Back in the mid 1970’s, when José Peralta was in middle school at what was then Vance Academy, soccer hadn’t yet gotten a toehold in the area. But by the time Peralta and some of his Spartan teammates made their mark on the soccer field as Vance Senior High School Vikings, all that was changing.
It was early days for soccer when Peralta was in high school, but he told WIZS co-hosts Bill Harris and George Hoyle Thursday that the team began to make a name for itself. “We beat one of the Raleigh teams – Sanderson,” he recalled, a soccer powerhouse at the time.
And that’s when the letters starting hitting his family’s Ruin Creek Road mailbox, he said. College coaches, asking him to consider playing goalkeeper for them.
But Peralta’s focus was on academics, and ultimately he chose Wake Forest University. Earlier this month, his alma mater chose Peralta to join the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame.
You see, it’s Peralta who still holds the NCAA Division I record for career saves at a whopping 620 – that’s 342 more saves than anyone else in program history.
Peralta is one of only two goalkeepers in NCAA Division I history who can claim more than 600 saves.
As a freshman, he had 164 saves – the most by any freshman in program history.
He holds the four highest single-season number of saves in program history: 218 in 1983; 164 in 1980; 126 in 1982; and 112 in 1981.
Peralta’s statistics at WFU have stood the test of time – he was a member of the very first men’s soccer team at the school.
“Wake Forest didn’t even have a soccer team when I went there,” he said. What’s more, he didn’t know the school was thinking about forming one.
But, he said, God has a plan.
He remembers back to 1979, sitting in the quad with his parents – both beloved Spanish teachers in Vance County Schools – “all of a sudden I see these guys,” he said, who said soccer tryouts were going to start in 30 minutes, if he wanted to check it out.
Peralta said he kissed his parents goodbye and headed off to try out for the team.
They played as a club team that first year, with Peralta in the goal. He was the only walk-on to make the team.
Coach George Kennedy’s brother did goalkeeper camps and Peralta credits him with teaching him the goalkeep position from not only a physical standpoint but a mental one as well.
Reflecting on his time in the goal as a Demon Deacon, Peralta said he and his teammates helped to lay a good foundation for the program, now more than 40 years later.
His children, one of the grandchildren, a dozen or more teammates from the old days and a bunch of fraternity brothers all attended the induction ceremony, held Feb. 9 in Winston-Salem.
“The ceremony was awesome,” Peralta said. And at the Wake-N.C. State basketball game held later afternoon, Peralta was called to midcourt at halftime to receive a plaque and be recognized for his achievements.
One of those accolades is that Peralta was an All-ACC academic every year he was at Wake.
“I dedicated myself to soccer, but the classroom was extremely important,” he said.