"What are you doing in Ottawa? I mean, how did you get here?" Ever since I got to this small town in Kansas I've had to answer to this question. It is a long story. Finally, today I can give you, my friends, a more ellaborated response.
Ever since I was a little kid I have dreamed about playing professional baseball. When I was around 16 years old, I sprained my ankle on a play at home plate and it took me away from the game for some months. I did my rehab and everything I was supposed to do, but it never was the same. However, I kept playing the game I love.
Baseball players in Latinamerica sign with professional teams when they are 16 or 17. I don't blame me not signing with a professional team on my injury. I wasn't going to be able to do it anyway, because I wasn't prepared by that time.
I graduated from high school in July, 2008, when I was 16. I continued playing baseball after I came back from my injury, but now with the notion that I had only a couple more years. Back home, we don't play for our high schools, but with teams. You can keep playing after you graduate.
Going into my last year in the league I always played in, one option came up. One of my father's coworkers' dad worked for a company that helped prospects to find opportunities to get sport scholarships here in the United States.
I was already accepted at the UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela), Venezuelan's best university, but I wasn't going to be able to keep playing baseball there. Again, back home everything is different. College sports and scholarships are nothing like what you have here in the US.
I have never had problems to keep good grades at school while I had to go to practices and baseball games, so I thought this could be a good opportunity for me.
Me and my family set up a meeting with this person. He tried to explain us the process to get a scholarship and come to the United States. Then, he asked us if we were interested. We had a couple more meetings with him. Once we said yes, we had another meeting with his bosses, who gave us different options of contracts we could sign with them.
What this company does is to put you in contact with different universities which are looking for someone similar to your player profil. They make a video of you playing and send your information to several universities to see which of them would like to know more about you.
Another important topic is the language. In order to attend to college classes in the US you have to get a certain score in a test named TOEFL, which stands for Test Of English as a Foreign Language. The score you need varies depending on the university.
I was studying English before all this started and then I began to go to classes which focused more on preparing for this specific test. Besides the TOEFL, I was also going to take the SAT.
I took the TOEFL in May of 2010 and the SAT in June of that same year. During the process of preparation for the test, some universities to contacted me through the company that was helping us.
Universities from Georgia, State of New York, North and South Dakota and Kansas were some of the options I remember right now. However, they needed to know my TOEFL Score.
My original plan was to come to the United States in August of 2010. It didn't work as planned, mainly because of a mistake we made. I took the Paper-based version of the test, instead of the Internet-based.
The results lasted more than what we expected to get to my home and once we finally had them, we weren's sure if my score was bad or good. I had a 560 on the test.
I called and the operator told me that I had a 56, which wasn't good at all. In order to attend to classes in the US, universities ask for at least a 75 to 80 on the test.
Since the test was really hard, I wasn't that surprised. However, I was pissed because it costs money to take it and it would mean I would have to spend another year to be ready to come.
My SAT score was pretty good, but it didn't work for me to come to the US. The universities cared more about the Toefl score.
We met with the person that was helping us and we decided that I needed to take the test again, so I bought my spot to take the test again couple months after. This time I was going to take the Internet-based one.
One afternoon, checking the differences between the two versions of the test, I realized the mistake we had made. Do you remember I had a 560 on the paper-based test? Well, that, converted into the internet-based scale, meant that I had an 83, not a 56 like I was told.
I called the person that was helping us and explained him the situation. He was surprised because he didn't think about that when he saw the score card we received. This meant that I could have been in the US by August. It was too late now. I emailed all the universities that were interested, but only a few answered back. One of them, Ottawa University.
Former Ottawa University Baseball Coach Joe Reed was always in touch with me. He had had Gustavo Sanchez, from Venezuela, playing for him for two years and he liked the way Gustavo worked. There was a Junior College in New York State that offered me a full ride, but they didn't offer what I wanted to study. Coach Reed's offer was the best offer overall. When I answer the question what brought me to Ottawa I always say "baseball", but I should really say, "my major". If that school in New York had offered a communications major, I would not even had to think about it. That was going to be my place. However, here I am.
The first step was accomplished, but there was still a long way to go. I needed OU to send me an I-20, which is a document in which the university gives all the information about them and the scholarship they were giving me, to get a student visa.
Sounds as the "easy" part of the process, but it is actually pretty scary. The American embassy can reject your petition for a lot of different things. Being young and from a Latinamerican country is not a good reference for them. However, with the document the university sends you, it makes everything a lot easier.
You probably haven't been in an American embassy before. A lot of security and guards everywhere. Big line. I spent my entire morning going through all the process, until I got to the counter to talk to one of the employees there. Beforehand, they ask you to bring some documents with you. Once you are there, the officer asks you some questions.
Right before me in line, there was an aged lady. Well, guess what? She got rejected. I wasn't that nervous by that point, but when I saw that, everything started to move around on my inside. They were pretty basic questions, but I know the officer noticed I was nervous. However, I made it. The officer approved my visa and I was ready to come here.
All the paper work was done. Another hard part was coming up. Preparing everything to come, letting everyone know, getting mentally ready to live the experience of living away from home. It wasn't easy to say by to my family. There's a mix of feelings going on. Sadness for leaving them, excitement for the experience.
Finally, the day of my flight arrived. After 9/11 happened, all the controls in airports around the world increased, specially in flights to the United States. I have travelled by plane a lot of times, even by myself, when I was a child, so that is not really a big deal for me. However, this one was a little complicated for me.
Around four hours of flight and I arrived to Atlanta's airport. There, I had to wait in another line, for foreign passengers, in order to get in. When I got to the counter, the official asked me for one of my documents. I only had a copy of it, because I had to use the original for some paperwork with the government back home. The officer was reluctant, as I tried to explain him the situation. He put my papers on a folder and they took me to a little room.
There, I has to sit down and wait. The officers working there didn't seem to be in a rush, joking around and doing whatever but working on the case that was right in front of me. I tried to contact my parents, Mr. Mordy, my international advisor here in OU and my coach. None of them could help me anyway.
The main problem was that I had a connection flight to Kansas City in an hour. The time went by fast and I was already accepting the idea that I was going to miss my next flight. Finally, an officer grabbed my folder and started to work on it. He called me up to the counter and I explained him what happened. He asked me to sit down again. After around ten minutes, he finally told me that I could go ahead. I will always remember when he said "..and tell Chavez (our president) that that is an American government document, that they can't take it. You need it".
I had to rush and go grab my luggage and go through another control. I was sweating, as I had my baseball bag, another big bag and my school bag, besides my folder with the documents. I left my luggage with the airport workers and went though all the scanning process. Then, I took the subway to the terminal I needed to go.
As soon as the doors opened at the terminal I had to go I started to run up the stairs and then until I got to the gate. They were boarding already, so I just kept going. Five minutes later, I was finally seating down on the plane, waiting for departure. Around two hours to KC and then around 45 minutes in car to get to Ottawa.
Once I was here, my coach gave me a tour around campus and took me to students affairs, where they took a picture of me and gave me my Braves Card. Then, I took a shower and went to bed. I got here on a Wednesday. The next day I signed my letter of intent and then everything started.
Today, I'm glad I took the decision of taking this chance. I'm enjoying my life as a student-athlete in Ottawa University. We're not a Div. I school or anything like that, but it was definitively worth it to come here and live the experience.
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