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At 15, Ueberroth was constantly out of the house, a pretty fair athlete consumed by sports, usually hanging around with older kids, holding a series of jobs at gas stations, shopping centers, Christmas tree lots. By the time he was in high school, he was paying all his own bills. He was in charge, and he liked that. A buddy, John Matthews, remembers that Ueberroth always knew where the parties were, where to get a car. And he would usually set up the dates. If the gang was unable to pick a movie, says another friend, Pete would quickly make the choice. Mostly, Matthews recalls, Ueberroth seemed to have a new job.
There was a little glamour once in a while. His father's younger brother, Alan Curtis, was a movie actor married to Actress Ilona Massey, and young Pete spent one summer with them. He had a broken romance too and got over it in 48 hours, Ueberroth recalls. Two years before finishing high school, Ueberroth moved out of the house and into Twelveacres, an orphanage for children from broken homes. He was the recreation director and was paid $125 a month. When he was handed his diploma, in 1955, all 28 of the boys from Twelveacres stood up in the bleachers and shouted: "Daddy Pete!"
Ueberroth paid his own way through four years of San Jose State, although he received a small sports grant for playing water polo. He tried out for the Olympic squad in 1956 but did not make it. (He did break his nose five times over the years playing water polo, and today it is still badly bent.) At San Jose, Ueberroth spent 15 hours a week in the classroom and 40 hours at odd jobs; selling women's shoes, working on a chicken farm.
The summer after his junior year, Ueberroth and three friends went to Hawaii. While they surfed, Ueberroth loaded baggage and emptied buckets for a nonscheduled airline. Even his recreation did not mean relaxation. On the weekends he frequented a famous body-surfing beach called Makapuu, a stern challenge with 6-ft. swells crashing one on top of the other. Makapuu at the time was jealously guarded by the locals. Resentful of the intrusion, they crowded Ueberroth while he was riding the waves, sometimes driving him into the coral. Bruised and tired, Ueberroth kept going back. But once he mastered the challenge, he lost interest in Makapuu.