Difficult Road Leads to UCLA : College soccer: Former illegal immigrant Julio Umana provides spark off bench for Bruins.

Julio Umana picked his way hesitantly across the dark mountain, his older brother, Jose, at his side.

The boys traveled alone but were helped on their journey by people stationed like silent sentries along the trail. They appeared out of the brush to protect the boys, to tell them when to hide from the flashlights of border patrol guards and when to run.

And as night gave way to dawn, the tired, cold and scared boys reached their destination.

The United States.

That was in 1986.

It is late 1994 and Julio Umana is running still. On a recent Sunday, he was wearing a shiny white and blue UCLA soccer uniform, smiling as he jogged around UCLA’s North Soccer Field.

The fourth-ranked Bruins (14-1) will play unranked Notre Dame (8-8-1) tonight at 8 on Spaulding Field in the UCLA tournament. Umana, who gets considerable playing time as a reserve, will be there to lend a foot.

Umana is pleased to be playing soccer for the Bruins. After leaving his hometown of Santa Ana in war-torn El Salvador, he lived in Southern California, illegally, until he was granted amnesty by the U.S. government under the 1986 immigration reform act. That allowed more than 3 million formerly illegal immigrants to become documented and remain in the United States legally.

Umana attended North Hollywood High and was noticed quickly by UCLA Coach Sigi Schmid, who followed his progress through East L.A. College.

This is Umana’s only season of eligibility at UCLA, but he has a great appreciation for it.

Standing on the soccer field and looking up at the nearby buildings, he seems slightly in awe of his surroundings.

“My brother used to talk about UCLA having a great basketball team,” Umana said. “I never thought I would make it here, but I always wanted to.”

Umana, a midfielder who began the season in the starting lineup, now provides a spark off the bench and accepts that role graciously. He has two goals and three assists.

“This is probably the first time in his life where he has not been a starter, and that sometimes is hard, but he never complains,” Schmid said. “When I call his name on the bench, he jumps up and is ready to play. He has been a great example to the younger players in regard to his attitude.”

Schmid noticed Umana when he was playing for a club team as a sophomore at North Hollywood and wanted to recruit him. But Umana, who barely spoke English when he came to the United States and took English as a Second Language courses throughout high school, did not qualify academically for UCLA when he graduated from North Hollywood in 1989.

Umana worked odd jobs to help support his family for a while before he and his brother went back to school at East L.A. to continue their soccer careers. Julio scored 21 goals with 14 assists to lead East L.A. to the state championship in 1990. He was team captain in 1991. Jose is now playing semipro soccer.

Assistant coach Rick San Martin took an interest in Umana’s career. San Martin also is the coach at Pasadena La Salle High and he asked Umana to become his assistant. San Martin encouraged Umana in his academics.

“He is a great talent, both as a soccer player and as a leader of young men,” San Martin said. “I just saw him losing confidence in his academics and I was just kind of there to say, ‘Look, if you keep working at it, you’re going to be able to be as good a student as you are a soccer player.’ ”

Umana studied at East L.A. for two more years before he was accepted at UCLA.

Umana has advice for other Latinos who once thought continuing in school was too much to dream for.

“Do not stop going to school because of not having the money,” he said. “They should know that there’s a lot of things they can do, like grants, financial aid.”

Umana is one of few Latinos to have played soccer at UCLA. Schmid is pleased to have a representative of that community on the team.

“We wanted to show that there is a road that can lead to a place like UCLA, and not just to UCLA, it can also lead to Cal State Fullerton and to Stanford,” Schmid said. “Even if you didn’t take care of (academics) in high school, the junior college route . . . is a way to turn it around. It’s not over.”

The UCLA tournament begins when unranked Fullerton (9-6-1) plays top-ranked Indiana (16-1) at 6, followed by UCLA against Notre Dame. On Sunday on the North Soccer Field, Fullerton will play Notre Dame at 11 a.m. followed by the tournament’s feature game, UCLA against Indiana at 1.