Mason Rivera didn’t find confidence by accident. He built it the hard way - first on a football field in Tracy, then in a Muay Thai ring where the only way out was through.
That edge has followed him to UCLA, where the defensive back helped spark a 54-3 win over Maryland with one of the Bruins’ four interceptions. It was Rivera’s first pick at UCLA, and it fit the arc of a player who has spent years turning pressure into fuel.
Rivera’s story starts with a kid who hated standing still. Even as a 10-year-old in Pop Warner, he pushed himself so hard that his youth coach, Gilbert Coronado of the Tracy Buccaneers, had to pull him back. The team handed out a five-pound brick to the day’s MVP every game, and Rivera kept fighting for it.
“He’d play the game of football so hard that his face would turn red,” Coronado said. “I’d have to tell him to stop and make sure he came out to rest because he never wanted to leave the field. He did it all for us.”
That same drive was sharpened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Rivera was a junior at Kimball High School and organized sports across California shut down. Boredom turned into anger, and a Christmas gift in 2020 changed the outlet. A pair of boxing gloves and a punching bag led almost immediately to hours of work at home, and then to Muay Thai classes at American Top Team in his hometown.
“I always liked martial arts as a kid,” Rivera said. “At the time in high school, everything was shut down, I found ATT and had a lot of fun doing it. I saw other guys showing up for fights, so you wanted to sign up for one.”
What Rivera found in Muay Thai was a different kind of test. He trained for two and a half years, sparring intensely and cutting from 175 to 170 pounds, all without telling Cal Poly coaches what he was doing. After high school, he finally got the fight he’d been chasing: an amateur bout in Monterey against a 24-year-old opponent with a 1-0 record.
The walk to the mat brought the nerves. Once the bell sounded, though, Rivera settled in and took control.
“The referee told me to dial it down a couple of notches,” Rivera said. “You couldn’t knock anyone out or else you’d be disqualified. So I made it more of a technical fight and just focused on landing and scoring points.”
He won, and the next day he was in San Luis Obispo to join his older brother Ryan at Cal Poly. It was the only season the brothers shared the field.
The confidence Rivera gained in that ring has carried into football. At Cal Poly, he put together a four-year run that included 195 tackles, nine tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, five forced fumbles and two interceptions. Now at UCLA, he’s already made himself part of the Bruins’ defensive depth after arriving late and not practicing in Westwood until the summer.
He has also been working through the details with James Madison transfer Derrick Barksdale, another piece in UCLA’s secondary.
“We ask each other questions, and we talk about plays on film,” Barksdale said. “At the same time, I feel like we match up.
He’s a competitor, and we all competed in the secondary. We match up pretty well.”
Coronado said Rivera always had the tools. What he needed was the belief to match them.
“All he needed was a shot, but he needed to get out of his own way,” Coronado said. “He’s just as big, just as fast.
Once he understood he was good and he belonged in that type of tier, nothing could stop him. He knows he belongs and got out of his own way.
He started believing in himself. We keep on encouraging him and he’s benefitting off his own work.”
Rivera says that mindset is exactly what has carried him to this point.
“I’ve made the most of every opportunity,” Rivera said in coming to UCLA. “Every rep they gave me, I’m taking full advantage. I’ve embraced that role ever since I got it.”
In Other News...
Oregon Is Clearly Worried About UCLAs Biggest Offensive Threat
With Oregon preparing for UCLA this week, the Ducks are treating the Bruins ground game as the part of the matchup that can tilt everything else. Defensive tackle AMauri Washington pointed to the need for disciplined play up front, and his comments made it clear that UCLAs rushing attack has his attention as much as anything else on the schedule.
Wayne Knight came up quickly in that discussion, a sign of how much respect Oregon has for the Bruins best offensive threat on the ground. Washington also said his teammates have grown and prepared well for the game, but the challenge now is turning that work into control at the line of scrimmage when UCLA starts leaning on its run game. [Read more 🡒]
BYU Freshman Could Become A Much Bigger Factor Than Fans Expect
Freshmen often arrive on campus with all the buzz, but the quieter names can end up mattering just as much once the season starts. Among a group of first-year players across the country who are drawing little national attention right now, there are several who could wind up giving their teams a real boost, including newcomers at major programs such as UConn, Duke, Arkansas and UCLA.
For the Bruins, that matters because the list of impact freshmen also cuts across the Big 12 and beyond, with a BYU newcomer singled out as someone who could become far more important than fans currently expect. The common thread is opportunity meeting talent: each player has skills that could translate quickly, but the challenge will be earning minutes in crowded rotations and proving their value early enough to force coaches into bigger roles. [Read more 🡒]
Trent Perry Now Carries The UCLA Question That Could Define This Season
Trent Perry is stepping into the kind of job at UCLA that tends to tell you a lot about where a season is headed. With Mick Cronin entering his eighth year on the bench, Perry is expected to handle the point guard duties and guide an offense that will ask a lot of him from the start. The preseason recognition has already followed, with Perry landing on the All-Big Ten Preseason First Team after flashing the kind of upside that can make a coach comfortable handing over the keys.
There is still a clear learning curve attached to the assignment, and Cronin has been open about it. Perry will be doing it without former teammate Donovan Dent, which means the Bruins are asking him to adjust quickly while carrying more of the playmaking burden. His standout showing against Purdue, when he finished with 15 points and 9 assists, offered a glimpse of what he can bring, but the bigger question is whether he can steady that role every night once the season starts to tighten. [Read more 🡒]