Dreams

Hello there! Thanks for coming back to Unexpected Abundance. I’m really excited for today’s conversation as I am going to talk about something amazing that happened this past Friday. I GRADUATED! Let me put that in context. For the past two years, I’ve been pursuing my master’s degree in project management from USC. I’ll be honest, time flew by these past two years, from the moment I was accepted through the moment I walked the stage. My path to becoming a Trojan was a very strange, hectic, but rewarding path. I felt a little weird because it was my first time seeing my classmates and professors, but walking around campus with my cap and gown was a very surreal experience. I grew up watching USC football play on Saturdays and thinking to myself, “I want to be a Trojan one day.” Although this wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for, it fulfilled my dream in an even better way. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and see where my path started and everything that led up to me becoming a Trojan.

2005

I was 9 years old and had just discovered football. I fell in LOVE with the game, learning every statistic about every team, players, rules, and just about every aspect of the game. Once I got the hang of pro football, I then discovered college football, and my love for the game skyrocketed. The first college football game I watched was USC vs Notre Dame, famously known as the “Bush Push” game. I remember tuning into the game on Saturday night, and I honestly decided to watch because I knew USC from growing up in southern California. USC ended up winning on a last-minute play, and I called the Trojans my team ever since then. I quickly was heartbroken a few months later by Vince Young when he walked into the end zone on 4th and goal to seal the game for the Texas Longhorns. I seriously hated everything about Texas for a good year and wanted Vince Young to fail in the NFL because of that game. My pure hatred for losing started at the strong age of 9. As the years went on, I grew closer to USC football. I remember waking up on Saturdays to play NCAA Football ’06 with Desmond Howard on the cover so time can pass quicker until the USC game. Reggie Bush was my idol. He changed the game so much and was such an electric player. He could quickly change the flow of the game with one play, and he inspired me to play football at a high level. I started playing organized football in 2008 when USC won the Rose Bowl but lost to Oregon State in week 3, ruining a perfect season and chance to play for the National Championship. I remember that my team lost that same week that USC did, and for some reason felt double guilty because both of my teams had lost. I had no idea the work it takes to play Division 1 football, let alone the academic work it would take, but there I was, a young boy with a big dream.

High School

I started to really realize the work it would take to play Division 1 football once I started playing in high school. I put a lot of effort into my studies and football my freshman year and did well my freshman year. I still wasn’t really thinking about playing in college. I was enjoying my first year of high school and taking it day by day. As sophomore year approached, I started to really think about college football. Unfortunately, I had too many distractions and didn’t prioritize my work ethic enough from an academic standpoint. I was also naïve when it came to the recruiting process. I somehow thought that a USC scout would magically appear at my games and offer me a scholarship. My sophomore season didn’t turn out the way that I wanted it to, but I still had my dream. The transition from my sophomore to junior was remarkable from a work ethic standpoint. I fell more in love with football and made it my entire life. There used to be this YouTube channel that would post full college football games, and I would download the USC games and listen to them on my phone as I fell asleep. There’s an Oregon vs Stanford game from 2012 where the broadcast is about to start, but the announcers are quiet. The Oregon home crowd is so loud that the announcers wanted to soak it all in and let the viewers take in that experience. The crowd noise would always get me fired up, and I would just dream about playing in front of the fans and playing top notch competition. As mentioned previously, a poor work ethic with my academics, along with injuries, took me off my college football journey and I was not able to fulfill it. I was angry at myself for not trying harder in football and school. My GPA wasn’t what it needed to be, and although I knew I was going to be rejected, I still applied to USC. The rejection letter came about 5 months after, and I was pretty bummed out. Although I wasn’t going to be playing football at USC, I did have an offer to play at a division 3 college, but issues with financial aid didn’t allow me to attend, so I ended up going to junior college. I tried to give it a go at junior college, but my heart/mindset weren’t in it. I could tell that my mind and spirit for football had faded, and that part of my life was over. This was a hard pill to swallow, but I got over it as the days and weeks went by.

College

Fast forward 6 years after graduating high school, and I’m sitting in my room. This is during the height of the pandemic in 2020, and I’m scrolling through LinkedIn. At this point, I’ve received my bachelor’s degree from UCR and am working on my MBA, also from UCR. I have a direct message and it’s from Bovard College at USC. At first, I thought it was just spam, but as I opened the message and read it, I realized it was legit. Basically, they reached out to me and recruited me to apply for their master’s in project management degree. I had not looked anything up on the USC website or had any affiliation with the university besides going to a couple of games the year prior, so I’m shocked. I see the program is fully online and somewhat affordable and just decided to apply. Two weeks later, I received my acceptance letter in the mail, and I don’t know what to think. I didn’t expect this to happen, nor saw it coming. Looking back, I don’t think I fully processed what had happened. I was in awe and started to cry tears of joy. I just remember a younger version of myself with wishful thinking, dreaming about playing football at USC. Although I wasn’t going to be playing football, I was still grateful that God gifted me the opportunity.

May 12, 2023

Like I mentioned, time flew by. I applied to USC in October 2020 and these last two and a half years went by so fast. The master’s program was so interesting and unique because I had no project management experience. I came from a finance background, and I was like a sponge, just taking everything in and learning from the ground up. I still remember my very first class back in January 2021, and thinking to myself, “I’m here. I’m really a Trojan. What are the odds this happened when I was not expecting this at all?”. The program was spectacular, and the big day arrives: Commencement.

I finished my classes in December and already received my diploma, so all that was left was walking across the stage and having my name called. Leading up to the ceremony, I didn’t really think much of it. I didn’t think about what was happening, maybe because I was preoccupied with work and planning for my wedding in September. I woke up Friday morning and started to realize that my lifelong dream was coming true. As my family and I are driving over to LA, all I could think about was my younger self. I wish I could talk to him and tell him that life has a funny way of working things out, that you just need to keep pushing. Once we arrived on campus, I’m looking for the commencement area, with my cap and gown, and see all the graduating students. I get chills because I hear the marching band play the fight song for the different ceremonies on campus, and finally the realization and excitement start to settle in. We begin our ceremony, and the students are walking into the area. I’m not really feeling anything, as I’m taking it all in and being in the moment. As we sit down, our commencement speaker gives an amazing talk on opportunity and work ethic, and the dean of our program begins to call out names. My row gets called up, and I’m walking to the stage. So many years of memories are in my head at once, and when I get to the front of the line, I take a deep breath and walk the stage while my name is being announced. I shake the dean’s hand, get my diploma, and head back to my seat. I’m thinking, “THAT’S IT?! ALL THOSE YEARS AND HARD WORK, JUST FOR THAT?!”. I’m kidding, it was worth it. I had done a pretty good job of not crying. I didn’t cry when the marching band played the fight song. But when I walked back and met up with my family, I saw my parents and couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears came bursting out because they were there through everything. They knew how much I love USC football and how devastating it was for me that I couldn’t play there. In a way, it was their dream too, but they were just so proud that I was able to fulfill my dream, but in a better and more profound way.

The big takeaway from this journey was that our dreams are good because they push and motivate us. They make us want to be better and will push us to our limits. Dreams will test our loyalty and faith and will even make things difficult. But sometimes, we’re just not ready for them. I wasn’t ready to play football at USC when I was younger. I didn’t have the spirit, mindset, or ambition to handle it. I needed to go through trials, tribulations, and difficulties in my life to prepare myself for this moment. There’s nothing I’d change about my journey to becoming a Trojan. It was hard, but very rewarding.

Keep dreaming. You never know where it could take you.

Thanks for stopping by. I’m looking forward to our next conversation.