SAN JOSE, Calif. - Longtime Earthquakes season ticket holder Dan Perez was a simple man: He loved his family, he was a pillar in the Bay Area community and he cherished the Quakes for 42 years.
Last month, Perez passed away at the age of 74 from heart disease. The organization is set to honor Dan and the entire Perez family at halftime of Sunday’s match against Vancouver Whitecaps FC, an act of solidarity for one of the most loyal Quakes fans to ever live.
Perez, a Wasco native, didn’t waste any time in becoming a Quakes season ticket holder, securing a family ticket package at Spartan Stadium in the club’s inaugural season in 1974. Of all the legends who graced the field in San Jose, Dan was enamored with club Hall of Famer Paul Child, a juggernaut in the clubs attack. Name anything that happened on the pitch in San Jose, Dan, his wife Silvia and the rest of the Perez family lived it.
"That was back when they had cheerleaders,” Silvia laughed. “Our love for the Quakes started there and continued until this day. It was a sad time when the team left to Houston, but Dan still listened to how the team was doing. He cared that much.”
The greatest day for Dan as an Earthquakes fan, however, was on July 18, 2007. His team was coming back home.
“The Quakes returning to the South Bay was such a great moment for Dan,” Silvia recalled. “When they came back, everyone in the house got excited. It was a good thing for all of us to get tickets and start going to the games again. It was like old times."
From rallying behind the 2008 expansion team at the Oakland Coliseum to tailgating outside Buck Shaw Stadium, Dan was there, regardless of the venue. It seemed as though his relentless dedication to attend every Quakes home game payed off in 2012 when the club held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the club’s new stadium on Oct. 21.
Finally, his team had a place to call home.
Though his health was deteriorating, Silvia and the rest of the family made sure Dan was there for the historic event. With a shovel in hand and a Quakes sweatshirt draped over his body, the moment seemed all too surreal for Dan and the 11 Perez family members surrounding him that day.
"We were so excited that we were actually going to have a stadium when we never thought it was possible,” Silvia said. “That day, we convinced Dan that we would help him get there so he could be part of that moment because he wasn’t doing well. It was an all-day affair. We came home that day, had our whole family over to talk about buying season tickets at the new stadium. It was a big deal for Dan."
Dan, who seemed to have owned every piece of Quakes memorabilia imaginable, was the epitome of a loyal fan for the club, but it was his work with the youth in the community that made him revered among his family and peers. Over the years, he served as a soccer coach in the Peninsula Athletic League (PAL), at Yerba Buena High School, JW Fair Middle School and a softball and soccer coach at Lincoln High School, teaching his players the importance of hard work and perseverance, on and off the field.
"Those were the types of things he did,” Silvia explained. "He was very much a people person with children. He just wanted to support the local teams around the area. He did a lot of coaching with children, young men and women.”
Dan, a proud father of four daughters and two sons, coached all of his kids in soccer and softball during their youth. Valerie Perez, Dan’s daughter, remembers her father as a passionate figure on the sideline, someone who wasn’t afraid to display emotion for the betterment of his teams.
"My dad would also get those red cards on the sideline as well,” Valerie laughed. "He’d get pretty excited. He was great coach for all of our siblings. He pushed all of his players to the tilt and we’ll never forget those moments on the field.”
Dan, a survivor of throat cancer, managed to coach all of his kids on the pitch while molding his 13 grandchildren into avid soccer fans. His health, however, was getting worse.
The longtime Quakes fan waited 40 years for the club to find a permanent home. He may have attended every game at Spartan Stadium, the Oakland Coliseum and Buck Shaw Stadium, but Dan never witnessed a match at Avaya Stadium. His sickness may have kept him out of the club's new home, but he didn’t want that to stop his family.
Despite his absence, he made sure that the Perez family still had season tickets in the cathedral of Bay Area soccer.
"He never went to the new stadium because his health really deteriorated,” Silvia said. "His boys would come back from the game, they would sit down and go over the details with him and they would sit and watch the games over and over and talk about it. Those were really our weekend meetings as a family and he got a lot of pleasure doing that with his boys.”
It’s those moments with his boys huddled around the television, those countless games attended across the South Bay and those thousands of hours patrolling the sidelines as a coach that makes Sunday that much more special. For the Perez family, it’s an opportunity for the Bay Area community to know the real Dan Perez: a beloved father and husband, a staple in the community, and a die-hard Quakes fan.
"My dad was a great man to the community, to my mom and to us kids,” Valerie explained. “We couldn’t have asked for anything else from my dad.
"We feel truly honored to have this spotlight and this moment. We’re all just excited to come and I know my dad will be looking down on us at the moment. No doubt.”
