She doesn’t have a driver’s license. Often doesn’t get movie references. Reminds many of their little sisters.
There’s always some story or tidbit involving Meila Brewer that will make her teammates laugh or gush about playing alongside the freshman center back who’s believed to be the youngest athlete in UCLA history.
Why, it wasn’t so long ago that Brewer floored everybody else on the women’s soccer team when each player shared how old they were when the pandemic hit. As almost everybody ticked off one year or another in high school, all eyes turned to Brewer.
“Oh,” she announced, “I was in fifth grade.”
That doesn’t mean that she’s easily identifiable. Coach Margueritte Aozasa has made an informal game of asking anyone who inquires about having a 16-year-old on her roster to pick her out when scanning the players on the field.
No one has gotten it right on the first handful of attempts.
“They’ll point out three or four players,” Aozasa said, “and I’ll be like, ‘No, it’s probably the one you would least expect.’ ”
Being one of the tallest players on the team at 5-foot-8 provides some cover, but it’s also her precocious nature and the skills she developed while training with a professional team and playing for the U.S. youth national team that give her a veteran presence.
There’s been no underage shrinking, Brewer living up to every moment as fourth-seeded UCLA (11-5-3) prepares to open the NCAA tournament at 6 p.m. PST Saturday at home against Pepperdine (11-6-2).
OK, maybe a hint of her youth emerged when she was asked how she felt about playing on college soccer’s biggest stage.
“Freaking out,” Brewer said. “Like, when you think about it, I’m soooo excited, that’s like the only way you can put it.”
This will be just her eighth game with the Bruins as a result of her recent participation in the FIFA under-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco, where the Americans won their group before losing to the Netherlands on penalty kicks in the Round of 16.
Her UCLA teammates followed the action from afar, one posting a picture of herself shedding celebratory tears in a group chat after Brewer scored in the opening game. After the competition ended, Brewer boarded one flight for Atlanta before getting on another one bound for Los Angeles, only to hop back on a third plane a little more than 12 hours later to accompany her Bruins teammates to West Lafayette, Ind., for the Big Ten tournament.
“Coming back from Morocco, I had missed a decent amount of games,” Brewer said, “but I feel like the girls have been so supportive of helping me get reintegrated and getting right back into the flow just because we’re in tournament time and we want to succeed.”
Aozasa said she’s reminded her players that there’s a 16-year-old on the team and to behave appropriately. Brewer’s roommate, Payten Cooper, is two years older than her even though she’s also a freshman. Lexi Wright, a redshirt senior forward, is seven years older.
But those age gaps aren’t a big deal to Brewer considering she’s already spent a year and a half training with players in their 30s on the Kansas City Current, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League.
“It’s no surprise that she’s gonna be able to fit in right away and be successful at that level at UCLA,” said Vasil Ristov, the coach of the Current’s second team who was also Brewer’s youth club coach, “because she’s seen some of the top talent in the world and she’s participated in training sessions with them.”
Just reaching UCLA at such a young age was a major triumph.
Having taken a heavy class load in middle school and her first two years of high school to lessen the academic burden on her later, Brewer had reclassified once by the time she visited UCLA last spring. That’s when her love for a place she had long considered her dream school truly took hold, Brewer feeling the pull to play immediately even though she had more than a year of high school remaining.
“She was like, ‘What if I just come in this fall?’ ” said her father, Austin Brewer, who was also on the trip. “And I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t think it works that way.’ ”
After checking it out, the family realized it was a possibility. Meila (pronounced MEE-luh) worked nonstop from April through the end of July. She didn’t get to participate in high school graduation ceremonies but was rewarded with something greater — a chance to play for the Bruins.
Her schedule includes nearly as many parent check-ins as classes. Austin and Shelly Brewer routinely call in the morning, midday and evening, sometimes adding oldest daughter Sasha, a freshman defender for the University of Miami women’s soccer team, to FaceTime chats.
Classes haven’t been as hard as Brewer imagined, though she’s still trying to pick a major.
“Coming into college,” she said, “I was prepping myself for the worst, so I feel like I was ready for it.”
On the field, Brewer is known for a physical style that allows her to impede opposing forwards in her role as a defender and smart playmaking while on the attack. They’re all traits that could help her fulfill her goal of playing for the U.S. national team.
Having always played up one or more levels on club teams, sometimes alongside boys, Brewer developed a strong sense of self.
“I asked her once who her favorite player was, who did she want to be like,” Shelly Brewer said, “and I’ll never forget this — we laugh about it all the time — she said, ‘I don’t want to be like anyone; I want to be like me.’ ”
In a nod to her age and the fact that she’s still growing, Brewer sometimes gets tendinitis in her knees. She wants to be just one of the girls, her youth a novelty but not a defining characteristic.
“I want to be seen as an equal on the field or a leader on the field in what I can do besides my age,” she said. “I just want to be able to stand out for how I play and not on the age side of it.”
That’s not to say that someone who won’t turn 17 until March isn’t having as much fun as everybody else whenever the subject comes up.
“It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re a baby,’ ” Brewer said, “and I’m like, ‘Yep, I am.’ ”
The post ‘Oh my gosh, you’re a baby.’ Meet Meila Brewer, UCLA’s 16-year-old soccer star appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
