TAKING A CHANCE
Pawtucket’s Pereira left his comfort zone, now he’s coaching at Eastern Michigan
PAWTUCKET – Former Shea High boys’ varsity volleyball coach Kate Corry spent weeks trying to get Jason Pereira interested in trying out for her team back in the spring of 1997, but she’d just receive shrugs or putoffs.
“I eventually signed up for it my sophomore year because Mrs. Corry finally said, “Look, Jason, we need you. Will you come out already?!” Pereira laughed recently. “I didn’t know why (she wanted me). I mean, I wasn’t a super athlete. I played basketball and golf and I had helped with the girls’ volleyball team, but that was it.”
Because of Corry’s urgings and tutelage, Pereira later not only became a successful setter/outside hitter for the Raiders, but he also became hooked on the sport – and for that he’s most thankful.
He claimed his career at Shea is a major reason why he was just named Eastern Michigan University’s first-ever Director of Volleyball Operations.
He had previously been a volunteer assistant coach with the women’s program. This past fall, the Eagles finished 17-19 overall (7-9 in Mid-Atlantic Conference action) and qualified for the MAC playoffs before dropping a quarterfinal match.
The coaching staff in which Pereira has joined, however, has played roles in three national championships, and is trying to build EMU into a perennial contender. “It’s still volunteer work; unfortunately, I won’t get paid, but I’m still elated,” he stated. “I’ll do less coaching one-on-one, less technical coaching, and do more behindthe-scenes stuff. I’ll help out with recruiting, packaging and sending out materials to potential recruits. I’ll take care of the reservations for food and travel to away matches, make sure we have facilities to practice in and watch game film while we’re on the road. “This is what I chose; this is where I told (head coach) Kimi Olson I’d be able to help the most. I’m ecstatic. Like I said, you’ve got to put in the time, pay your dues, to get a college position, and that’s what I’ve always wanted since I left Shea. “I’d be happier if I got paid,” he added with a chuckle, “but I just want to do the best I can. It’s a great resume builder, plus I don’t have to travel to other schools I’ve coached at almost an hour away. I work (my full-time job) in the hospital right across the street from the university. “When I learned I got the job, I was so thrilled. My goal when I got into college coaching years ago was to someday land a Division I or II job by the time I was 40, and I’ve succeeded. Hopefully, this is the start of something bigger.” Neil Nachbar, the current coach at Tolman, has coached against and with Pereira, and is thrilled for his friend. “As someone who has coached in Pawtucket for more than 20 years, it makes me feel proud to see one of our own experience so much success in the sport we all love,” he said. “He’s sharing his passion for the sport and passing it on to the next generation of players. “I don’t know how many native Rhode Islanders are coaching on the collegiate D-I level, but I’ll bet you can count them on one hand. He’s one of them, and I’m so happy for him. This is significant for all of us.” *** Pereira, now 36, has traveled a long road since his volleyball journey began at Shea 21 years ago. He has coached not only at his alma mater but other high schools both in Rhode Island and in Michigan, but he’s now at the level he’s dreamed of for years. He admitted when the Raiders’ program was brand new when he began playing, and they suffered some heartache initially. “We knew who we were – a bunch of upstarts just trying to learn the sport’s fundamentals,” he recalled. “We were a very young team, so we lost a lot of matches. I’d say I really grew to love it my junior year. We started improving, started to win a few matches, so I think it grew on us.” Pereira earned second-team all-division status as a junior and senior, and the Raiders sailed to the Division II semifinals before losing to eventual champion La Salle. Upon graduating from Shea in 2000, he chose to attend Johnson & Wales University and made the team as a freshman, but he didn’t see much action. “My coach there was Chris Safford, who was a teacher and coach at Chariho; he had been an AllState setter at Chariho, then gone to Springfield (College) and was regarded as the best collegiate setter in New England,” he noted. “Chris is where I got the passion for coaching. He was a very fiery guy, an ex- cellent motivator and a no-nonsense kind of guy. He knew what he wanted – to win – and he conveyed that to everyone around him. “He knew how to get the best out of his players. Chris always reminded me of a Jon Gruden type of coach. He had quite the pedigree.” Pereira nevertheless didn’t play after that, due in part to failure to “make the grade.” He continued working at a North Attleboro cinema, but the itch to reacquaint himself with his favorite sport was too strong to resist, so he scratched. Corry had left the SHS boys volleyball