Esteban “Gaby” Soto’s youth football coaches have never taken issue with giving him the ball.
With exceptional speed and vision, Soto zips through defenses for long gains with apparent ease.
Now, at just 13, USA Football wants to see how the Juneau youngster performs against bigger, faster and stronger kids his own age.
The soft-spoken incoming eighth grader at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School was one of fewer than 100 middle school youth invited to one of four U.S. National Team Development Games. The week-long event pairs the nation’s best youth players with college coaches, NFL alumni and top high school coaches and is the last stop players make before joining the U.S. National Team.
USA Football recruits three national teams at the middle school, high school and college levels.
“There’s going to be new coaches, new atmosphere, so I’m nervous about that,” Soto said on Wednesday about the development games.
In late May, Soto attended a two-day USAF regional camp in Seattle, one of 30 held around the country this year. Soto’s mom Rose Sanchez still doesn’t how USAF made the selection for her son to go the regional camp in Seattle.
According to Soto’s Juneau Youth Football coach Chris Connally, the running back drew some outside recognition while his JYFL team competed in the National Youth Football Championship in Las Vegas in November.
“Living here in Juneau, we don’t get an opportunity to be seen, nationally, and that Vegas trip really put him the spotlight and he’s taken it and run with it,” Connally said. “But he’s such a grounded kid. He doesn’t let his success get to his head, he knows he’s one of the best players out there but he’s still a great teammate and very coachable.”
According to Sanchez, the regional camp in Seattle instilled just that.
“They look for all the little details, how simple you are, how humble,” Sanchez said. “They talked about importance of school, which to me as a parent was really important.”
Soto said he the players at the regional camp were a lot like him.
“It actually surprised me how no one down there was saying, ‘I’m better than you,’ or, ‘You have to do this or that,’” he said. “No one bossed each other around, everybody played their game, everybody hyped everybody up.”
According to Connally, who has coached Soto the past three seasons, a certain meekness is perhaps the running back’s best quality.
“Gaby was always right there encouraging his teammates on — somebody misses a block, he’d never point his finger or anything like that,” Connally said.
According to JYFL President Jennifer Maier, the league averages around 160-180 players in its four age divisions: flag, cub, junior and senior. The flag division accepts players as young kindergarten and senior division cuts players off after their eighth grade year. In addition there are between 80-100 cheerleaders that join the league each year.
Sanchez says the sky’s the limit for her son, but adds that he’s still just a kid.
“It’s whatever he wants to achieve basically, we don’t push him,” Sanchez said. “We do push him on his grades, and he knows it. Sometimes they’re kids and they say, ‘Oh I’m tired, I don’t want to do this, and I don’t want to practice,’ but it’s part of being a teen.”
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
