During Mike Perone’s first season as Notre Dame High boys’ soccer coach in 1977, Frank Nerwinski was on his team. A few years later, Frank’s brother Kevin joined the Irish before playing for Rider.
Years later, in the 2000s, Perone received a photo of Kevin’s son, Jake, with writing scrawled on it.
“He was a shrimp,” Perone said. “And on the picture it said ‘Wait for me, I’m coming to Notre Dame.’”
He came, he saw, he conquered. But the accomplishments didn’t stop there. They continued at the University of Connecticut, and the most exciting chapter is hopefully still to come.
Perone’s comments came on the night of Jan. 18 at Mercer Oaks golf course in West Windsor, where a going-away party was held for Jake Nerwinski. Two days later, Jake left for Vancouver after the Whitecaps chose him as the 7th overall draft pick in the Major League Soccer Super Draft on Jan. 13.
A crowd of over 100 friends, family members, former teammates and coaches were on hand to celebrate one of the true feel-good stories in the rich tradition of Notre Dame High and Lawrence Township soccer.
“I thought my dad was crazy to want to try to do this,” Nerwinski told the crowd in a quick speech. “I didn’t think anybody would show up.”
It was probably the first wrong thought Nerwinski, from Lawrence, had in a decade. He chose the right high school, he chose the right college and he chose to make the most of what he could during his four years at the University of Connecticut. It culminated with him being selected within the first 30 minutes of the draft at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Although Nerwinski heard whispers he would go in the first round, he never expected it to be that early. Nor was he ready for the fanfare that followed, of making a speech and talking to tons of reporters.
“I honestly was not expecting all of that,” he said. “Right after they called my name I made my speech and I walked through this tunnel. People were everywhere. It was a crazy scene. I was just kind of walking down the line, answering questions as I was going along.”
It was a walk that began on the recreation soccer fields of Jackson. At age 10, he switched to a Jackson club team. One day, a former teammate, who had moved on to the New Jersey Soccer Association travel program, came back with his dad to watch Nerwinski play.
“They went to my parents and said, ‘He needs to play somewhere else higher than this league,” Nerwinski recalled. “So they made the change over to NJSA at age 11, and I stayed there ever since.”
When it came time for high school, there was never a doubt where Nerwinski was headed. Kevin, who was born and raised in Lawrence and has a law office across the street from Notre Dame, extolled the virtues of Perone and ND from the start.
“A lot of my cousins went there, it’s always been in the family,” Nerwinski said. “Ever since I was little, my dad was telling me ‘This is the place you want to be.’ I used to go to soccer games as a little kid. I loved the atmosphere, loved watching them play. I knew Mercer County soccer and the education I could get at Notre Dame would help me later in life.”
Despite his “shrimp” status, Nerwinski became a rare freshman starter at ND and led the Irish in assists that year before becoming their leading scorer as a sophomore.
“This is the kind of kid we got from the Nerwinskis,” Perone said. “I’ve coached almost every Nerwinski, his father, his uncle Frank. I’ve had them all, and Jake was a quality player.”
His junior season, however, led to some issues, as a growth spurt was about to take Jake from 5-foot-3 to 6-foot, which led to a rash of injuries. Nerwinski was able to gut it out through the high school season but missed his spring travel season, which is a key time for college recruiting.
Despite his health issues, Nerwinski was always the guy the rest of the team followed.
“He was the leader of our team for the whole time he was with Notre Dame,” Perone said. “When (current Rutgers standout Brian) Hawkins came, in he loved feeding him for goals as a junior and senior. He’s just been a quality player.”
Nerwinski scored a school-record 21 goals along with 19 assists as a senior, and finished as Notre Dame’s all-time points leader. Much of that was the result of hard work to overcome his off time in the spring.
“I wasn’t that fit during that time because I wasn’t working out,” Nerwinski said. “After I finally felt healthy, I really started to work my butt off, running every day, lifting, getting back to where I was. I wanted to get a little better and stronger so teams could get a better look at me.”
Nerwinski was offered partial scholarships to several mid-level Division I programs, including his dad’s alma mater at Rider. His lone offer from a major school came from the University of Connecticut, but only as a non-scholarship player. Coach Ray Reid laid it out honestly to Nerwinski that he would be a practice player, Nerwinski had enough faith in himself to take his chances with one of the nation’s premier programs.