program, so he asked new coach Chris Daily if he could help her with the girls squad. That was in 2002. After two seasons as a varsity assistant and JV head coach, he took over the girls program. In 2006, he developed enough talent to capture the Division III championship, which he promised was a thrill. Still, he was feeling a need to experience new things, especially after he took a Caribbean cruise with a friend and met a woman from Michigan who had the same love for volleyball. “I was looking for a change,” he offered. “I had been in Rhode Island my whole life; I had the same circle of friends, was doing the same things with them. I wanted to away and discover the world.” *** Because he had been in a long-distance relationship with that woman, he chose to move to Ypsilanti, 35 miles west of Detroit, eight miles east of Ann Arbor and the home of EMU. “I also wanted to go back to school, and I knew I couldn’t if I continued to live in Pawtucket,” he said. “I moved in June 2007 and went to Washtenaw Community College for two years before moving on to Eastern Michigan.” About a year after earning a Bachelor’s of Marketing in 2012, he decided to “get my feet wet again” and began coaching high school teams. “It’s a totally different game in Michigan as opposed to Rhode Island – the talent level, the experience level,” he said. “High schools are running offenses similar to the college programs, and that’s because the club circuit is so much more advanced.” In December 2012, he chose to take a flier and e-mail Kim Berrington, then the coach of the EMU squad. “I explained I was interested in getting into the college game; I sent her my resume,” he said. “She wrote me back about a week later and said she was interested in bringing in a volunteer for the spring season. She wanted to have some extra help at practice, and she wanted to have a face-to-face meeting to see if I’d be a good fit. “We met, and she thought I was [a good fit]; I was so excited,” he continued. “I wanted to leave the high school arena and move on to college, have access to better players, get back into that ultra-competitive environment. That’s why I left Shea. I wanted to have that feel of ‘victory’ and ‘championship.’ “She had been there for 14 years, so it was a very stable program, and I knew I’d learned a ton from her. It was a great opportunity to see how they build a culture, sell their brand and how they deal with the players psychologically. That’s what I had dreamed of my entire life.” He spent three months under Berringer’s tutelage, then chose to apply for other smaller college jobs. It didn’t take long for officials at Jackson College, a 50-minute drive from EMU, to come calling. He became an assistant there in August 2013. “It was a Division II community college, and it played a rather high-caliber schedule, traveling around to schools in the Midwest,” stated Pereira, who just celebrated his eighth wedding anniversary with wife Kathie and has a seven-yearold son, Dominick. “I was learning under Leigh Ann Swihart, and she taught me a lot. She had come over from Michigan State as a staff assistant, and she’s the reason I learned how to build relationships. “You’re recruiting girls from all over the country, and everyone’s different, so you have to know the right things to say. You have to bridge that gap and get everybody on the same page once everyone’s together. It was a whole lot of fun; that’s why I spent three years there.” In 2016, he chose to take another job that didn’t pan out. “I was jobless, so I started working for Lyft,” he said. “With me not having a full-time job and having flexibility of hours and earning money went I want to, I crossed paths with Kimi Olson, the new head coach at Eastern Michigan, at a scouting combine. “I asked her if she had anything available, and she told me she was looking for another set of eyes and hands to help out at practice and in matches. I was elated … You know, I chose Eastern Michigan because it was my alma mater, but also because it resembles my situation at Shea. “I like to solve problems, and there was something broken at Shea. We had won one match in seven years, and you try to figure out why one school has success and yours doesn’t. We didn’t have the right student-athletes or the right culture. They weren’t there to excel on the court, so I changed the culture. “It was really fascinating and rewarding because you want your school to do well. Eastern Michigan was kind of in the same situation. “The women’s program had never won a Mid-American Conference title,” he added. “They’re a Division I school and they have great things to offer, but we can still play better than we are. College is big on recruiting, of course, so are we recruiting the right kids? Are we engaging student-athletes to support other sports teams? That way they’ll come and support you. I have a marketing degree, so I’m now trying to develop new ways to market the volleyball program. “I’m going to do the absolute best I can to keep us moving forward.”