Missing confidence as a 14-year-old freshman, Melion Busano entered highschool with one thought in thoughts.
“Just get the four years over with,” he mentioned.
In September 2022, whereas getting half-hour to check out for the basketball crew at Eagle Rock Excessive, his confidence was shaken much more.
“They said if we send you a text, you made the team. I never got that text,” he mentioned. “I was in denial. ‘Maybe they forgot me.’ After the third or fourth week, I was [thinking], ‘Maybe they didn’t send that text.’”
Rejection left him adrift, however then got here the second that modified his life. Whereas carrying round a digital camera for movie class, the JV soccer coach, Vince Vergara, seen him, pulled him apart and requested, “Hey, do you want to play football?”
He joined the JV crew as a sophomore. His mom had refused to let him play soccer years in the past after seeing the 2015 movie, “Concussion.” This time, she instructed him, “Be careful.”
He began from scratch.
“I had to learn on the fly,” he mentioned. “I didn’t know what type of run plays or nothing. Never played youth football, never played flag.”
Final season as a junior, he made varsity and had 211 yards dashing and two touchdowns. This season, as a a lot improved 5-foot-10, 195-pound senior, he’s grow to be so helpful that coach Andy Moran mentioned he’s the very best operating again within the Metropolis Part, having rushed for 824 yards and 13 touchdowns going into the Northern League title decider towards Franklin on Friday.
“He doesn’t go down and everybody has prepared to stop him and hasn’t,” Moran mentioned.
He had 143 yards dashing towards Granada Hills Kennedy, 108 yards towards Monrovia, 146 yards towards Bell, 141 yards towards Marquez and 107 yards towards L.A. Marshall.
His father was a Marine for 20 years and got here right here as a young person from Belize. His mom is from the Philippines.
“Sadly I have not gone to either but would love to go,” he mentioned.
His first identify stands for “My Lion.”
“You’re a lion, so you’re fierce,” his father tells him.
With renewed confidence, Busano has found a love for soccer and a perception he can preserve getting higher with expertise.
He even tried out for basketball once more and made the crew, then determined to give attention to soccer.
His father instructed him, “Try again, work harder, make yourself a better person.”
It’s all a part of the highschool expertise — experimenting, exploring and coping with the positives and negatives that occur to everybody of their teenage years. His youthful brother additionally made the soccer crew.
“Now I’m kicking myself why didn’t I do this my freshman year,” Busano mentioned. “Now I appreciate the little things, about discipline, always do your job, don’t do someone else’s job. It’s helped me grow up as a person. I was very ignorant and blind walking into this. I felt I probably won’t be the worst player but probably second string, but I came onto the field and started. It was, ‘Wow.’”
Quickly he hopes to go to Belize or Manila to study extra about his mother and father’ residence international locations.
“My dad says my grandma has a house where you can wake up and look out the window and the beach is right there,” he mentioned. “I want to visit both.”
He’s a 17-year-old seeing a complete totally different world and a complete totally different future with the assistance of his soccer experiences.
