Former Southwestern College football coach Ed Carberry and alumnus Luis Perez will be inducted Saturday into the California Community College Football Hall of Fame in Visalia.
Carberry is going in as a coach while Perez is going in as a player.
“It’s not often that a coach and a player from the same school get inducted in the same year,” said Carberry, who coached 19 years at the community college level, including 14 years at Southwestern College, three years at Mt. San Jacinto College and a season each as an assistant coach at L.A. Harbor and Grossmont College. following a 25-year high school coaching career.
Carberry helped guide teams to 12 bowl games, including nine at Southwestern College.
Perez, an Otay Ranch High School alumnus, played three seasons at SWC, including one redshirt season. He subsequently transferred to Texas A&M-Commerce where he won the NCAA Division II national championship and player of the year honors in 2017.
Perez won a professional championship with the XFL Arlington Renegades in 2023.
For Carberry, his life has centered around football as either a player or a coach. It’s the latter that has brought him recognition.
“It’s about developing players for life, getting them ready to move on, either to the next level as a player and to move on to be successful in life,” he said.
Carberry grew up in the Whittier area and played football at St. Paul High School under legendary coach Marijon Ancich, winning the 1972 CIF Southern Section championship. He later went on to play center for Cerritos College.
Carberry got his coaching feet wet as an assistant at Bishop Montgomery High School from 1978-80 and also served as an assistant coach at Los Angeles Harbor College before becoming head coach at St. Anthony High School.
Carberry returned to Ancich’s sphere of influence as an assistant coach for Tustin High School from 1984-88. The future Southwestern College coach said 90 percent of what he is as a coach comes from playing for and coaching for Ancich, the second-winningest high school football coach in California history with a record of 360-134-4.
Ancich, a native of Yugoslavia, coached 20 years as a head coach at St. Paul High School, eight years at Tustin High School, a second stint at St. Paul (1993-2005) and a third stint at St. Paul (2009-12). He won three CIF titles, two state titles and 19 league championships.
Carberry came south in 1989 as head coach at Monte Vista High School where in 14 seasons he would amass two section championships, seven league titles and 11 playoff berths. The Monarchs won their first CIF championship in school history in 1995 with future NFL player Michael Wiley (who Carberry said was the greatest player he ever coached).
Wiley rushed for 1,901 yards and 23 touchdowns as a senior at Monte Vista before going on to play at Ohio State University and the Dallas Cowboys. Wiley rushed for 3,417 yards and 38 touchdowns as a Monarch. While at Ohio State, he won the Sugar Bowl as a junior with the Buckeyes and rushed for 2,951 yards, 4,191 all-purpose yards and 35 touchdowns.
Wiley played three seasons for the Cowboys, scoring one rushing touchdown and two receiving touchdowns primarily as a back-up.
Carberry racked up 100 wins at Monte Vista High School to become just the third coach in the Grossmont Union High School District to collect 100 victories at one school. Carberry’s Monarchs also won the 2003 Division II section title. Carberry’s team won seven Grossmont League championships where he was a seven-time league coach of the year.
Carberry made the jump into the community college coaching ranks in 2004 at Mt. San Jacinto College. He led the Eagles to an 8-3 record and Beach Bowl berth in 2005 and a 7-3 record in 2006. In three years, his teams finished 19-12.
He moved over to Southwestern College as head coach in 2007 where he pretty much cemented his coaching legacy with five American Mountain Conference championships, three American Conference coach of the year awards (2012, 2016, 2017) and two California Community College Football Coaches Association Region V coach of the year awards (2012, 2017).
The Jaguars finished 10-1 in 2012 with a conference title and a victory over Santa Monica in the American Bowl. In 2013, SWC went 9-3 and defeated San Bernardino Valley in the Patriotic Bowl. Carberry set a school record in 2014 with a third consecutive bowl game victory, coming with a second postseason win over Santa Monica.
Carberry’s success on the field led the school to refurbishing DeVore Stadium into one of the nation’s top community college stadiums.
The Jags finished runner-up in the 2016 American Bowl to Los Angeles Valley but bounced back in 2017 with an American Bowl game victory over Allan Hancock. He earned conference coach of the year in both 2016 and 2017. He scored another bowl game victory in 2018 over Palomar College in the Beach Bowl but finished runner-up to Long Beach City in the 2019 Southern California Bowl.
The 2020 season was cancelled because of the COVID pandemic and the Southwestern program never fully recovered due to player availability and recruiting. Carberry finished 3-7 in his last season with the Jaguars in 2021 and retired in February 2022 after 45 years coaching football.
He finished 88-59 as the winningest coach in SWC history with a 5-3 record in bowl games (5-4 including Mt. San Jacinto College).
He compiled 101 wins as a high school head coach (101-74-2) and a 107-71 record at the community college level.
Carberry remained true to his two coaching principles: accountability and what he called “finding a way.”
“We preached two things to every player at every level: “Find a way to advance, get the basic concepts to do so, learn and grow.”
Perez joined Carberry at Southwestern College in 2013 as a walk-on without any varsity football experience at Otay Ranch. Carberry said he noted Perez’s potential, however, despite starting low on the team’s depth chart.
