Oglethorpe lacrosse goalie Tori Perez has been a first in her family.
First to earn a bachelor's degree. First to compete in collegiate athletics. First to play for a national team, representing her Colombian heritage.
For a long time, her motivation stemmed from making her parents proud. In college, she discovered something else.
"I realized, no, I'm playing for girls like me who thought I would never get to look to play in college, or I would never even be looked at to be on a national team."
Perez has run toward every door lacrosse has put in her path, throwing it open and charging through. The biology major and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president takes no experience for granted.
"This is a privilege. This is a blessing," she said. "Not a lot of kids like me or women like me experience this."
From a young age, her parents, Evie and Alfredo, instilled ambition in their daughter. As first-generation citizens, the Perezes created a successful business, a big family and a name for themselves in their hometown of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
"They're successful businesspeople, so I grew up around that. Staying disciplined and ambitious was from them," she said.
From first-generation college graduate to the Colombian national team, Division III lacrosse goalie Tori Perez redefines what's possible for herself and for others. (Photos courtesy of Tori Perez)
In eighth grade, a friend needed Perez to be a goalie on her lacrosse team. Growing up playing soccer, Perez figured the movements would translate, so she agreed.
"I picked up a stick, and it never left my hand after that," she said.
During her first-ever lacrosse season as a high school freshman, Perez set a goal to become a college lacrosse player. By senior year, she had committed to Oglethorpe.
"I wanted to move to a big city where I had big dreams," Perez said of the Division III university 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta.
The diversity on Oglethorpe's lacrosse team also appealed to Perez. For the first time in her career, she had the opportunity to play with Hispanic and Black players.
"It made me realize how big lacrosse has gotten as far as racial and ethnic backgrounds go," she said. "On the team, we created a closer, tight-knit family, so it was nice to be able to lean on other people and rely on them to understand how I feel as a woman of racial or ethnic background."
This transformed Perez's entire collegiate experience.
"I walked into college not really knowing who I was yet but trying to find my identity or my sense of self," she said. "After graduating, I definitely left with a stronger purpose, confidence and clarity on my identity and who I was regarding my culture, who I was as an athlete, who I was as a student, and so on."
Transformation started on the lacrosse field with the help of head coach Taylor Martin pushing Perez beyond her perceived limits. Martin always showed up in answer to Perez's requests for early-morning training sessions three to four times a week.
"I was very honest with (coach) that I want to be in the Oglethorpe Hall of Fame, I want to be known at this school, I want to be known beyond this school. She helped me every way."
Martin said Perez got better every year at Oglethorpe, growing into an incredible leader, too.
"She had a huge impact on OU lacrosse," Martin said. "She will continue to hold records for years to come. But her attitude and commitment to personal and team growth will also be missed."
Perez earned multiple all-conference and all-regional honors, in addition to being named a USA Lacrosse preseason All-American. She said playing Division III lacrosse made her feel more confident in her successes.
"There's so much great talent in DIII as far as women's lacrosse goes. The fact that I was being seen out of all of these people … it made me feel like, 'OK, this is who I am. People know my name now.'"
Perez created a name for herself in the classroom and in the community, too.
In May, she graduated with a degree in biology. She plans to use her degree to help athletes through the lens of performance and recovery in the health care field.
"I feel like athletes are kind of not understood sometimes, and I think having someone who was an athlete and being able to understand my patients in the future would definitely be beneficial," she said.
Yet Perez did not wait until after graduation to begin helping people.
Perez joined Oglethorpe's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and her junior year, she organized a fundraiser for a woman's homeless shelter, soliciting donated coupons, gift cards and prizes from local businesses to create a raffle. Her efforts raised $600 for the shelter.
By her senior year, Perez was elected SAAC president. She continued her service work, making over 30 blankets to hand out to homeless people, along with donated socks and shirts.
Perez also found time to coach a high school girl's lacrosse team.
"My success was driven by never being satisfied. Once I shifted my mindset from proving others wrong to proving myself right, everything started clicking," Perez said.
Now, she will continue her lacrosse career on the Colombian national team while beginning nursing school in January.
While she has been the first in her family, Perez continues playing lacrosse and giving back to the sport to make sure there are others following in her path.
"I'm playing for the girls that don't have a sense of community that I did in Atlanta, the girls that don't think they're enough, the girls who don't think they're perfect in the world of lacrosse because they're Hispanic or Black."
For Perez, that journey started with randomly picking up a lacrosse stick and never putting it down. It also began on Oglethorpe's campus, where she learned her identity and her purpose moving forward.
"If I were to do it again and know everything that I know now, I would still choose Oglethorpe 100%," she said. "I know how amazing it made me feel as an athlete and as a student. … They always made me feel at home."
