Choices abound for soccer standout

Gonzalez chooses one sport and heavily leans toward one school

BY STEVE SMITH SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

Fort Lupton’s Jonathan Gonzalez knows that between football and soccer – he played both for the Bluedevils in the fall – that he’d rather stick with soccer.

He almost knows which school he’d like to attend to continue the athletic and education piece (he wants to study sports management) starting in the fall. e school that interests him the most is Metropolitan State University of Denver. But, he has an upcoming tryout with the University of Colorado-Boulder. So, his plans could change.

But as of late last week, Metro State was No. 1 on his list.

“It’s closer to home,” Gonzalez said of his interest in Metro State. “I could have gone to CSU-Pueblo. I chose the soccer route since I grew up playing it.”

He spent part of April 29 playing in a match in Boulder, stopping in to see his school’s girls team take on Middle Park and then moved on to another game that afternoon in Brighton.

FLHS’ soccer team was 11-6 last season and made it to the second round of the state 3A playo s. In 14 games, Gonzalez scored 15 goals on 19 total shots. He also dished out three assists. When he did placekicking duties for the Bluedevils (the team was 5-4 and just missed out on a playo spot), Gonzalez made two of three point-after-touchdown attempts.

Gonzalez has several options in play. He’s talked to his high-school coach, Kyle Reddy, about the prep work to become a coach.

“I want to start coaching highschool soccer,” Gonzalez said. “I want to see what happens with it. With sports management, I’ve been a big soccer fan. Maybe one day, I can make my own league and see how that plays out. At rst, I wanted to be a P.E. teacher, then a physical therapist. Now, I want to be a sports manager. I’ve known what I wanted to do since I was in middle school. I just want to at a di erent level,” he said. “I’m excited because it’s college, and I get to study what I want to study. I’m nervous because one little slip and it can all come crashing down. I will miss sleep to make sure nothing

Gonzalez had some interest from a

“We were going to talk about an offer. ey were going to give me a full broke o . ey never happened. Distance from home was a big factor. It was a hard decision deciding what I want to do. I made up my mind. I picked soccer. I’m happy with it.”