“He obviously had the talent, but he was a student of the game, he didn’t have a feel for it,” Carberry said. “He studied a lot about the game.”
And he learned. He finished with 2,234 passing yards and 23 touchdowns against four interceptions with the Jags.
And he moved on … and up.
He red-shirted his first season at Texas A&M-Commerce (now East Texas A&M University) before embarking on a noteworthy 2016 college pigskin campaign. He became the first person of Hispanic descent to start as quarterback for the Lions, a Division II school.
Commerce won 10 regular season games and repeated as Lone Star Conference champions, landing Perez and his teammates in the NCAA Division II playoffs. The Lions defeated Colorado Mesa in the first round but ended the season with a loss to Grand Valley State. The Chula Vista native earned first team all-conference, Harlan Hill Awards nominee and honorable mention All-American recognition.
The best was yet to come.
Commerce finished 10-1 in regular season play in 2017 and qualified for the Division II playoffs for the third consecutive year. The Lions won four preliminary-round games, including a double-overtime thriller over Central Washington, to reach the national championship game.
Commerce defeated West Florida to give the Lions their second national championship in school history and first since joining the NCAA ranks in 1982. He landed the coveted Harlan Hill Award as the best player in Division II, National Offensive Player of the Year and first team All-Amercian honors.
In his final season with the Lions, Perez passed for 5,001 yards with 46 touchdowns and a 162.9 quarterback rating. He was among only three players in all NCAA divisions to pass for more than 5,000 yards.
While not selected in the 2018 NFL Draft, he did receive an invitation from the Los Angeles Rams to attend their rookie mini-camp. He signed with the Rams on May 14, 2018, and subsequently participated in the Rams training camp, seeing action in the team’s final preseason game (a 28-0 loss to New Orleans).
Perez signed with the Rams practice squad but was released 17 days later.
It proved to be an experience to grow on. He was drafted in the first round fifth overall, by the Birmingham Iron in the Alliance of American Football’s quarterback draft. He passed for 252 yards in the Iron’s first game on Feb. 10, 2019, a 26-0 shutout win over the Memphis Express. He finished the AAF’s truncated season with 1,460 passing yards, five touchdowns and six interceptions as Birmingham posted a 5-3 record.
But Perez did not waver in his dream to play top-level football, earning short-lived stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions in 2019.
He was assigned to the Los Angeles Wildcats in the 2020 XFL Draft but later traded to the New York Guardians. He earned the Guardians’ starting quarterback nod in Week 4, passing for 150 yards and a touchdown in a win over the Wildcats. He started for New York in Week 5 and led the Guardians to a second consecutive win over the Dallas Renegades while passing for 229 yards and one touchdown.
The XFL terminated its season after five weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic. Perez sat out a year while leading the Jousters to The Spring League’s 2021 Mega-Bowl. The Spring League serves as a scouting event for professional football players.
Perez kept his name out there and signed a contract with the New Jersey Generals of the reborn USFL on April 1, 2022. It was no joke, however, as Perez threw the first touchdown in league history while passing for 143 yards and two touchdowns in a 28-24 setback.
In a Week 6 game against the Houston Gamblers, Perez led a walk-off 26-25 win on a quarterback sneak with two seconds remaining in the game.
The Generals finished 9-1 and won the North Division title but lost their divisional playoff game, 19-14, to the Philadelphia Stars. The South Division Birmingham Stallions defeated the Stars, 33-30, for the league championship.
After the first season, more than 180 players were invited to NFL tryouts, 69 players were invited to NFL training camps and 13 players ended the 2022-23 season on active NFL rosters.
Following the USFL’s 2022 spring season, Perez signed with the Rams for a second stint but was subsequently released for a second time.
Perez remained undaunted.
The XFL returned for a 2023 season and Perez was back on board with the Vegas Vipers. He passed for 249 yards and two touchdowns, but two interceptions proved costly in a 22-20 loss to the Arlington Renegades. Turnabout proved fair play after the Vipers traded Perez to the Renegades on March 23, 2023. Perez finished the season with Arlington, leading the Renegades to a 35-26 win over the DC Defenders for the league championship despite being massive underdogs.
Carberry was watching on television.
“It was great, it was exciting,” the former SWC mentor said.
Perez passed for 730 yards in three games with the Renegades to finish the season and resigned with Arlington for the 2024 season in the rebranded United Football League (a merger between the XFL and USFL). He led the UFL with 2,310 passing yards, 18 touchdowns and 99.4 quarterback rating.
Perez signed with the Los Angeles Chargers on Aug. 6, 2024 but was waived on Aug. 27.
The former Mustang re-signed with Arlington on Jan. 27, 2025, for his second stint with the Renegades. Because of his professional contract, Perez was unavailable to attend Saturday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony because of joint preseason practice and scrimmages.
The Renegades are set to kick off their third season March 29 against the visiting San Antonio Brahmas on the FOX TV network. Arlington then hosts the Houston Roughnecks on April 6, also at Choctaw Stadium.