“When they initially contacted me, they were No. 1 in the country the past four years, so I just thought it was unbelievable,” he said. “They weren’t offering me anything, they just kind of said ‘Yeah, you can be on our team.’”
Faced with the biggest decision of his life, Nerwinski sat down with Kevin and his mom, Judith, to discuss the options: get scholarship money and likely guaranteed playing time at a lesser-known program, or try to buck the odds in the big time.
“My mom and dad said, ‘We want you to have a challenge. If you think you can make something of yourself at UConn then, try it,” Nerwinski said.
With his parents’ support, Nerwinski took a gamble that paid off. It took him one half of the Huskies first scrimmage to impress Reid. He got decent playing time early in the season before starting the final 15 games and earning a scholarship. He remained a starter throughout his career, garnering All-American Athletic Conference honors three times as an attacking defender.
Nerwinski admitted that if things didn’t work out during his freshman year, he would have explored other options.
“I wanted to play college soccer, I didn’t want to go sit on the bench,” he said. “I told myself, ‘I’ll give it a year and if I think I’ll get some time my sophomore year I’ll stay and work my way up.’ I didn’t want to sit all four years. Playing college soccer was always my dream.”
The dream began to expand by his sophomore year, when Nerwinski’s success actually had him thinking of the MLS. He continued to work with strength coach Chris West to improve his physique, and by his senior year, Nerwinski was on a lot of radars.
He was invited to the MLS Player Combine in early January, which made him automatically eligible for the Super Draft. His stock rose after the testing and some stellar performances in exhibition games. Nerwinski placed in the top five in the speed test (1st, 30-meter dash), agility test (4th, 5-10-5 shuttle) and the power test (2nd, vertical jump). Of the 71 combine invitees, he was one of just two to finish in the top five in all three tests.
‘It finally started to sink in after a few days. It all happens fast.’
On draft night, he sat in the Los Angeles Convention Center feeling like he might go in the first round, but even he was stunned when Vancouver took him seventh. That immediately set off a chain of texts, tweets and Facebook posts back in New Jersey.
“It was awesome,” said former Notre Dame teammate Mike Tattory at Nerwinski’s going-away party. “I grew up with Jake. Our dads had been childhood friends. We’ve been watching him and joining him in developing as soccer players and to see him be so successful and put in all his hard work and have it pay off is just amazing. We’re so proud of him, so happy for him. I just wish he was closer so we could watch him continue the journey. You look at map, and it’s the furthest possible team.”
Another ex-Irish teammate who was also at the party was Dean Stephan, who was in Los Angeles on draft night to celebrate his Rider teammate Christian Flath’s All-America selection.
“We were at a hotel across the street (from the draft) and they had a live stream over there,” Stephan said. “When they called him seventh, I couldn’t believe it. I was talking to him the day before and he was kind of uncertain where he was going to go. He was hoping first round and then when they called him seventh pick I thought that’s amazing, I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t have worked out better.”
The only thing that suffered were Nerwinski’s sleeping habits. He couldn’t sleep the night before the draft or the night that he was taken.
“It finally started to sink in after a few days,” said Nerwinski, who is now in Wales for Whitecaps training camp. “It all happens fast.”
One year after finishing second in the MLS West Conference, Vancouver missed the playoffs in 2016 as it dropped to eighth with a 10-15-9 record. The Whitecaps have been in existence since 1974 as they were part of the North American Soccer League.
Coach Carl Robinson made Nerwinski smile during his press conference discussing the draft.
“They liked that I was an attack defender,” Nerwinski said. “The coach had some really good things to say about me. He talked about my character, my work ethic, saying hopefully I would make an immediate impact.”
Considering Vancouver is over 3,000 miles away, Nerwinski did not know much about the franchise, but he learned quickly.
“I spent a lot of time researching it, and it’s pretty ideal,” he said. “It seems like I really got lucky with where I’m getting started. They have top-of-the line facilities, the stadium is awesome, the coaching staff seems great. They want to win, they want what’s best for the players. The fan base is awesome, they had the fifth best attendance last year. It just seems like a really cool place.”
The kind of place a shrimp-turned-giant can enjoy.
Lawrence resident Jake Nerwinski was drafted by the MLS’s Vancouver Whitecaps last month. (Photo courtesy of the University of Connecticut.),
