilating a week’s worth of film footage and notes on the opposition’s tendencies.

The game, in practical terms, is over. But for Perez it has just begun. He has trained himself for these moments, though they can be few and far between.

Perez, a 5-foot-10, 160-pound sophomore, would be just another anonymous fourth-string player filling in while the clock winds down if not for a single, distinctive characteristic: He was born with half a left arm.

Yet the arm is not the reason his teammates choose to chant their support from the sidelines.

“He’s earned their respect because he prepares himself like a starter,” said John Cicuto, coach of the 5-1 Vaqueros. “Our kids like to see him in there because they recognize he has a great work ethic.”

Perez’s training schedule stretches the length of the calendar. In the off-season, he runs track and lifts weights. During the season, he faithfully endures conditioning exercises, diligently studies scouting reports and is a regular in the film room.

Why?

“It’s like Coach Cicuto says, if you’re not ready when your time comes up, you don’t help the team,” Perez said. “You never know when you might have to go in. I make sure I have a good feeling about what the other team does so when I go in, I’m ready.”

In four games, either at free safety or on the second-string kickoff unit, he has made two tackles and deflected a pass. Moreover, Perez has left an indelible impression on teammates and coaches who say he is hampered more by inexperience than for want of an arm.

“He doesn’t look at himself as having a handicap,” Cicuto said. “He doesn’t ask to be treated differently. He doesn’t want that. You look at players and talk about courage. . . . This kid has more courage than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

Perez did not participate in athletics at Roosevelt High in Los Angeles. His background in football comes almost exclusively from watching his brother, Danny, a receiver who played at Glendale College in 1988 and ’89.

The disparity between high school and college competition challenges even those who have been playing for years. “Being back there in the middle of everything (in the secondary), it’s still hard to get used to,” said Mark Garza, Glendale’s starting free safety. “It’s a different level.”

Garza says he “couldn’t imagine” starting a football career in college, much less with one arm. “Tackling, you know, you can’t wrap,” he said.

Perez adapts by using his head. In the waning minutes of Glendale’s 48-22 win over Santa Barbara City last Saturday, Perez made a tackle on a receiver that might have saved a touchdown.

“The guy’s coming across the middle and Cruz just gave him his whole body and cut the guy right down,” Cicuto said.

Moments such as that are precious to Perez, who was told by another junior college coach that he “would never be seventh-string.”

Two years ago, when he was attending East Los Angeles College, Perez said he was met by a coach’s icy indignation when he asked to try out for the football team.

“He told me, ‘You’re not going to make it here because you only have one arm and no experience,’ ” Perez recalled. “ ‘They’ll run over you.’ ”

Except in practice, they never got a chance. He was never given an opportunity to play.

The coach gruffly cited concerns for his safety, Perez says, but Perez questions his sincerity. “He just didn’t want to deal with me,” Perez said. “I wasn’t that bad, but nobody there wanted to coach you or teach you. That’s why I’m here.”

On the advice of his brother, Perez transferred and approached Cicuto.

“We knew he was a good athlete from watching him play basketball in a class here,” Cicuto said. “And he went out for track so we asked the coach about him. He said, ‘He’s got a phenomenal attitude.’ That was all we needed to hear.”

Perez was welcomed to the team but advised to be realistic about his chances of earning much playing time.

“We told him he wasn’t going to be a starter but to come out and have fun, that he would play in practice and if the opportunity came, we would try to get him in the game,” Cicuto said.

The coach has been true to his word. In turn, Perez has kept his end of the bargain. He would like to play more, but he also knows his place on one of the Southland’s top junior college teams.

He is fourth-string, not seventh, and he has his own cheering section.