New Sphere of Influence : After 4 Years of Home Schooling, Guimaraes Enrolls at Saugus High--in Part to Play Soccer

On Sept. 10, 1992, Ed Guimaraes returned to the zoo. He strolled through the doors of Saugus High, his first steps in a public school in four years.

“I think Ed thought school was a zoo the first day,” his mother, Ellie, said.

Since 1988, Guimaraes, 16, had told friends and acquaintances he went to “private school.”

True. Guimaraes (pronounced Gee-MEHR-ez) attended a private school so exclusive, his sister Eloise, 15, was the only other student. They studied at home.

But after four years of comparatively stress-free living and studying under his fiercely protective mother, Guimaraes chose to re-enter a hectic, unfamiliar world as a high school junior. He desired more independence, to taste the life of a typical teen-ager.

And he wanted to play high school soccer.

Guimaraes has played soccer since he was 5. He emulated his older brother, Eraldo, who played for The Master’s College in 1989 and currently plays professionally for the Texas Lightning of the U.S. Interregional Soccer League.

Eraldo, recognizing his brother’s potential, encouraged Ed to play at the club level two years ago.

“He’s got the ability to be a very strong player,” Eraldo said. “He could definitely play college soccer, if he decides he wants to.”

Ed joined the Santa Clarita Heat and played the past two years, but club soccer wasn’t enough. Ed wanted to join the ranks of the Centurions.

“It just seems like there’s more involvement for high school soccer,” Guimaraes said. “There’s more money put into it. In club, you have to bring your own ball.”

He brought himself to the Saugus team tryout in November, made the team, and has been a part-time starter at forward. While not a star, he made an immediate impact, scoring a goal in his second match, a 2-1 win over Crespi.

More importantly, he has fit in well with a surprisingly strong Saugus team. The Centurions are 3-1-1, including a scoreless tie against powerful Thousand Oaks.

“Ed works well with the team,” teammate Dave Stimson said. “He’s a good, modest player who doesn’t ball-hog all the time like some guys like to. He doesn’t want all the glory for himself, he passes it off.”

Guimaraes also has impressed Saugus Coach Nate Wright, who had not heard of him before the tryout.

“I didn’t even know about this kid until he came into the system,” Wright said. “But he’s a hard worker. He’s very coachable, and an all-around good character.”

Guimaraes was knocked out of the Thousand Oaks match toward the end, colliding violently with the goalie and having the wind knocked out of him. He could barely breathe, so Wright held him out for the remainder of the contest. Guimaraes, still sore, returned for the following match.

Quite a turnaround for someone who, four years ago, desperately wanted out of public school.

After attending a private school through fifth grade, Guimaraes entered the public school system as a sixth-grader, into a situation he found fraught with fear and loathing.

“I had a teacher that was really unfair,” he said. “He shoved a kid in class. Right after that, he dumped the kid’s desk over. If your desk was messy, he’d dump it over. That kind of scared me. A lot of the other kids were scared too. Basically, it was just, ‘Keep your mouth shut and everything will be fine.’ ”

According to Ellie, the teacher accused her son of losing homework assignments that Ellie saw Ed complete and take to school. She said she eventually kept a log of every assignment Ed finished in order to refute the teacher’s claims.

Ellie could not iron out the problems, even though she spoke with the teacher, the principal and the school board. “I was all alone so I said, ‘Forget it,’ ” she said.

Like mother, like son.

“I said, “If that was going to be public school, I didn’t want to get into it,’ ” Ed said.

Ellie was supportive of his decision. She could sympathize about getting out of a bad situation. In 1967, she left her native Sao Paulo, Brazil, then in the grip of Castelo Branco’s military rule. She immigrated to the United States, joining her brother in Miami. Her husband, Ron, followed shortly, joining Ellie in California. Ron is a computer technician and Ellie runs an infant day care center out of their home.

Ed got the idea of home schooling from church friends, who were enrolled in Keystone Academy, a private school in Norwalk that supervises independent study programs--meaning, home schooling.

“Ed said, “If they can do it, why can’t I?’ ” Ellie recalls.

His next four years were spent studying at their Valencia home. He sometimes helped Ellie with her child care business; she helped him with algebra.

So he did.

Guimaraes relaxed away from the stresses of public school and matured academically. “It made me realize what I could handle and what my abilities were, without pressure,” he said. “I spent more time reading and trying to do things on my own.”

His bond with his mother also was strengthened.

“The time home was most valuable that he spent with me,” she said. “I was able to build his character a little more than at school, where they don’t have as much time to teach. I became very close to my children. We became friends.”

Guimaraes continued to play soccer. Eraldo coached Ed’s youth team in 1989. He would bring his 13-year-old brother to The Master’s practice field on Sunday afternoons to scrimmage with other Mustang players.

During Guimaraes’ first year in club soccer he played in the under-16 division and “got rocked around a little bit. The next year I went a division lower and that seemed to work out really good.”

Still, something was missing. He yearned to play at Saugus High.

“I just wanted to experience high school,” Guimaraes said. “I’d heard so many stories about how fun it is. I wanted to play soccer and get involved with sports. I heard the bad things about school too, but if you keep at your own end you won’t get into trouble. I was curious.”

Again, he made his own decision. He was going to public high school, something Eraldo never did and Eloise has no plans of doing.

But independence is a double-edged sword--freedom can be unsettling. Suddenly, his life was more complex, more rushed.

“I feel stressed at Saugus,” Guimaraes said. “I miss independent schooling, where I felt more relaxed. I came up from a Christian environment, and I wasn’t used to all the swearing and the style and everything (of public school). It was hard for me to adjust. I just kind of stayed in my own corner and made friends slowly.”

Some of his church friends went to Saugus, but the change was still difficult.

“At first I don’t think he was really happy to be here,” said Guimaraes’ teammate and friend, Kerry Campbell. “It was hard for him--a new experience.”

In Guimaraes’ first week, the whole school gathered for a football pep rally. Normal high school stuff, with the students divided by class. Problem was, Guimaraes had never heard of a rally. He ended up in the freshmen section, without a clue.

“When you come in to high school as a freshman, they tell you what to do,” Campbell said. “Coming in as a junior, they expect you to know stuff, like what a rally or a schedule of classes is.”

Some aspects of school life remain a mystery--”I still don’t know what detention is,” Ed said with a grin--but his assimilation and rising comfort level coincided with soccer season.

“I think soccer helped a lot,” Campbell said. “He made lots of new friends, plus it’s fun.”

“It’s exciting,” Guimaraes said. “Like a little adventure. It’s cool.”

The ultimate new kid is now one of the guys. He joined the rest of the Centurions on Dec. 18 in a team fund-raiser, playing soccer in the school gym from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.

His teammates tease him because he won’t swear. They call him “Careca,” a Brazilian soccer star he resembles.

“ ‘Careca’ in Portuguese means bald,” Ellie said with a laugh.

“But I’ve got plenty of hair,” Ed said.

“Which I’d be glad to fix if I had a chance,” Ellie said, eyeing Ed’s long, reddish locks.

Exchanges like those must be rarer for mother and son, now that he has chosen a different life style, a more difficult, self-reliant one.

“Let’s put it this way . . .,” Ellie began.

“She’s lonely,” Ed finished.