Scholar Stories: Gymnast Perez-Rivera Proves Persistence Pays Off
4/11/2018 12:35:00 PM | Men's Gymnastics, Features
Continuing the popular series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Prairie Farms.
For a week last fall, University of Michigan men's gymnast Tristian Perez-Rivera could do nothing but watch as Hurricane Maria battered his homeland of Puerto Rico.
His mother, Cynthia Rivera, held the house down all by herself, even as it flooded.
The high winds scattered the countryside with debris. Roads became impassable. The electricity to the island, as it has been well-documented, was gone.
It was a scary time.
"I was thankfully able to text her during the whole thing," Perez-Rivera recalled last week. "She had been through a couple hurricanes before, but never anything like that. It was definitely a hard week. I couldn't concentrate on anything."
For Perez-Rivera it was but another example of perseverance -- a common theme in what is now his fifth year in Ann Arbor. Classes had barely begun for the fall semester, but who could have blamed him if he chose to return home?
Instead, he stayed. He focused his attention on bringing Cynthia to Ann Arbor, while helping set up fundraisers and supply drives to send back to Puerto Rico.
From a gymnastics standpoint, a once-promising career has been derailed by injuries. Before coming to Ann Arbor, he had shoulder surgery. At the end of his sophomore season, he tore his right ACL during a floor exercise routine at Oklahoma.
After surgery and a year of rehab, he tore it again, this time in practice. Same knee, same skill.
Another surgery, and more rehab.
Two months later, Perez-Rivera was back on the road to recovery until he began to notice a rash forming around the incision. He was diagnosed with a staph infection. Another surgery.
And if that wasn't enough already, the infection came back a few months after that, requiring yet another surgery. The doctors determined the infection was caused by the screws keeping his ligament in place. To remedy the situation, they took the entire ligament out.
By that point, Perez-Rivera had reached his breaking point. Maybe the universe was trying to tell him something. Maybe it was time to hang it up.
"That first week, I said to myself, 'Damn. That's it.'"
He could have quit after each setback. Each time, he stayed.
To this day, Perez-Rivera is walking around (and competing) on a twice-repaired right knee that is without an ACL, an amazing feat in and of itself. Anything above a jog is painfully difficult for him.
As a freshman, Perez-Rivera was an All-American on vault and was Big Ten Championships runner-up on floor exercise. In 2015, he represented Puerto Rico at the Pan American Games and was one of the country's top candidates to go to the Olympic Test Event, the last step toward qualification for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Thanks to the injuries, those dreams were dashed. Despite being limited to still rings and pommel horse, Perez-Rivera is happy to be able to contribute.
"I changed my mind because I thought as long as I could do something, I could help the team," he said. "I don't think I would've made it through all that without them. The coaches always made sure I was fine. They kept motivating me, making sure I was safe, telling me to keep my head up."
Perez-Rivera began tumbling at age 5. His parents thought he needed better discipline, and that it was a better option than baseball or soccer, even though those two sports were far more popular than gymnastics. Plus, it didn't hurt that he could do the splits pretty seamlessly and spent a lot of time climbing trees.
"I didn't want to leave the gym," he said, laughing. "Everyone would be done and gone, and a half-hour later, my parents would be like, 'Tristian, we have to go.'"
The days of horsing around on the equipment at the gym soon will be over, at least competitively. Perez-Rivera will graduate in a few weeks with a degree in electrical engineering, following in the footsteps of his father, Rafael Perez, who is an engineer on the island with Cobra Acquisitions.
As a child, Tristian would tag along during his dad's trips to power plants. He became amazed with how all the different systems worked in sync. Growing older, he grew interested in the optical side, designing systems using lasers.
For his senior design project, he created a gyroscope that did not use rotors, instead relying on cables and lasers, mimicking navigation systems in airplanes and submarines. Along those lines, his dream job is to design tracking systems of self-driving cars.
After graduation, Perez-Rivera will head to South Carolina to stay with his aunt while figuring out his next move. He plans to get his knee fixed -- for real, this time -- before returning to Puerto Rico in June or July. He has not been back since Maria hit.
What is clear is that being at the University of Michigan has had an immense impact on Perez-Rivera. But exactly how much? He had a difficult time putting that into words.
"I don't know what to say," Perez-Rivera said, before pausing to think about his next words. "I feel like I'm a totally different person now. It's been very special. What (men's gymnastics head coach) Kurt (Golder) and the coaching staff have done for me, I'll be forever grateful. Being at Michigan has changed my life for the better."
Players Mentioned
