Author: Chris Nelson
Sitting in the stands at an Occidental soccer home game, there is one question that always pops up. “Who is that guy doing push-ups down there? He must have done over 100,” a fan will invariably say. That guy is Occidental Soccer enthusiast Craig Peters—better known to athletes, parents and fans as “Exercise Man.”
Peters is a perennial fixture at Oxy men’s and women’s soccer games. He lives only about a mile off campus and jogs up to the lower soccer field for each home game to watch the teams he has been cheering on for 11 years. “I used to be the only guy in the stands,” Peters said. “I’m pleased that people are coming out to the games now and that they are getting into them, with chants and taunts.”
Peters gained the nickname Exercise Man for the intense workouts he engages in while watching the matches. He cheers on the team for the first half, but as soon as the half ends, Peters can be seen running to the top of Mt. Fiji and back. As the second half of the game begins, he watches the game while doing push-ups and sit-ups. “I do a couple hundred push-ups and sit-ups, then after the game I run home,” Peters said.
In the stands, fans whisper to each about Peters’ workouts, amazed by the intensity he brings to what is usually a spectator affair. When asked whether Oxy soccer players could keep up with his halftime workouts, Peters laughed. “I’m 53. They could kick my butt,” Peters said. “I’d like to think 10 years ago I could have played on the Oxy team, but not now.”
Exercise Man’s love for soccer and working out dates back to his days as a student at Stanford, where he majored in music and drama. “I love soccer,” he said. “When I went to Stanford, the top guys were just too damn good, but there were always games to be played at college against a lot of good players who were not quite good enough to get on the team.”
Until a few years ago, Peters was a fixture in local soccer pick-up games at Eagle Rock Park, but two knee surgeries ended his playing career. Nowadays, he gets his soccer fix watching both Tigers teams. At times, Peters admits to utilizing his flare for the dramatic while watching the games. “I got red-carded once at a women’s game a few years back,” Peters said. “The referee threw me out off the field, so I walked up the stairs behind the field. The ref yelled at me to close the gate and I yelled back to him, ‘Make me!'”
Peters views his role as a catalyst for the team. He chats with the players during the game, hoping to pump them up. “I like to try to fire these guys up, so I sometimes pick on one guy,” Peters said. “Sometimes it makes a difference.”
The high point of the men’s 2007 season, in Peters’s opinion, was Ben Waters’s (junior) hat trick against Whittier. During the game, Exercise Man was cheering on Waters, telling the junior forward that he had to score three goals. “I was picking on him, rooting him on, hoping it was motivating for him,” Peters said.
“He was definitely motivating because I was upset after missing a couple opportunities,” Waters said about Peters’s encouragements. “He said ‘Come on, Waters—I want a hat trick!’ pretty loud and I felt like I had to have the same enthusiasm about scoring as Exercise Man had about wanting us to win.”
Peters’s love of soccer and the Tigers is apparent to all who watch him at the games. After Oxy’s one goal loss to Redlands last week, he was applauding the team’s effort as the players ran and stretched after the game. At one point, he called out to Ben Torgersen (senior), “Great game, Ben. You were tough in there.”
“Thanks for your support,” Torgersen responded. Support is what Exercise Man aims to provide the Tigers, regardless of their record. “He’s been a great inspiration to the team,” Waters said. “I don’t think he’ll stop anytime soon.”
Luckily for Occidental Soccer, Peters has no intention of stopping. “I’ve been through thick and thin years with this team,” Peters said of the men’s team. “But I’d rather watch these guys than go to the Rose Bowl.”
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