"It takes a breakthrough
that shapes you
creates you
gives you a name
it corrects you
infects you
directs you
another way."
--Emmett Peixoto
Watsonville native Emmett Peixoto is known as one of the best "get artists" in professional handball.
So accomplished is the San Francisco resident and Cal grad that players have turned his last name into a verb, as in "You Peixoted that ball right off the ground."
Peixoto -- pronounced Peh-shote -- is a fantastic retriever. But the most amazing return for the former Monte Vista Christian and Watsonville High student -- he was expelled from both schools -- has been the inspiring personal turnaround he's made.
In just 12 years he's gone from handball phenom, to chronic discipline problem, to problem drinker, to budding philosophy professor and musician, to married man, to the comeback kid of pro handball.
Is it any wonder one handball web site referred to him as "the most interesting man in the world"?
COMEBACK TRAIL
"He has some eclectic interests," said handball enthusiast and former Watsonville mayor Dennis Osmer. "He's always been hugely talented. Everybody knew he had the potential. It's good to see him get his nose to the grindstone and get back to some serious competition."
Finally recovered from a pesky shoulder injury that plagued him for years, Peixoto pounded his way to the finals of last month's United States Handball Association's 4-Wall Singles championships. There he fell 21-15, 21-2 to Irishman Paul Brady. The title-match loss was a disappointment for Peixoto, but the finals appearance did aid his No. 2 world ranking.
Surgery and intense physical training with Capitola's Rocky Snyder have helped Peixoto, 31, return to form.
"He's the best," Peixoto said of Snyder. "But I guess I'm biased. There's no more pain and I'm able to swing my arm through the ball again. There's no more hesitation."
A powerhouse in the sport for more than 15 years, Peixoto won the 19-and-under Junior National Championship in 2000. Also impressive was a 3-Wall National Championship victory against Sean Lenning in 2006 and a 3-Wall National Championship triumph against Dave Chapman in 2009, and two Canadian National Championships. He is also the first American to win an Australian 3-Wall national title.
DEEP THINKER
Even more eye-opening have been Peixoto's off-court victories -- such as morphing from the self-described "punk" he was in high school to graduating from Cal as a philosophy major and then getting his master's degree in philosophy from Boston College.
Peixoto and wife Jessica -- they were married in November -- now have three book cases in their San Francisco apartment overflowing with works by Herman Melville, Dante, Homer, Joyce, Dostoevsky, Briget Taylor, and philosophers such as Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.
Peixoto's love of philosophy no doubt stems from his late grandmother, Harriet Price of Watsonville, an intellectual who relished the Stoics such as Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Seated in a Scotts Valley coffee house, Peixoto tried to sum up the Nietzschean philosophy that so fascinates him:
"He's into overturning the value of truth and our conception of it. So for example morality has been taken as kind of a given where we ascribe these values that we want to live by. But they don't have a ground anymore in a society where God is kind of being killed through science, or rather, our very will-to-truth. So morality doesn't have a foundation and he's questioning morality's genealogy."
MISCREANT
Agree or disagree with Nietzsche, there's some deep thinking going on underneath Peixoto's jet-black mane of hair. There was little hint of such potential in high school when he was asked to leave both Monte Vista Christian as a sophomore (graffiti was the last straw) and then Watsonville High. His notable meltdown senior year at WHS included throwing trash cans off the roof of the school, smashing pumpkins grown by agriculture students and filming students tripping over strategically placed lines of fishing wire.
"To me those things were just jokes," he said. "It was a big, giant comedy. Life is still a comedy, but I've learned that things you do have effects on people -- they can hurt others -- and on your options later in life."
Now not only is Peixoto a crack handball player, but he plans to get his doctorate in philosophy and become a college professor. He's also - Ta-da! -- a recording artist, with three albums and an EP on iTunes of his alternative listening fare. His sound has been compared to Jack Johnson, and he'd probably have a recording contract by now if only he had time to tour.
Peixoto's older half-brother, Seth, was an influence musically. It was through Seth and his friends like Jeff Hayashi -- now a collaborator of Emmett -- that the youngster gained an appreciation of everything from old school hip hop to classical music. However, Seth was also a character, perhaps contributing to Emmett's confusion in later years.
"He was very rebellious and I looked up to that," Peixoto said. "Some of my problems may have stemmed from that."
TURNING POINT
By Peixoto's early 20s he was a fledgling handball star, but was also drinking heavily. In November of 2004 he was arrested for a DUI while leaving a party in Capitola.
"The party was being broken up and the cops were blocking the entrance," Peixoto said. "My sister was sober and tried to convince me to let her drive, but I was obdurate and could not be persuaded."
Peixoto began attending Alcoholics Anonymous soon after and his father Jimmy joined him to offer moral support. That was 10 years ago and neither have had a drop since.
"The shift occurred when my dad stopped drinking because we could talk to one another about it," Peixoto said. "I am not sure I would have been able to stop drinking without the support of my parents. I am very lucky. I cannot stress enough how important seeking help from relatives, mentors, support groups, education and/or books can be in effectively changing one's direction in life."
WORK ETHIC
Jimmy Peixoto, a Watsonville farmer, had introduced Emmett and older sister Courtney to handball at the Watsonville YMCA. Courtney too excelled at the sport, rising to No. 3 in the world before her retirement.
Jimmy also instilled in his son a strong work ethic, though it didn't take right away. One day while harvesting mustard greens, Emmett decided to give his co-workers a "break."
"We were all just sitting on boxes and I thought 'Well, this is nice,'" Peixoto said. "Then I saw my dad's truck zooming down the road with a trail of dirt behind it and I was like 'Oh, no!" I started running through the furrows as far as I could and he was chasing me. It was terrifying."
Recalled Jimmy: "I was going to whip his butt. All of the workers were laughing and clapping. It's a good thing I didn't catch him."
Such missteps are now firmly in the rear-view mirror for Peixoto as he relishes his new roles as handball pro and coach at San Francisco's prestigious Olympic Club, married man and budding recording artist and educator.
Peixoto credits his loving parents Jimmy and Marjorie for sticking by him when things looked bleak.
"I have fantastic parents and they've supported me through all of my difficult stages," he said. "They gave me a strong foundation and enabled me to pursue my passions. Without my family, music, handball, philosophy, and of course my wife, I could have fallen another way."
*****
To listen to Emmett's Peixoto's "Sky Burns Out" please click here.
