Win or lose — and, lately, it’s largely been the latter — Brett Neilon by no means wavered. The offensive lineman dutifully and constantly met with reporters after every sport, absorbing questions in regards to the newest blowout and attempting to make sense of the inexplicable fall of Trojans soccer.
Frustrations mounted. His mom, Cora, seen how deflated he acquired. However Neilon nonetheless nodded in appreciation after every sport.
There’s a motive offensive line coach Josh Henson calls the four-year beginning middle “Mr. Regular.”
In his ultimate season with the Trojans, Neilon hopes to make the final flip of his roller-coaster school profession an awesome one.
Neilon redshirted on USC’s Pac-12 championship-winning crew in 2017, then performed on the primary USC crew to have a dropping document in 18 years.
Final 12 months, he tried to regular the ship when a training change tanked the Trojans’ probabilities of a profitable season by September. After experiencing nearly each triumph and heartbreak in school soccer, Neilon is aware of how he needs to depart USC.
“As a champion,” he mentioned.
Neilon has began 14 consecutive video games at middle and 30 in his profession, together with two wins this season which have the No. 7 Trojans (2-0, 1-0) surging again into the nationwide highlight. He anchored the offensive line throughout the crew’s highest- scoring sport since 2008 in a 66-14 rout over Rice, then helped USC safe its first street win at Stanford since 2014. The quick begin provides a glimpse at a shiny future underneath Lincoln Riley, whose splashy rent despatched expectations hovering in Heritage Corridor.
On a crew stuffed with big-name transfers, Neilon and veteran offensive linemen, equivalent to fifth-year starter Andrew Vorhees and crew captain Justin Dedich have taken it upon themselves to make sure some USC traditions by no means change. Neilon, who has already earned a bachelor’s diploma in enterprise administration and is closing in on his grasp’s in entrepreneurship, takes delight in ensuring his teammates study the college’s iconic combat tune.
It’s about “upholding the cardinal and gold,” the Santa Margarita Excessive alumnus mentioned. One of the best ways he does that's together with his steadfast play.
“He not often makes a mistake,” mentioned Henson, the crew’s offensive coordinator and Neilon’s fourth offensive line coach at USC. “He’s simply all the time there, doing his job and doing it the correct method.”
Rising up in Tokyo till the eighth grade, Neilon discovered easy methods to take delight in his work. The youngest of Cora and Michael Neilon’s two boys, Brett had a novel upbringing. However, Cora mentioned, it’s one she wouldn’t commerce for something.
The household moved to Japan when Brett was just a few months outdated due to Michael’s job with a medical firm earlier than returning to Southern California. After Brett accomplished preschool and kindergarten within the U.S., the household settled again in Roppongi, a bustling neighborhood in central Tokyo.
With towering skyscrapers and glittering billboards, the Japanese capital resembles New York’s Occasions Sq., however the streets are pristine and protected, and the general public transportation is great, Brett recalled. Cora had no qualms about letting her youngsters stroll to the bus cease unsupervised. Seeing kindergarteners strolling to highschool collectively with out adults is frequent in even the largest Japanese cities. Brett cherished wandering the streets, attempting to find the perfect ramen.
Cora, whose grandparents grew up in Japan however was born in California to Hawaii-raised dad and mom, relished the chance for her youngsters to expertise completely different cultures from a younger age. In Japan, respect and onerous work had been paramount. The household visited an orphanage in Cambodia and traveled to China and the Philippines. They spent summers and Christmases in California.
Rising up on either side of the Pacific Ocean made Brett who he's, he mentioned. He had no concept on the time it will be key to serving to him change between completely different cultures and act as a gradual chief for a soccer program in transition.
“Folks simply method issues in a different way and reply to various things,” Neilon mentioned. “I feel rising up in Japan and touring the world, you simply get a special perspective on various things in life.”
Riley famous Neilon’s comparatively quiet management high quality, including the grad pupil calls for respect with “the way in which he carries himself daily, the consistency, the sort of employee and competitor he's.” It’s the identical work ethic he discovered in Japan and what carried the undersized 6-foot-2, 295-pound prospect to 2 dozen scholarship provides out of Santa Margarita Excessive regardless of not having performed organized soccer till highschool.
By the point he moved again to the USA in eighth grade, Neilon excelled at baseball, basketball, soccer and aikido, a Japanese martial artwork based mostly on self-defense. Soccer was extra of a long-distance love. His father performed, and Neilon was so obsessive about the game that he would attempt to pretend a stomachache on Monday mornings in Japan so he might watch NFL video games stay. His mother could have let it slide a couple of times earlier than catching on, she mentioned laughing.
He tried out for the crew in ninth grade and began as a sophomore on the varsity crew, a rarity within the ultracompetitive Trinity League. Elite camps got here. Scholarship provides poured in. The household was shocked.
“In our wildest desires,” Cora mentioned, “we by no means thought he can be taking part in soccer at this stage.”
Neilon had curiosity from Pac-12 rivals Washington and UCLA, Massive Ten energy Michigan and elite Ivy League colleges. However as soon as USC entered the image, the four-star recruit didn’t have hassle making up his thoughts. His father and brother went there. He had two aunts who performed golf for the Trojans. The soccer crew’s fall from grace, teaching change and dropping of current years by no means diminished his ardour.
When requested if he ever thought-about transferring, Neilon didn’t hesitate: “No,” he mentioned.
He's “Mr. Regular,” in any case.
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