Valdivia Isn’t Wasting His Second Chance
Given a second lease on his professional life after a disastrous 1996 season, Armando Valdivia seems to be making the most of this opportunity.
He has scored nine points and though it doesn’t put him in the same category as Dallas’ Tatu, he’s among the Splash’s scoring leaders.
Valdivia has played as well as any of his teammates in the early going of the Splash’s fourth season at the Pond of Anaheim. The team is 3-2 and plays at Seattle tonight.
It seems a wonder Valdivia is playing at all in a four-year career that spiraled downward.
Valdivia had 30 points in 21 games as a rookie from Cal State Northridge in 1994. Last year, he two goals and two assists in 13 games.
“[Valdivia] just needed someone to believe in him,” said player/coach Dale Ervine. “I told him I know what you can do, but I need you to do it. He came into training in the best shape of anyone and he’s showing me the player he was.”
Valdivia’s rookie season was cut short by a knee injury, and his second was hampered by being out of shape after failing to let the injury heal properly. His production fell from 30 points in 21 games to 21 points in 27 games.
Then it got worse.
In the preseason of 1996, he was injured in a one-car accident on the San Diego Freeway. He suffered a separated shoulder, a concussion, a minor back injury and various lacerations.
A month later, he was waived by the Splash. He played seven games in Seattle (two goals, two assists), and was waived again. He re-signed with the Splash for the final third of the season but had no points or assists in six games.
“The accident set me back a long ways--I can’t believe how far it set me back mentally and physically,” Valdivia said.
There were nightmares about the accident. There was lack of motivation. There was the emotional hurt of being cut from his first professional team, and then having it happen again.
He admits, there were nights he went through the motions, in part because he didn’t believe in Coach Ian Fulton, General Manager Don Ebert or what they were trying to accomplish.
“You look at what [Ervine’s] doing now--he’s sincere about what he says on and off the field,” Valdivia said. “You want to play for a coach like Dale. I think that’s what was missing last year. It helps a lot when you have a coach you respect and want to win for, it comes out in the players and it shows.”
In hindsight, he should have stayed home when he was cut by the Splash and worked on recovering, physically and emotionally, from the accident. When the season ended, he went to Ridgecrest for six months to be with his parents and work out on his own.
“I look at the accident as an event that opened my eyes--God’s way of telling me that the way you’re living your life isn’t the right way,” Valdivia said. “Soccer’s an important part of my life, and that’s the way I lived. Everything else was second. I wasn’t in touch with my family, my girlfriend.
“It was very simple. I had the privacy, I was away from the sport and I didn’t have to be soccer-oriented. I started doing other things that helped me find myself.”
There, in Ridgecrest, he had a revelation.
He reorganized his priorities, established what he wanted to do professionally and set about getting himself fit.
Ervine phoned Valdivia in February not knowing what kind of personal changes and commitments he had made.
“Here’s a man who was going to give me the opportunity to play again after the season I had last year--he believed in me,” Valdivia said. “That meant everything to me.
“I believe I can play at this level and I want to prove that. I don’t want to let Dale down for believing in me. I want to show he made the right decision.”
So far, no one is disputing Ervine’s faith. The result has been a more mature player--and person.
“It’s been a turnaround and we all see it,” said Bernie Lilavois, the Splash’s leading scorer. “A lot of his off-the-field problems have affected him the last couple of years, and it’s nice to see him put all that behind him and show his true capabilities.”
Splash Note
The Splash took Shane Hickson in the league’s supplemental draft Thursday. Hickson, a defender, was a member of the Splash teams that won division titles in 1994 and 1995.
