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Todd Archer
Arlington, Texas – Luis Pérez was like many young children. His dream was to be a NFL field marshal. Remember to bed with a football ball when I was little.
But the path that awaits will take him to the NFL one day, even at age 30, it is different from any other and has little to do with being the seafood of the renegade Arlington of the UFL or a student of the Spring League, the USFL, the American football alliance and the original XFL.
That path was so incredible that Pérez wrote an autobiography, “The Spring King”, which was launched last week. The title is a wink to the nickname they gave him for his success in the Primavera Professional Leagues.
“I feel that I would harm the people if I do not share my story and everything that happened,” said Pérez, whose renegades (1-0) play the Houston Roughnecks (0-1) on Sunday (noon et, ESPN/ESPN+). “I still think that many people can positively affect and change lives.”
The closed wing renegade Sal Cannella has been Pérez’s teammate during the last three years. Although he knows Pérez’s background, he still can’t understand it.
“It seems that it will become a Netflix documentary or something in a moment,” said Cannella. “He has to do it. It’s just one of those stories that almost feels like fiction, you know, where you couldn’t believe it. But the fact that it is real just makes you respect even more.”
Pérez played a little The field marshal that grew in youth football, but was also a closed and offensive wing line. He never played university football at Otay Ranch High School in Chula Vista, California. Instead, he was an consummated bowling player. I had 12 perfect games. I could have gone to college with a bowling scholarship.
While watching his friends play his last football match of the High School, he revived his dream of Mariscal de Campo.
“I knew I could always go back to bowling,” Pérez said. “It’s like a bicycle. You can play when you are 50, 60 years old. Your window to get to the NFL is so small. You can’t wait for that dream.”
He went to YouTube to learn to play as a field marshal. Yes, YouTube.
“I don’t know a field marshal coach, I don’t know how to get these people into account, so I say: ‘Let me reach YouTube’, and I began to see basic fundamental tutorials,” Pérez said. “All I knew was that I could throw a pretty spiral and had a big arm. That’s it.”
For hours I would see the highlight of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady. He bought an entire body mirror to make sure his shape was like his. He would practice taking five steps drops in his room.
He did it for four or five months when he connected with Akili Smith, former General Selection No. 3 of the Cincinnati Bengals in 1999 who had become a field marshal coach.
“After that time with Akili, I thought, ‘Hey, what do I do from now?
Smith told him About Southwestern College, a Junior University in Chula Vista. Pérez remembers having entered the office of coach Ed Carberry and saying that she was going to be her regular field marshal.
“Where did you play? Where is your tape?” He said Carberry asked him.
When Pérez told him that he did not play high school football, Carberry laughed.
“He said: ‘The practice is like that and it is a moment. It is a junior university, so I cannot cut you, but you can come and try’,” Pérez said. “This is how it started.”
When he appeared for the first practice, it was the ninth field marshal in the depth table.
“I am the first there, the last to leave, and I have no repetitions to try to learn the plays,” he said.
With the players who leave school or chose other sports, moved to number 4 on the list. In the autumn camp, he won the backup place. In the fourth game of the season, opener Frank Foster suffered a shoulder injury, forcing Pérez to enter the game. He launched a touchdown pass in Southwestern’s victory.
In the perfect script, it would have been the initiator forever.
“Oh, no, no, no. There is more,” Pérez said.
Of course.
He suffered one leg broken a few games later and lost the rest of the season. I could not return to the field to the summer camp. By then, Tofi Paopao, a star in Oceanside High School before attending Florida International, was transferred to the southwest and would be the headline. Paopao was injured and Pérez took over the headline. The season ended with 18 Touchdown passes and three interceptions, dividing time with Paopao.
But there were no scholarship offers when the season ended up to a UC-Davis last minute offer. But that was removed after they told him that he did not have a transferable kind of mathematics from Southwestern.
Devastated, Pérez returned to the Internet. He checked to see if the field marshals of Division II have reached the NFL. He found the name Dustin Vaughan, who starred in Western Texas A&M and spent time with the cowboys. Colby Carthel was an assistant at West Texas A&M and assumed the work in Texas A&M Commerce, so he called Carthel.
