SMHS BASEBALL
Former Rattler All-State player makes long awaited return
Ten years ago, Elijah Perez was hitting grand slams, earning all-state honors and leading the Rattlers to postseason success. Fast forward to the present, Perez is coming back home to San Marcos in a different color jersey leading his Arlington Sam Houston Texans against his alma mater at the SMHS Baseball Tournament.
Coming back home to San Marcos was a dream for Perez to not only face his former team but his high school coach in Bryan Webb.
“It’s always been the goal to be able to bring my team back to home if you will and compete against my old team and old coaches,” Perez said. “It’s any former player’s dream, so it’s a blessing to be able to do that.”
Perez finished his Rattler baseball career as a fouryear starter and helped lead San Marcos to four straight playoff appearances. In his junior year, Perez earned All-State honors becoming just the third Rattler baseball player to earn the distinction.
Perez’s time as a Rattler helped mold the former all-state player into the coach he is today.
“It definitely shaped me into the you know player that I was in college and I’m definitely now as a head coach,” Perez said. “It’s building off of our three standards of passion, loyalty and commitment and carrying it through my playing career and now coaching. So it was everything.”
A key takeaway from Perez’s days as a Rattler that he uses today is playing under intense pressure and learning from your mistakes.
“The main thing for me was just understanding that pressure was ok,” Perez said. “I was on varsity since my freshman year, so I was able to have a lot of opportunities to play and start at a young age. … Failure is kind of part of it but learning how to come and to keep on competing, doing the little things right and being able to control [what] I was able to control.”
Perez always wanted to be a head baseball coach at the high school, but it wasn’t his only dream. Though the latter didn’t happen, Perez is still happy about coaching high school baseball.
“Really at a young age the only two things I wanted to do: … be a [player on the] New York Yankees and then to be a head baseball coach,” Perez said. “Obviously playing at a young age, I found out around junior year I wasn’t gonna get drafted by the New York Yankees, but that was alright. I knew my new passion was gonna be coaching, and I wanted to be the head baseball coach. I got the opportunity pretty quickly, and to do it at 25 years old when I got my first head job in North Dallas [was awesome].”
Taking over at North Dallas High School, Perez later made the transition to Arlington Sam Houston in a move that Perez describes as a leap of faith.
“I went through as the assistant coach at North Dallas. My head coach thought highly of me and put a good word in for me, so I got an opportunity to take over and get the head coach spot,” Perez said. “But when I moved to Sam Houston, it was just a closer ride [home]. I just had my baby girl and my wife was needing me to be closer, so I was trying to figure out what I could do.
“So we’re looking through you know the Texans High School Coaches Association website and saw this job opening. It was just a leap of faith. We saw the win-lost record and was able to get in contact with the athletic coordinator, and it just so happened that he lived down the street from North Dallas. [He] saw that we ran practice [at North Dallas] really well, and we didn’t have the facilities at the time now.”
Perez became the Head Coach at Sam Houston High School in 2024 and enters his second season with the program. Despite Perez being relatively new to the program, the players have fully committed to Perez and his staff.
“These kids have been bought in since the moment I got here again,” Perez said. “A lot like what I was used to from San Marcos are hard-nosed, gritty kids willing to compete there. They’re now disciplined. Last year was a growing year, but just them buying into the program and then going into this year and now having a little bit more success, … it’s been a great blessing to just make that transition in a leap of faith.”
While Perez is looking to turn around the baseball program, the former Rattler is also changing the lives of the players themselves, using what his former coaches taught him.
[There] was just the stigma of Sam Houston itself,” Perez said.”When we got here, you were told that the boys were undisciplined, and they didn’t pass their classes. I had great mentors, so I got the basis of the three pillars of success, the passion, the loyalty [and] the commitment. I told them what it is, and they saw how there was again a routine and structure. They bought in really well, so there wasn’t really much of a hard transition. The boys just just bought it, and I can’t say enough good things about them.
“We had a 100% passrate during the season this year. We had 25 out of the 40 boys be on the AB honor roll list. There hasn’t been much of a negative impact with the transferring over.”
Many of the pillars Perez has instilled at his program come directly from the Rattler baseball program.
“We’re obviously going back to San Marcos, and I’m gonna be saying a lot. But I learned a lot of stuff from Coach Webb,” Perez said. “The … hard-nosed part about being a coach is not expecting perfection but just like straight competing. Just working hard. Coach Webb used to say you fight them until hell freezes over, then you fight them on ice.
“That’s something in the background in my head that we’re gonna continue to work. No matter how hard it gets, we just have to work. You’re hard on them and then they buy into that, but you also have to love on them, be able to put your arm around the shoulder, tell them failure is a part of it as well and how you overcome it. Yes, working hard can get you to the [point] B, but it doesn’t guarantee success and just them understanding that now [I’m] being hard on them, [but] still loving at the same time and understanding that the success will come.”
Though Perez is excited to face both his former team and head coach, he still treats the showdown as a normal game.
“There’s obviously gonna be some chills at the beginning of the game, but then when it’s game time, it’s time to go to work,” Perez said. “There’s not gonna really be ‘Oh my God my old coach is over there’. It’s a team of a different color throwing a pitch from 60-feet away, and our guys are better. Before the game, obviously [I’m going to have] chills; during the game is time to go to work. Then obviously after the game I’ll be good to shake his hand and enjoy that moment for a little while.”
cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc
