San Jose State football 2025: Perez has helped rebuild Spartans’ roster, and trailblazer is just getting started

SAN JOSE At barely feet tall Beca Perez is not the majority physically imposing figure on a football field But the -year-old has already made a massive imprint on the campaign that finished last season with the majority regular season wins of any Football Bowl Subdivision school in California Perez is San Jose State s director of competitor personnel overseeing the operation s recruiting efforts The Sunnyvale native was one of just three women with that job at the FBS level in I have a hard time remembering everybody that I run into but people don t really forget about me announced Perez who can be easily spotted on the Spartans sideline by her chrome Quay sunglasses that shine like medieval armor San Jose State University football recruiting director Beca Perez takes part in practice on Wednesday July in San Jose Calif Aric Crabb Bay Area News Group The difference between Perez and her fellow groundbreakers Callie Cameron at Baylor and Zaire Turner at Notre Dame is the level of support available Various schools will have a group of say people scouting and separating different positions noted SJSU head coach Ken Niumatalolo who like Perez is in his second season with the Spartans She does it all on her own Perez s influence has been noticed beyond the SJSU campus She was named one of Sports top college football coaches and staffers under last season Perez first met Niumatalolo in when he was the tight ends coach at UCLA and she was Stanford s assistant director of recruiting The pair chatted about their arrangement academy backgrounds Perez had been Army s recruiting director in and Niumatalolo had spent the previous seasons as Navy s head coach The pair also had a connection to Preston Pehrson Perez s boss at Stanford He was Navy s director of competitor personnel in under Niumatalolo and had known the coach since he was a teen When Niumatalolo was hired at San Jose State one of the first people he reached out to was Pehrson to ask about Perez Pehrson s response I don t know why you wouldn t hire her The next day Perez got a puzzling text from Pehrson wishing her luck with Coach Ken She had sent Niumatalolo a congratulations text but did not think much of it Then she got a call at a m from Niumatalolo There are certain moments I really don t forget that I can replay in my head all the time and that was definitely one of them Perez declared By Perez was at the SJSU football offices for a staff meeting The South Bay has long been home for Perez Playing football with her cousins in the streets of Sunnyvale until the lights came on is where her love for sport began As a freshman at St Francis High she and her friends decided to acclimate themselves at their new school by trying out to manage the football club It was one of those things like Let s take a whack at it she recalled Never did I think it would get to the point that I m in this position now Perez was familiar with the St Francis football civilization going to Friday night games with her grandma who worked at the school as a cook During summers she would help her wash dishes and attend the sports camps As a high schooler she became a part of that group she watched growing up It wasn t really until I graduated from high school when I in fact fell in love with the event of football and knew the opportunities that I could have Perez declared The boundaries that I could break seemed a little bit more challenging and I yearned to attack that challenge There s times where it does hit me where there s not various females let alone Hispanic females that are doing this every day I hope to continue to break more barricades and make sure that I leave a path for others that want to follow Perez has moved up the college football ladder expeditiously In she was the equipment manager at the College of San Mateo When CSM s special teams coordinator Fred Guidici was hired at SJSU a year later Perez followed to serve as a scholar assistant coach Her connections with Guidici and fellow SJSU assistants Derrick Odum and Kevin McGiven connected her with Army special teams coordinator Sean Saturnio who helped Perez land her first full-time job as the Black Knights director of recruiting San Jose State University football recruiting director Beca Perez on Wednesday July in San Jose Calif Aric Crabb Bay Area News Group Then came her dream job at SJSU But Perez was presented with a challenge building a Division I effort essentially from scratch When former head coach Brent Brennan took the job at Arizona players tested the transfer portal Spartans star wide receiver Nick Nash entered his name in the portal the day Perez started Related Articles Reveal party Cal Bears eager to show off new look in season opener at Oregon State As football season begins UCSF announces review aiming to diagnose CTE in living people What to know before San Jose State kicks off against Central Michigan San Jose focusing on resident fan experiences with Super Bowl March Madness and World Cup approaching Cal football Boosters chancellor brighten revenue picture as Bears enter season He communicated me The house is burning down right now Perez announced snickering about her first phone call with Niumatalolo But Perez helped put out the fire And then helped spark a new era for the activity Working from her -by- -foot office and using her personal phone Perez utilized all her connections and information Perez says X formerly known as Twitter is her No tool and allows her to discover athletes all over the nation She s the one person I don t mind on her phone at practice because she s constantly on it social media doing things that keep us actions ahead Niumatalolo announced Perez more than helped the Spartans keep up during what could have been a hard transition season Nash decided to return for a final season but SJSU still opened the season with just returning players the third-fewest in college football But the Spartans who were picked to finish th in the Mountain West placed fifth and earned a berth in the Hawaii Bowl It was SJSU s third straight bowl appearance establishing the majority achieving run in school history When Ken Niumatalolo right was hired as the head football coach at San Jose State one of his first moves was to bring in Beca Perez as the Spartans director of participant personnel PHOTO COURTESY OF SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY Last year was chaos Perez disclosed I felt like I was swimming working kind of nonstop It was ostensibly closer to -hour days After she survived that whirlpool this offseason has felt comprehensively different She now races Niumatalolo to see who can arrive first to the office the winner normally getting there at a m The to-do list ranges from focusing on the ever-evolving transfer portal to high school recruiting or directing attention to the current roster I m excited because I ve learned a lot I feel I ve grown as a person and in this position Perez mentioned I feel content now I m not swimming But Perez isn t satisfied She says she has a chip on her shoulder to make the the bulk of her opportunity and of SJSU s materials We re doing a lot more with very little Perez disclosed We have a really special group of kids and a really special association that I can at least say I had a hand in