What it means to be selected for the O-D All American Bowl

2009-10-29

It is an awesome honor to have Gino recognized as an All-American athlete. We are very proud as a family and feel obliged to help Gino make every effort possible to continue to earn the right to have this distinction provided by O-D. To help answer your questions you sent, I thought it might be best to provide you a history on how we got to where we are today.

My son Gino has always been a good athlete whether playing Football, Basketball and more recently Track and Field. As he was growing up, he would often make a clutch play, a diving catch, a crushing tackle or a critical shot at the end of a game. So it became apparent, he might be able to progress a little further than the average kid.

Gino has also had a unique focus and commitment toward football since the early age of 8 years when we lived in New Hampshire. He begged me to play, but I made him wait until he was 11 years old in 2003. He first played in Pleasanton, California. He was clearly the best linebacker and defensive player on the team from the first time he set foot on the field with the natural ability to make text book open field tackles. It was a memorable experience because one of his fellow teammates was a fine young boy by the name of Demetrius Woodson, son of NFL hall of famer, Rod Woodson, who was often on the sidelines watching games.

Something else most people don’t know about Gino. On Opening Day of the Oakland Raiders 2003/04 season, he had the privilege of delivering the game ball in the Opening Ceremony to the referees at mid-field in the Oakland Coliseum at the start of the game. He was beaming with excitement as he confidently ran the ball onto the turf in front of 50,000 fans, and handed the referees the ball at midfield. At his age, I would have been quite intimidated, but not him as I watched on the Jumbotron. He was given an NFL football as a keepsake that he has proudly saved.

In 2004, we found ourselves living in Atlanta, Georgia, and Gino played for the select Alpharetta Eagles team. In 2005 he started playing for the Alpharetta high school feeder team where he was positioned as the starting middle linebacker in the first scrimmages just before we moved to Europe.

As you can see, we moved frequently due to my work transfers, and this always put my sons in the situation of being the new kids and having to re-establish themselves and earn the right to play on various teams.

It was nice to finally live in one place for more than two years (in Brussels now over 4 years), but the irony now is Gino faces the problem of being treated as a foreigner in his own country because he lives and plays football overseas where it is difficult to be seen by U.S. recruiters.

I’ll digress for just a moment; At the age of 14 he said he intended to play college football. He said it with the same confidence that he demonstrated when he carried that football onto the field in Oakland. He was not just another kid with big aspirations. He meant it, and it has been evident based on his dedication to working out, learning the technical skills of the game and his relentless pursuit of excellence on the field. He continues to push himself to improve his athleticism every day.

This brings me to O-D. When we started to realize how the college recruiting process worked in the U.S., it became evident we had to take action to get people to recognize Gino’s abilities and it would not be easy. Visiting some college campuses and attending their football camps was one step, but we were looking for some type of more professional process that would suit the situation that Gino faced. After finding O-D on the web, and speaking to Nathan Small and Terry Massey, we immediately registered Gino for the Select Camp in Towson, Maryland. He was subsequently invited to the Elite Camp and then honored with an invitation to play in the All-American game.

This is an opportunity that Gino has been working hard to accomplish. He continues to push himself in training every day so he can take full advantage of the All-American game to demonstrate his abilities. It will be the only high school game he will ever get to play on U.S. soil, and with the majority expected to be D1 committed players he is thrilled to have the chance to go toe-to-toe on the field with so many top rated players.

I think all the kids that participate in the All-American game will have a great memory, but I believe it will be even greater for Gino. He has something to prove, and that is when he is at his best.

A quick story on Commitment;
I am very proud of how committed Gino is toward achieving his goals considering his young age of 16 this summer.
He and I made a plan for Athletics to accomplish during the 2009 summer, and he has met and/or exceeded every goal. He worked out regularly all summer (speed training and weight lifting), and in between visited many colleges and attended 13 days of football camps. He is so committed to his goal of playing college football, he elected to miss the family graduation party for his older brother (and best friend) in July, so he could fly (by himself) from Baltimore to Greensboro, where he arranged to have some friends-of-friends pick him up and give him a floor to sleep on for two nights while he attended the football camp at Elon University in North Carolina. I am proud of his clear focus of doing what it takes to accomplish what he wants. He understands that opportunity isn’t just an accident, but rather something that you earn through hard work and sacrifice.

Quote from an opposing coach:

On Friday night, September 26, 2009, we played the Bitburg Barons. They are a perennial powerhouse team in Europe with a long standing quality coach (Mike Laue). After several losses over recent years, we finally beat them, 34-16.

After the game, I spoke with coach Laue, and he was interested in helping Gino get contacts with some colleges. Gino attended a football camp where coach Laue has seen him the last two years. Coach Laue said, “when I saw Gino this summer, he was not the same Gino, he was a whole new Gino.” Bigger, stronger and faster.

A compliment:

While at the Germany football camp during August, one of the coaches had the boys doing some drills and took the time to compliment Gino for being the only boy that did not take false-steps. Gino told him he learned that while at the O-D camp.