UCLA’s George Honed Skills Battling His Older Brothers

It shouldn’t come as a much of a surprise that senior striker Seth George scored both goals in UCLA’s national championship victory over Virginia last December, or that he’s steadily climbing up the Bruins’ all-time goal-scoring list--seventh now with 42--or that he has scored a goal or had an assist in nine of 10 games this season.

After all, he had a soccer ball at his feet when he first learned to walk and he has been unmercifully driven to be the best he can be ever since.

This is not, however, another dreary tale of an obsessive stage-mom or a father seeking to live out his dreams of athletic glory through his offspring. It’s not about personal trainers for kindergartners or a kid who has never had a cheeseburger and fries.

In fact, George had a very ordinary upbringing in Mission Viejo. He was just a kid trying to keep up with three older brothers.

“We always needed one more guy to make it two on two, no matter what sport it was, and he was there,” said Sam George, a former Mater Dei High and UCLA player who’s now a midfielder with Major League Soccer’s Tampa Bay Mutiny. “He did everything we did. He’s always been a great, great athlete and he fit in rather quickly. I can’t remember exactly when, but at a young age, he started beating us.”

He has been beating the world ever since . . . thanks to the on-going inspiration provided by brothers Scott, 31, Steve, 27, who played at Cal State Fullerton and professionally with the Salsa, and Sam. (He also has a younger brother, Spencer, who plays soccer at Santa Margarita High.)

The Bruins, 9-1 and ranked No. 2 by Soccer America, were struggling through a second overtime period against Loyola Marymount Oct. 4, and George was running on empty. “I was dead tired, but I saw Sam sitting down in the corner and I just found a way to push through.”

Minutes later, he was pushing in the game-winning goal for UCLA, flashing in to beat Loyola keeper Jerad Bailey to a loose ball in the box before a jarring collision that left George with a huge bruise on his thigh.

Seth was limping, but Sam was smiling, and that seems to be just about all that matters. “Hey, if I don’t play well, they’ll kill me,” George said. “If you don’t play well, you’ll hear about it at family dinners for a long time to come.”

In a 16-year soccer career that began with an auspicious and prophetic debut, George, 22, has seldom had to suffer supper-time sarcasm. When he was 5, his AYSO team played at halftime of a UCLA game at Santa Ana Stadium.

“They played on the full-sized field, it was so cute,” George’s mother, Julie, said. “Seth scored two goals and his team won, 2-1. After the second goal, the announcer said, ‘Maybe someday you’ll see this little guy in a UCLA uniform.”’

George, in Bruin blue and gold, leads the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in points this year with 23 (eight goals, seven assists). He is two goals shy of tying fellow Mission Viejo resident and U.S. national team player Joe-Max Moore’s UCLA record of 17 game-winning goals.

At Santa Margarita, where he led all Orange County scorers with 53 points in 1994 after helping the Eagles to a Southern Section title in 1993, he holds records in career and single-season goals and assists. He also led a Huntington Beach club team to a national title and a Yorba Linda club team to a state title.

And George’s contributions to all this winning are always so obvious--they show up immediately on the scoreboard--in a team-oriented sport where most performances are rated on intangibles. George is a finisher of the first order, one of those rare players who possess an innate knack for squeezing the ball into the net.

“A lot of his shots knuckle, really move a lot, which gives him a very dangerous shot from distance,” UCLA Coach Sigi Schmid said. “And Seth can create opportunities as well, he scores a lot of goals off the dribble. Plus, he’s a great passer who sets up a lot of goals.

“But he’s always had a nose for the goal. He scored a lot of goals in club, in high school and he’s continued to do it here. You can refine it, but you can’t teach someone to be a goal-scorer like Seth. It’s almost a natural instinct.”

George is the first to admit he can’t think of anything more fun than scoring a goal, but he rankles at the notion that forwards are sometimes viewed as prima donnas who just hang out in front of the goal, waiting for glory.

“It’s a very demanding role and there’s a lot of pressure,” he said. “My job is to score a goal, and beating all those defenders and the keeper and getting the ball in that little net is a very difficult thing to do. And if I don’t score a goal, I haven’t done my job.

“The hardest part to deal with is getting a chance and not finishing it. When you miss a shot, your confidence goes down, but when you’re a goal-scorer, you have to be able to regain your focus and keep your concentration.”

George, who almost broke his foot when he kicked a goal post after missing some shots as a sophomore in college, has learned to channel his anger. “Now, I’ll be devastated after the game if I’ve missed five easy chances, but as long as the game’s still going, I’m ready if No. 6 comes up,” he said.

George is a bit of a legend on campus for his unique way of dealing with the pressure and frustrations and getting in touch with his inner psyche. After his last final exam his sophomore year, he decided to ride his skateboard home to Mission Viejo from Westwood, a pleasant little 75-mile jaunt.

He rolled down Santa Monica Boulevard to the beach, pushed his way south on a combination of the beach boardwalk and Pacific Coast Highway all the way to Fashion Island in Newport Beach and then headed up MacArthur Boulevard--with a slight detour in and around the development of Turtle Rock in Irvine and a short ride in a police car--arriving at home 13 hours later at 4 in the morning.

“It was nice, I needed it,” George said. “The pressure of finals, the city so crowded that it gets to you after a while, being on the open road was just what I needed. I thought I would be dead tired, but I wasn’t. I had my headphones on, you know.”

George’s recollections--the wind in his face, the sound of the road, well, sidewalk anyway, under his wheels--are a bit more romantic than the way his mother remembers it.

“It was awful,” she said. “His feet were a wreck. He got lost in Turtle Rock and was so exhausted and frustrated he finally waved down a police car.”

The cop gave him a ride as far as he could, directions on the quickest way back to Mission Viejo, and a lecture about the sanity of skateboarding through the Southland in the middle of the night.

“You know, boys do stupid things,” his mother said.

But George insists he is much more mature these days, especially on the soccer field. And he’s convinced it will be soccer smarts and mental tenacity that will carry him up to the next rung, alongside his brother, Sam, in the MLS.

Sam admits his prejudice, but he has seen his younger brother scrap and fight and work and train and play and most of all learn and he believes Seth will succeed as a professional soccer player . . . out of sheer determination if for no other reason.

Heck, eight or 10 hours into that skateboard journey, he could’ve just called home for a ride.

“The thing that makes Seth so special is that when you play against him, you know you have to mark him the whole game,” Sam said. “And even though you try, he’ll get his couple of chances anyway. And he’s probably going to finish one of them. No matter what level, that’s the way it has been his whole career and I don’t see any reason why that would change.

“Still, it will be a big transition. You don’t get any respect from the older guys, and if you do well, the older guys are jealous. There will be people who will try to break you down. Opponents will test you. So mental toughness is a big part.

“But I don’t think there’s any question he has the experience to deal with it.”