Merion Busano, a 14-year-old freshman who lacked confidence, entered high school with one thought in mind.
“Let’s call it a day for another four years,” he said.
In September 2022, he was given 30 minutes to try out for the Eagle Rock High School basketball team, but his confidence was further shaken.
“If we texted you, they said you were on the team. I never received that text message,” he said. “I was in denial, thinking, ‘Maybe they forgot about me.’ By the third or fourth week, I was (thinking), ‘Maybe that message wasn’t sent.'”
The rejection left him adrift, but then a moment came that changed his life. As he was carrying his camera to film class, JV football coach Vince Vergara noticed him, pulled him aside and asked, “Hey, do you want to play football?”
He joined the JV team as a sophomore. His mother had refused to let him play soccer years earlier after seeing the 2015 film “Concussion.” This time she told him to “be careful.”
He started from scratch.
“I had to learn on the fly,” he said. “I had no idea what kind of run was played. I’d never played youth football, I’d never played flag.”
Last season as a junior, he was named to the varsity team and had 211 yards rushing and two touchdowns. The 5-foot-10, 195-pound senior has grown tremendously this season, running for 824 yards and 13 touchdowns heading into Friday’s Northern League championship game against Franklin and becoming so valuable that coach Andy Moran described him as the best running back in the City Section.
“He didn’t go down. Everyone was ready to stop him, but he didn’t,” Moran said.
He had 143 yards against Granada Hills Kennedy, 108 yards against Monrovia, 146 yards against Bell, 141 yards against Marquez and 107 yards against LA Marshall.
His father was a Marine for 20 years and came here from Belize as a teenager. His mother is from the Philippines.
“Unfortunately, I have never been to either, but I would love to go,” he said.
His first name is short for “My Lion”.
“You’re a lion, so you’re fierce,” the father says.
With newfound confidence, Busano discovered his love for soccer and the belief that he can continue to grow with experience.
He tried basketball again and made the team, then decided to focus on soccer.
His father told him, “Try again, try harder, be a better person.”
It’s all part of the high school experience. Experiment, explore, and deal with the positives and negatives that everyone experiences during their teenage years. His younger brother also joined the football team.
“I blame myself now, wondering why I didn’t do this my freshman year,” Busano said. “Now I appreciate the little things like discipline and always doing my job and not doing someone else’s job. It’s made me grow as a person. I walked into this situation very ignorant and blind. I felt like I was probably not going to be the worst player, maybe the second-best player, but I went out on the field and started. It was ‘wow.’ ”
He hopes to visit Belize or Manila soon to learn more about his parents’ home country.
“My father said his grandmother had a house where she could wake up in the morning and look out the window, and the beach was right there,” he said. “I’d like to go to both.”
He’s 17 years old, and with his football experience, he sees a very different world and a very different future.
