Ruy Aguilar

Hi, my name is Ruy. Im a student here at the University of Georgia. I was born in Texas, lived in Ecuador for 4 years until we eventually moved back to the United States. Once we moved to Georgia and ever since I can remember my parents put me through every recreational sport possible. Flag Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, you name it and I probably played it. Until I tried soccer and fell in love with it. I started playing when I was about 8 years old and it did not take me long to start getting good at it. I was on the “worst team” you could make, my first year, but 2 years later I was already on the top team. We played many showcases and won a lot of tournaments. Our team got recognized for its potential and a lot of us, including me, got invited to tryout for the Atlanta United youth academy for its inaugural year. This was a surreal experience for me, having the opportunity to tryout for the academy of a future professional team. The tryouts took place over multiple weeks and they would call players up every friday. I was able to return to multiple rounds of tryouts, but eventually it was not enough. Although, I did not make the team I continued playing at a high level until my senior year of high school. This was a weird time in my life since I knew that I wasn't going to play in college but I still loved the sport. This led me to pick up a different hobby that I have quickly come to love which is health and fitness. Over the past 2 years I have been very into the gym and my health. Even though soccer doesn't have as big a part in my life as it once did, I carry everything it taught me into a different passion now. The discipline of waking up at 5 am for an early game became the discipline of showing up in the gym when you least want to. Soccer taught me how to compete, I just found a new way to do it.