Scholarship Surprise
By Camron Ghorbi
HurricaneSports.com
His mind was racing, but the timing seemed a little bit off to Elias Lugo-Fagundo.
Often these types of surprises happen in a team meeting room during the preseason, with a cameraman in the background on the hunt for visual gold. Other times, it’s at the end of a summer workout, out in the heat of a practice field before fall camp goes full-swing.
But after the fourth spring practice in early March, right before spring break? No way.
“Usually it happens in the beginning of the spring, in January, or sometimes at the end of camp,” Lugo-Fagundo said. “I was in shock…totally caught off-guard.”
When the redshirt junior wide receiver was summoned to the front of a post-practice huddle by head coach Manny Diaz on March 6 – alongside Suleman Burrows, Jared “Moose” Griffith, Camden Price and Michael Scibelli – he wasn’t expecting anything monumental.
“I tend to try to do things right all the time,” Lugo-Fagundo said. “When [Coach Diaz] called me up, I guessed he was going to congratulate me, because I got accepted into the Mortar Board Society earlier in the week. Maybe he was going to recognize me like that because of my grades.”
Less than five minutes later, he had been awarded a scholarship, hoisted on the shoulders of hollering teammates and cried next to head strength coach David Feeley on a Facetime call with his parents.
Miami coach Manny Diaz called up 5 walk-on players during practice & surprised them all with scholarships. 🙏
(via @CanesFootball) pic.twitter.com/sk8ZIFC6uw
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 7, 2020
It was a heck of a way to start spring break for the IMG Academy graduate, who left his native Puerto Rico as a high schooler with aspirations of one day earning a Division I scholarship.
“Moving away from your family at such a young age, I told my parents I wanted to play college football and my dream was to earn a scholarship eventually,” he said. “My parents have sacrificed so much for me. My sisters, everyone in my family has put in so much work and love into me trying to reach my goals.”
Diaz called the moment – captured in a 1-minute clip that had been viewed more than 250,000 times on social media channels and aired on Good Morning America Monday – as “rewarding as any part” of being a head coach.
Five walk-on football players at the University of Miami got a whirlwind surprise by Hurricanes head coach Manny Diaz.https://t.co/P7w1Gzo4J5
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 9, 2020
“The sacrifices that walk-ons make for any program are just remarkable,” Diaz said. “At the University of Miami, being a private school, it’s even greater. I think that’s why, when you saw the team’s reaction, they have such an appreciation for how hard those guys work and the sacrifices those guys put in to come out here, day in and day out, and provide a vital role for our program.”
Friday’s emotional announcement was a culmination of countless hours for the quintet, who play a critical part in Miami’s football operation.
“Count the weight-lifting sessions. Count the off-season workouts, the runs in the summer, the practices,” Diaz said. “The guys who have been here for four years, that number is hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of days of coming in and just working.”
For Burrows, who arrived at Miami as a placekicker and has since transitioned to scout team cornerback, the moment was overwhelming.
“I remember KJ [Osborn], right now he’s going into the NFL Draft and doing all this stuff,” Burrows said. “I remember every day going against him [in practice], and the smile he’d give me afterwards and say, ‘I appreciate what you do.’
“It’s not just about you. It’s about helping a team.”
For Diaz, it helped serve as a reminder to scholarship student-athletes about the opportunity before them.
“[Coaches] are in a developmental part of these young men’s lives,” Diaz said. “We want all of them to experience greater things when they leave the University of Miami. But sometimes, as we all know when we were that age, we can be so concerned about what’s next that we can forget to appreciate what we have.“
For Lugo-Fagundo, it was a dream realized.
“I remember my dad and I were going over some of the childhood things in my house, he found a note 10 years ago that I wrote that said one of my goals in life was to earn a D-1 scholarship for football,” He said. “Both of us got so emotional talking, that God has a perfect time for everyone. Him and my mom were saying to be patient and keep working and do what I do, and if it’s God’s will to earn a scholarship, then it was going to happen.
“To be able to call them and say you don’t have to pay for school… I have three others sisters and it’s a lot of money. Being able to tell them that was very fulfilling.”
