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AOY Rewind: Perdido comes full circle

After pro career is cut short, Seabury grad finds fulfillment in family, mentoring

By Robert Collias 7 min read

AOY Rewind is a special series of stories catching up with a handful of past Maui News Athletes of the Year. Stories will run periodically throughout the fall in The Maui News.

 

Tye Perdido has come full circle in the soccer world, with starting and ending points on Maui.

The co-head coach for the King Kekaulike High School boys program is one of the most accomplished players ever to come out of the Maui Interscholastic League.

After a standout career at Seabury Hall that helped him become The Maui News MIL Boy Athlete of the Year in 2005-06, he starred at Gonzaga University for four years and then played three seasons professionally -- one for the Seattle Sounders in Major League Soccer and two more for the Kitsap Pumas of the lower-tier Premier Development League.

After a persistent knee injury led to the end of his professional career, he has found contentment as a husband, father of three, Maui County firefighter and mentor to the boys in the King Kekaulike program that has won the last two MIL titles.

He and wife Sam -- an athletic trainer at King Kekaulike -- juggle their busy lives that include children Tayli, who is 7 years old, Braxton, 4, and Brody, who was born five weeks ago. He is a firefighter on a rescue company for MFD out of the Kahului station.

"We're the guys who go out in the helicopter," Perdido said. "Our primary job is search and rescue, so any type of swift waters flash flood stuff, ocean rescues, mountain rescues, rope rescues. We'll do a lot of the technical side of things."

Becoming a fireman came into focus when he couldn't shake a patella dislocation injury that first happened as a sophomore at Gonzaga and kept popping up -- the final time left him on crutches as the Kitsap Pumas of Bremerton, Wash., won the PDL title in 2011.

"I found out that soccer wasn't really going to be my career, I couldn't really make another stint with soccer," he said. "I kind of hit a lull in my career and Sam, she really wanted to move home. It started to affect her emotionally a lot and so I started trying to figure out what I would do on Maui if I didn't have soccer. ... I kept dislocating my patella numerous times."

Now, when he is not at the fire station, he runs a landscape business, drives the kids to school and stands out as a mentor to the King Kekaulike program. He started with the program as an assistant five years ago and became co-head coach with Barry McKay three seasons ago.

"I've seen him grow a lot," McKay said. "He definitely is knowledgeable of the game. Just coming out and meeting his new players to him, returning players. Watching these players for a couple hours or days ... he just can see talent and see where it's needed and what can be improved on and where it can be utilized.

"Even throughout games, he's telling kids where to stand and the next thing you know the ball is coming right to their feet."

Perdido is part of the scrimmage mix at King Kekaulike practice on a regular basis.

"I first met Tye when I came back to coach," said Ryan Arakawa, a graphic design teacher at King Kekaulike and the head soccer coach from 2012-16. "Having seen him play, he was a workhorse and a beast on the field, the guy you had to have defenders cover. I saw his work ethic as he wanted to go to college and I followed him all through college and saw how he did at Gonzaga and Kitsap Puma.

"So, when he came back I knew that I wanted him on the staff somehow because of his knowledge of the game and his skill and talent."

Perdido learned a lot of the skills it takes to balance his busy life at Seabury Hall, where he played six sports -- eight-player football and volleyball in the fall, paddling at the same time as soccer in the winter, and in the spring he played baseball and ran track.

"Time management was huge," he said. "A lot of what I learned in high school of just having the drive to pursue whatever sport I was in to get better at it or more proficient, it is definitely something I have taken away from it to be able to use in my everyday life now."

He played with fellow Mauian Daniel Scott at Gonzaga for two years and then with Kitsap for two more seasons. He also played with Zach Scott -- Daniel's older brother --for a season on the Sounders. Zach Scott retired in 2016 after 272 appearances for the Sounders over a decorated 16-year career.

"Playing with those guys was really great," Perdido said.

As his professional career ended, he was able to lean on Sam both emotionally and through her sports medical knowledge.

"She kind of knew what I was going through," Perdido said. "She could understand through her training and education. She saw the moods that I would be in and helped me get through it."

A "dirty tackle" was the final straw in a career filled with rehab stints for the knee that just wouldn't fully heal. It came in the semifinal match of the PDL playoffs in 2011.

"I got hit from behind -- it was like a dirty tackle -- and I felt my knee again," he said. "That was kind of where I instantly knew what happened and knew I would be out for the finals, so I just basically had to watch the guys win the title from the sideline. We celebrated and I was on crutches. At that point I was, like, 'Is this really what I want to do with my life?'

"The emotional roller coaster that comes with professional anything is just, bar none, you go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and it's basically all off of how you perform. ... That really takes a toll if you let it get to you and it definitely did in a really young professional career without any guidance to navigate through it. It was really tough for me to figure it out."

It was a hard reality to accept less than three years out from a standout college career.

"I took it really hard because that's just who I am. I expect myself to be the best I can," Perdido said. "Coming from Maui and trying to be the best in soccer and in volleyball, it was kind of an eye-opener to see how good people are and to kind of learn a lot about myself. I was humbled very much by having to say 'I think this is not for me.' "

He uses that life experience -- and a final comeback two years ago with the Guam national team over a few months of international play -- to guide the players at King Kekaulike.

Perdido had emailed the Guam national coach to ask for a trial. Players on the Guam team who played against Perdido in the West Coast Conference vouched for his ability, and he ended up playing in tournaments for the U.S. territory's national team in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Oman.

"To be honest I got off the plane and was not really expecting much," he said. "I was, like, 'This is my last step, close up shop for myself and get to some closure.' Then I found out, I was like, 'Man, I can still hang with these guys.' "

The time away from his family helped convince him that his time as a player was a finished chapter.

"As I got older and started coaching I got a lot more knowledge of the game and I didn't have to work as hard as I used to and I could still have success," Perdido said. "Then they went in a different direction, just kind of phased me out, got some younger blood in there and at the end of it I wasn't as upset about that as far as the closing of that chapter of my life. I knew where my priorities were now."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com

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