Aboard the flight deck of the USS Nimitz, 24-year-old Scott Sinclair finally found a focus and a structure in life when he joined the Navy.
Sinclair, who is a member of the Warriors soccer team, was born and raised in Norman, Okla., a suburb just south of Oklahoma City, where the University of Oklahoma Sooners are located.
Sinclair has been playing soccer, football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey since he was 5.
Through high school at Oklahoma Christian Academy in Edmond, Oklahoma, Sinclair was a recognized athlete earning all-state honors in soccer three years, and in basketball for two. When he graduated in 2002, he immediately went to the University of Oklahoma for a year before joining the Navy.
Even in the Navy, Sinclair found the time to be on the Naval soccer team. Soccer is a sport he has known for most of his life.
During high school, soccer was his best sport; his teams were perennial contenders for the state championship.
Sinclair’s father, Pete, is from Kirkaldy, Scotland, the same area Warrior soccer coach Jon Britton is from.
“(Sinclair) has led the team by example. He was a strong influence on a very inexperienced team,” soccer coach Jon Britton said. “Being an ex-Navy boy he still has a lot of discipline in his approach to soccer.”
Sinclair’s four years in the Navy included two deployments to the Persian Gulf while aboard the Nimitz, an aircraft carrier based out of San Diego.
Through his experiences, Sinclair has learned to deal with high stress situations and what it takes to overcome.
Sinclair has matured as a person through the process, getting married on Nov. 18, 2006.
His wife, Ella Sinclair, earned her master’s degree in accounting from San Diego State University before taking a job at Price Waterhouse Coopers, which is the world’s largest professional services firm.
Being at EC only a short time, Sinclair has already made a mark by pioneering a new club on campus, the Veterans Club. His goal with the club is to help those veterans who may not know the ropes when it comes to college, as well as to provide a social group with which they can find common ground.
“(Sinclair) is a natural leader. We appreciate that he can follow and lead,” English professor Dalia Juarez said. “He has an easy approach to the dilemmas we find ourselves in, the level-headedness ease and comfort to those around him.”
Growing up in Norman were there were no professional sports teams, Sinclair was more into college sports rather than professional sports.
Sticking to soccer, Sinclair wanted to try out for the team at EC just to see if he could still play and ended up being the most consistent player in the midfield.
His plans for the future consist of transferring to UCLA in the spring of 2010 and graduating in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
Sinclair wants to work in defense contracting, allowing him to remain in the South Bay building military equipment for one of the many companies in the South Bay such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, among others.
One of his major connections to a job in the field is chemistry professor Bob Altermatt, who not only works at EC, but also works at Northrop Grumman as a defense contractor.
Altermatt served on the Nimitz at the same time as Sinclair, but neither knew of each other until they met here.
Currently residing in Redondo Beach, the Sinclair’s spend time walking at the beach, and watching their english bulldog ride a skateboard.
While the crime rate is very low and the prices remain low, Sinclair has stated he never wants to live in Oklahoma again. He enjoys the consistent weather, the amount of opportunities, and the pace of life in Los Angeles
“Coming back to school I did not feel like I was going to be this involved, but I enjoy it,” Sinclair said.
