COMPETE WITH CLASS MOMENT AT SOCORRO HIGH SCHOOL
You never know when one of those special moments will happen in a high school game, sometimes it’s when you least expect it. In week 2 of the high school football season, Socorro High School was taking on Santa Fe Indian School. What looked like just another normal offensive set of downs for the Warriors was anything but ordinary.
The Warriors have a senior, Felipe ‘Flip’ Valles, who suffers from a neurodevelopmental disorder with microcephaly, ataxia, and epilepsy. Flip has major balance issues because his brain never fully grew and developed. “Even with these challenges, he is everything that is good about our program,” said head coach Damien Ocampo. “He never misses practice and embodies our Warrior Spirit!”
Coach Ocampo says Flip’s balance continues to be a struggle and he gets tired quickly. Even without the endurance to work out, Flip still manages to walk through practice and encourage the team. Coach Ocampo has tried to find the right opportunity to get Flip into a game, and that opportunity came on August 25th.
“Flip is very smart and tough and wouldn’t want to have a ‘charity’ play, so we agreed to put him as starting tight end,” said Ocampo. Like any other member of the team, Flip finally got the chance to suit up and take the field with his varsity teammates. “I can’t tell you how much the officials, as well as coach Moon from SFIS, made the night so special for Flip, his family, our community and our team,” said Ocampo.
The actions of everyone involved is another example of what it means to Compete with Class.
