Precious Time – UCLA

The following story ran in the Fall 2022 edition of Bruin Blue Magazine.

By Jon Gold

Limping around his grandfather’s funeral in July 2020, his knee in tatters and his heart in even worse shape, Tucker Lepley was already experiencing a deeper pain than anyone there could imagine.

Yet every time he was stopped — “Are you OK? How bad is it? How long are you out?” — he winced a little more. At the time, he didn’t know if his ACL was torn or still intact.

Not that it mattered much, anyway. He’d just lost his best friend, after spending so many months away from him.

“It was,” he said, “the worst week of my life.”

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In some ways, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was a mixed blessing for Lepley.

He’d spent the previous two years of his life — his childhood — almost 1,000 miles away from his hometown of Charlotte living with a host family in Kansas City while training with Sporting Club KC’s academy.

Since the age of 10, people had been telling Lepley he’d grow into a professional soccer player, and he had the passport stamps to back it up. Tournaments in Spain and in Belgium, in England and the Netherlands, not to mention all over the United States. He was the first American selected for trial by Unión Esportiva Cornellà, a Spanish soccer team based in Cornellà de Llobregat in the Catalonia region of Spain, but because of international player rules he was unable to get registered.

After his first two years in high school, playing for the Charlotte Soccer Academy, Lepley craved higher competition. Spain was out of the picture. He chose Kansas City, went on trial with the club and was offered a spot. He left Charlotte to live with strangers in the Midwest.

With Kansas City, he played in 10 professional games with Sporting KC II — the club’s United Soccer League based reserve team — making his pro debut at 16 while keeping college eligibility. While playing on the academy team and mixing in training with the first team, Lepley shined in showcases, drawing the attention of college recruiters, including UCLA head coach Ryan Jorden.

Jorden remembers seeing Lepley in person for the first time in 2018 when he was 16 years old.

“I saw him and I thought he was the most interesting footballer in the entire academy,” he said. “He’s not a big guy, but…