Football has paid off for Eagle Rock Highs Melion

Lacking confidence as a 14-year-old freshman, Melion Busano entered high faculty with one thought in thoughts.

“Just get the four years over with,” he said.

In September 2022, while getting half-hour to check out for the basketball group at Eagle Rock High, his confidence was shaken even more.

“They said if we send you a text, you made the team. I never got that text,” he said. “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, but then got here the second that modified his life. While carrying around 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 group 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 told him, “Be careful.”

He began from scratch.

“I had to learn on the fly,” he said. “I didn’t know what type of run plays or nothing. Never played youth football, never played flag.”

Last 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 said he’s the best working back in the City Section, having rushed for 824 yards and 13 touchdowns going into the Northern League title decider against Franklin on Friday.

“He doesn’t go down and everybody has prepared to stop him and hasn’t,” Moran said.

He had 143 yards dashing against Granada Hills Kennedy, 108 yards against Monrovia, 146 yards against Bell, 141 yards against Marquez and 107 yards against L.A. Marshall.

His father was a Marine for 20 years and got here right here as a teenager from Belize. His mom is from the Philippines.

“Sadly I have not gone to either but would love to go,” he said.

His first title 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 keep getting better with expertise.

He even tried out for basketball again and made the group, then determined to focus on soccer.

His father told him, “Try again, work harder, make yourself a better person.”

It’s all half of the high faculty expertise — experimenting, exploring and dealing with the positives and negatives that occur to everybody in their teenage years. His youthful brother also made the soccer group.

“Now I’m kicking myself why didn’t I do this my freshman year,” Busano said. “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.’”

Soon he hopes to go to Belize or Manila to be taught more about his dad and mom’ home nations.

“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 said. “I want to visit both.”

He’s a 17-year-old seeing a entire different world and a entire different future with the help of his soccer experiences.