He Had to Forsake One Love but Still Kept the Diamond

Sometimes you can be too talented.

Sometimes when you can outrun the wind, able to be in the right place at the right time to have a football drop softly into your hands, it is just too much.

Sometimes when your legs can cover more grass in the outfield than a tarp and when your arm makes that throw from center to home look as easy as playing catch in the driveway, it makes life too hard.

For when you have these talents, which have helped you become the best high school football player in the state and a baseball player who would be drafted by the pros, and you have to decide to quit one of those sports--the sport your dad excelled at, the sport you grew up around, the sport in which your idols made a living--then, yes, it can seem possible to be too talented.

As No. 15-ranked Cal State Fullerton prepares to open its baseball season this weekend against No. 7 Stanford, Rod Perry Jr., a football and baseball star at Santa Ana Mater Dei High and then a two-sport recruit for USC, probably will be the Titans’ starting right fielder.

It is possible this news is a surprise. The world wasn’t in Perry’s bedroom at night last spring and last summer while the tortured teenager tried to make what he calls “absolutely the hardest decision of my life.”

The decision that Perry made this summer was to quit playing football.

That statement sounds so dispassionate. Quit playing football.

But in that decision, so much more was tied up in the head and heart of a young man with big talent and big dreams.

For as long as he can remember, Perry has wanted to be like Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson. Perry has planned to play professional football and professional baseball, and so it was that Perry came to be a world-class wrestler this summer, a wrestler at least in his mind.

“I talked to people, I listened to people, I stayed up nights,” Perry said after Fullerton’s scrimmage against a Titan alumni team. “But ultimately the choice had to be mine, and I finally made it. I had to give up football.”

The beginning of the necessity for making this decision came in Perry’s junior year at Mater Dei.

It was just before that high school season that Perry had made the second-most difficult decision of his life.

His father, who had played as a defensive back for 10 years in the NFL, most of those for the Los Angeles Rams, had become an NFL coach. There were years in Seattle as an assistant, but now Rod Sr. was an assistant with the Rams and the son was a football and baseball star-in-waiting at athletic powerhouse Mater Dei.

Then the Rams moved to St. Louis. And then dad, the coach, took a job with the Houston Oilers. And the son, the player, moved to Houston. In a month, Perry begged to be allowed to return to Orange County, to live with friends, to finish what he had started at Mater Dei.

“It is such a hard choice for a parent to make,” Patrice Perry, a Fullerton native, said. “To let your child go. To know you can’t watch his accomplishments.”

But the parents let the child go. The reward for making that tough choice? The toughest of punishments. In a football game, doing what he always did so easily, Perry caught a football and ran. For some reason, Perry’s right knee buckled. “There was no one within a mile of him,” Mater Dei football Coach Bruce Rollinson remembered. “There was no one close to him,” Mater Dei baseball Coach Bob Ickes said.

That was the end of Perry’s junior year of sports. No more football. No baseball. Only reconstructive knee surgery to repair the torn anterior cruciate ligament and rehab while mom and dad wept and watched in Houston.

There was a major testament to Perry’s talent though. Then-USC football coach John Robinson called Perry the day after the injury, Perry said, “and he told me I could have a football scholarship to USC. He had that much faith in me,” Perry said.

And, indeed, a year later Perry played football and was named California high school player of the year. He was MVP of the All-American Bowl in Orlando, Fla., a game for the best high school players in the country. Oh, yes, and Perry accepted that scholarship to play football at USC, where he also planned to play baseball.

But in two-a-days before his freshman year, there was another misstep and the knee was twisted. Examination determined more surgery was necessary, mostly to redo some of the first surgery. Perry would not play football as a freshman at USC. He did play baseball, though.

Perry got two hits in the College World Series for USC last spring. Two key hits Trojan baseball Coach Mike Gillespie says. Even though he didn’t play any fall baseball or join the team for workouts until January, “his sheer athleticism was enough to get him on the field for us to play defense,” Gillespie said.

