Armando Galarraga was a young boy when his family came to America from his home country of Venezuela. His family was escaping the poverty ridden country that seemed to be falling apart slowly, and his father knew he could get a job in the United States, and that in the new land of opportunity they could only succeed. Armando had been great at two things growing up as a child, kicking the football and throwing a baseball, when he got to America he had his parents sign him up to play both, as apparently Americans only played football in the fall and into the winter, which seemed quite strange to Armando. Little did he know that he had signed up to play American football, which he had never even heard of! At the first practice, he had discovered his mistake once he had noticed the oblong balls the coaches had brought, and the amount of equipment that was needed, he was going to leave until his coaches told him that he could still kick in this sport, so Armando decided to give it a shot, he suddenly discovered that kicking in this game was much different, but much more suited for Armando than the fast paced game that the Americans called soccer, as he was never the fastest player growing up. Throughout the first practice Armando slowly figured out how to kick this oblong ball very well, he was making the field goals from all over the field with both the power to make the longer tries, and the accuracy to split the uprights with consistency. His coaches were amazed, he found his way onto the roster for his high school team not long after, and set many records for kicking as his team made it all the way to the state championship, where Armando was called upon with the chance to win the game in overtime. He drilled the 42 yarder to win the game as just a junior in high school, unfortunately for the school, they wouldn’t bounce back the next season, but the college scouts had taken notice of the young Venezuelan. He received offers from a few different schools, but he hadn’t had the exposure to get offers from the big names like Alabama or Clemson. This didn’t faze Armando as on decision day he still had a few good schools to choose from, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Ohio, and Buffalo all wanted Armando’s talents to come to the Middle American Conference, and Armando was ready for some MACtion. He ended up choosing Western Michigan as the place to play, and made the move north to continue his athletic journey, as they offered to let him play Baseball as well, his first love. After a few seasons at Western Michigan, he was named first team All-Conference as both a sophomore and a junior, and decided to take his talents to the ISFL as some feuds with umpires, and some bad calls had turned him away from baseball after his sophomore season on the mound. Armando thinks his leg can carry him and his name to fame, and hopes the DSFL and ISFL teams will be ready to support him along the way!
536 words
536 words