My name is Matthew Lorenzo Alvarez, but most people just call me Mateo or Matt.
Here's my story: I was born and raised in Bakersfield, Calif., about an hour-and-a-half's drive North of sunny Los Angeles. In my time there, I have seen Bakersfield grow from a small oil town to a bustling agricultural mecca which is now the 11th largest city in Califonia.
Sports have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My father, Lorenzo, has been a football coach at Bakersfield College for more than 25 years. My mother has missed just a handful of games in that quarter century. My sister played soccer growing up, and I was always her biggest fan, rarely missing any of her games. I played soccer and football in my time, with a little baseball here and there. The combination of the first two sports (and my father's tutoring) gave me an interest in kicking the football, which is what I did through high school. I did it well enough to earn a full scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. in 2005, where I had to endure the hardships of being a minority in a different culture, being so far away from home, and being in the middle of Hurricane Katrina.
I played one year of college football, then figured that it wasn't my calling, so I transferred to The University of Arizona in fall of 2006. Still with a love for sports, I took a job in the athletic deparment working for the softball team, where I still work to this day. As a person who has an interesting story of my own travels, my goal for this blog is to profile international athletes in and around the Tucson area, and make their stories known as well.
