From having to travel to go practice to becoming the best in region
Sports made up most of my high school life.
As a senior I will always remember the sports I took part in. From Freshman year was the one I will remember for a long time. All the practicing. All the conditioning. From the emotions of losing to celebrating a win. The “team dinners” at Wendys. The end-of-season banquets and ultimate frisbee at the park.
Ibarra Freshman Year: The school was still under construction and we still had the old locker room. The team would get ready and begin taking the walk down the “Green Mile” with the Coronado jersey pulled over my football pads. Jogging out into the field with Shane Harney, Shawn Martin, TJ Brown, Maxx Simmons, Tim Stempkowski, Sergio Arocha, Victor Gomez, Jario I, and Colton Anderson to get stretched out and warmed up for the game. Looking up at the stands, of course there was no one there just the few parents that always came to cheer for their kids and freak out everytime one of us got hit.
The season didn’t end up too good. Us winning only two games wasn’t necessarily anything worth celebrating for but of course at the end of the season all we did was look at the action pictures and say how good we were. That team ended up going on to almost going all the way to state.
Basketball was a way better season that year, this was when we were “Ballin’ ” due to the “We Fly High” song. Shane Harney, Daniel Jones, Diego Neria, Victor Gomez, Andy Ward, Zack Smith, Shawn Martin, Alex Lopez, Adam Dickerson, Kendal Morris, Me and Coach Lewis made up the freshman basketball team. We had a team that by the looks of it should not have done as good as we did. With the gym under construction we had to travel in order to practice. we ended up calling an army base with a portable court home for that seasons practice. We used to lower the court when Coach wasn’t looking so we could dunk and for some reason coach never found out. The team ended up with a 13-5 record, and with that record it wasn’t any surprise that we placed first in the region.
Coming of that winning season we went straight into baseball. The team consisted of Joey Kredlo, Adam Dickerson, Maxx Simmons, Daniel Brown, Justin Rodriguez, Daniel Jones, Max Morales, Joe Loofbourough, Marcus Cano, Tim Stempkowski, Riley DiLorenzo, Austin Hansen, Coach Eliot, and Coach Trupiano. Within a few weeks after each player setteled into their roles on the team we became a family. We won and lost together it was never anyone person’s fault. we brought each other up when we were down and went crazy when one of us hit a home run or made a diving catch. That season ended as good as it started we ended up winning the region and we were being looked at as a team that doesn’t come around to often. Each one of us had talent and all of us knew that a game could not be won by one persons talent.
In the end I have done all that I can do for each team that I played on through out my high school career here at Coronado. I am happy with the sports I took part in and the friends that I have made. Coronado, even if you don’t know it, is a family and I hope I can come back when my little brother graduates and I can look at the shield and still feel proud that I was a DON.