“What he is, he’s a special athlete. His hand-eye coordination was special, his speed, and he’s incredibly smart. He’s a guy who’s not polished as a baseball player but an exciting talent in baseball with a great future in the sport. If that’s what he wants.”

What he wanted was football and baseball. What his knee was telling Perry was, “Be careful about wanting too much,” Perry said.

That second knee injury and surgery had scared Perry a little. “He wanted to be a pro athlete,” Rollinson said. “I think he started to be afraid it wouldn’t happen in any sport after that second problem with the knee.”

As spring turned to summer, Perry told his dad he was thinking about quitting football. “It was hard for him to tell me,” Perry Sr. said. “In my heart, though, I was a little glad. I always thought baseball would be better. If the money had been there when I was growing up, I would have chosen baseball. I loved baseball.”

Perry Sr., now defensive back coach for the San Diego Chargers, did not tell his son what to do. He just listened.

“My dad even had Deion call me up and talk to me,” Perry Jr. said. He wouldn’t share the conversation, but he shared his appreciation. “It was so great of my dad to do that and for Deion to do that,” Perry Jr. said. “I love my dad for that.”

There was no grand epiphany. No light bulb over his head. Just lots of thinking, talking, listening. And then a weary acceptance. “It would be best for me,” Perry said, “to stick to baseball. I wanted a sports career. I feel like it’s more likely for me in baseball at this point.”

Perry tells his story while sitting on the field in the dusk after his first scrimmage as a Titan. Perry is eagerly awaiting his World Series championship ring, the one he earned last year as a Trojan. He turned 20 on Tuesday. He has been accepted fully as a Titan, you can tell, because his teammates are ragging on him for doing interviews already. “Media hound,” one of them yells and the rest laugh.

By the time Perry made up his mind to give up football over the summer, he ended up having to give up USC. No football, no football scholarship. NCAA rules allow Division I baseball teams only 11.7 scholarships, and those were all gone at USC.

“Tuition there is $30,000 a year,” Patrice Perry says. “That’s pretty steep for us.” Which tells us, by the way, that life as an assistant NFL coach is not one of wealth, not when you are raising three children.

So Perry’s first call was to Fullerton Coach George Horton. “I’m an Orange County guy at heart,” Perry says. “And Fullerton has a good program. I wanted to pick somewhere I would have a chance to go to another World Series.”

Horton said he had “some mixed emotions when Rod called. We had kids in the program, outfielders, that I felt OK with. I was honest with Rod, told him what he was up against. Told him it would be difficult. But, then, the reality is, Rod’s the kind of athlete that doesn’t come into a program every year.”

It is when Horton sees Perry in the outfield, running, “he has a glide to him, you know,” Horton said, that makes him smile. “He’s throwing so well. His aptitude is amazing. He picks things up so quickly.

“He had a super fall. It was exciting to watch. I’ve never seen a player who has shown improvement every day, every hour. Let’s face it. He likes to play. He likes to win. With his skills, albeit pretty raw, he’s an exciting pro prospect.”

Perry, who is 5 feet 10 and 185 pounds, started for the Trojans 19 times last season and batted .248 with one home run. All his baseball coaches agree that it is Perry’s hitting that has suffered from his devotion to football. By seldom playing summer or fall baseball, Perry just hasn’t seen enough live pitching.

He plans to play this summer in the highly competitive Alaska developmental league.

Patrice and Rod Sr. are at peace with their son’s choice. There are no hard feelings at USC, where everybody understands and accepts Perry’s choice.

And Perry? Is he sure? Has he done the right thing?

“I’ll always love football. I’ll love it deep in my heart,” Perry said. “I couldn’t watch any football on TV this fall, you know. Not a game. Maybe next fall. When you have a dream for so long, it’s hard to give up on it. But it’s over. Time to move on.”

With that, Perry jumped up. He grabbed a baseball bat and a jacket and ran to catch up with his teammates. Even in the dark of the evening you can see it. Perry doesn’t run. He glides, he slides, he covers that ground in a gulp. It is a talent. Special talent.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com