The coaches were To California to see Pérez work and offered a scholarship. Redshirized his first year and became a starter for two seasons. In 2016, he established a school record for the TouchDown passes (32) and took the trade to the playoffs of Division II where they lost to the state of Grand Valley in the semifinals.
In their last season, the Lions won the National Championship. He launched for 5,001 yards and had 46 touchdown passes. The winner of the Harlon Hill trophy won the equivalent of Division II of the Heisman Trophy.
He played at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, winning the initial work on John O’Korn in Michigan and Kenny Hill of TCU, but did not have an invitation to the combination of the NFL. He launched the Texas A&M professional with Johnny Manziel when the former heisman trophy winner was trying to return.
“I can launch against a first round selection, and they can see how I am,” said Pérez. “That put me on the map.”
But he would not be recruited. Two weeks later, he didn’t even have an invitation to a rookie camp when they called the Los Angeles Rams. A field marshal left his camp.
“I’m going to launch and I kill it,” Pérez said. “I probably had one of the best launch days I have had. And I remember Les Snead, the GM, he brings me and tells me: ‘You really impressed me. We are going to sign.’ And that was my chance.”
Five years after starting his trip on YouTube, Pérez was a NFL field marshal, for about four months. The Rams cut it at the end of the training field. Two weeks after the season, he was released from the practice team.
Since then, Pérez has had brief stops with other teams: Philadelphia Eagles for three weeks in the spring of 2019 and four days with the Detroit Lions later that summer. In 2022, he had another career with the Rams that ended during the training camp.
Last summer, after leading the UFL in air yards and touchdowns, it was signed by the Los Angeles Chargers. He played the second half of the second preseason game, but he was among his final cuts after the chargers changed for Taylor Heinicke.
“I want to say that you are so close, but you try not to stop in adversity,” Pérez said. “Five or six years ago, I would have been devastated. That is the team of my hometown. Now? It’s like, ‘ok, I didn’t do it, what am I going to do to be better to do it next time?’ That is just my mentality. “
Spring football has He kept his NFL dream alive.
You can recite your curriculum year after year.
Birmingham in the AAF in 2019. Los Angeles Wildcats in the original XFL and changed the New York guardians before the league closed for Covid in 2020. The Spring League in 2021, winning the Mega Bowl with the Jousters.
In 2022, he played for the New Jersey generals of the USFL. The following year he returned to the XFL with Los Vegas Vipers before being changed to the renegades.
Led those renegades to an XFL championship.
“We weren’t a cohesive real team, and we were fighting before taking it with four games for the end, and he really galvanized our football team,” said Arlington’s offensive coordinator Chuck Long. “He gathered everyone, put everyone on the same page and brought a lot of positive energy and took us to a championship.”
Long was runner -up by Bo Jackson for the Heisman trophy in 1985 as the Iowa field marshal. It was a first round of the Detroit Lions. He trained Josh White to a Heisman trophy and Josh Heupel to a national championship in Oklahoma. During the last three seasons, he has met with coach Bob Stops in Arlington.
“It is the most unique field marshal I have heard,” Long said about Pérez’s trip. “And I have heard many of them … he is very strong and has worried about the success in learning the football game.”
Cannella has had a professional path similar to that of Pérez. He realized him when they played with each other in the Spring League. Among the short races with a handful of NFL teams, Cannella has also played in XFL, USFL and UFL.
Last year, he led UFL closed wings in captures (53), Yardas (497) and TouchDowns (six) with Pérez as his quartback. He earned him a contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he was among his final cuts last summer.
“It is probably the smartest field marshal with which I have played,” said Cannella. “Just by how he prepares, being with him every day, seeing how he analyzes the game, his daily work ethics, reading defenses, why he is choosing this side of the concept (of route) to the other, it is really impressive.”
Pérez turns 31 in August. He and his wife, Brenda, have two children. He knows that people think that probabilities are against them, but will not stop.
“Every year I wonder: ‘Do I like to get up at 4 in the morning? I enjoy exercising, training? Yes. Am I still playing at a high level? Yes. Am I injured? No,” Pérez said. “So I’m fine. So I’m going to keep playing. My goal is to go to NFL. I’m not only doing it for fun. Obviously, it’s fun for me, but my goal is to go to NFL and provide my family for a better life. And yes, it is a bit where it is.”
