Antonio Gonzalez '21 Recruiting Profile

My name is Antonio Julian Gonzalez, i'm a student-athlete, but a student first!  I want you to get to know my story and why I play the game of football. Unfortunately, My best friend passed away in 2016 and that made me have this motive to going and never stop. Football was the only thing that was there for me when he passed away, I didn’t know what to do and how to feel after he passed, but he taught me a valuable lesson: always remember who you do it for. In addition I want to tell you about a time when I almost lost my life. When I was halfway through my freshman year of high school, I almost lost my life to gun violence. Being young and going through such a tragedy makes me a humble kid, the school I was attending my freshman year wasn’t the best spot for me. I felt like I was trapped in a scary movie, I felt like I had to watch my back every 5 minutes to make sure I was safe for my own good. One day I was done with my varsity basketball game, unfortunately I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I got out of school, I noticed a suspicious car in front of me, I started to walk to my bus stop with headphones on with no music playing just in case something happens, I had the car in my peripheral vision, next thing you know is the car reverses to me, but I ran away just in time because I had a weird feeling before everything happened. Football saved my life. Ambition less people were jealous of the type of training I do to be great,  they never could understand why I had so much energy and why I kept a smile on my face whenever things got hard. I pride myself on never showing pain, but I know that when there is pain, there is progress, and when there is progress there is greatness in the making. Equally important, I love helping people in need. Not only do I love helping my team win a football game by making consistent catches and awesome plays, but I also love making people feel better. In conclusion, I want to be great individual in any community such as neighborhood wise and in school to make communities better than they’re now. I want to show kids that you can do anything you put to your mind, but you have to give it everything you got.