Earlier this month, the Cardozo Boys Varsity Football Team gathered together to acknowledge three graduating senior players from the class of 2025. Gilbert Flecha, Tyler Clarke, and Isaih Wolfe-Young were honored in the principal’s conference room with their fellow players, coaches, and family to celebrate their commitments to three universities where they will continue their football careers.
Coach O’Connor congratulated them with the team surrounding them as the three of them sat in front of everybody, signing their future in their beloved sport. This moment was a sentimental one for the three boys, as well as their families, as they leave behind the four years of Cardozo sports and enter a new era.
Flecha Jr., a captain of the team, reflected on what this sport has meant to him. “Football has impacted my life because it taught me patience, leadership, and discipline,” he said. “I got into football because of my father and all of my success is because of him, and I owe him everything.” Flecha Jr. not only wants to continue to play football in college, but has big dreams and aspirations for the NFL one day.
For Clarke however, his love for football started in middle school, when regular games of football became a passion for him. “I’m happy I’m able to pursue football outside of high school, not many people get this opportunity,” he said. “I’m happy and blessed that my hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
Clarke finalized by saying, “Football gave me not only a second family but it gave my future a direction before football I had a whole bunch of different jobs I wanted to do in my head but now I have one definitive direction,” he added.
Wolfe-Young, the final senior to be signed off to college said, “Football has impacted my life because it gave me a chance to do something other than be in my neighborhood being a bad child when I was younger which led to me really liking it.”
He explained that football changed him from being a bad influence in the neighborhood to a student-athlete wanting to join the NFL in the future. “I was being bad in the neighborhood when I was younger and my uncle went to my mom and told her to put me in football so I can get some of my energy out which worked,” he confessed.
Coach O’Connor shared a speech and positive words with the players signing off and the ones who were watching their peers go off to college. Over the years, O’Connor said that these students have put in the time and the effort, both on and off of the football field, and it is clearly paying off for them in the end.
For those who are interested in joining the varsity football team, Coach O’Connor said that tryouts will be held on Wednesday, May 21 and Thursday, May 22 at 2:30 p.m. on the main football field. Students must have completed their PSAL form, a physical, and their parent content forms before they can try out.
