The Star is counting down the top football players in Southern Arizona in the weeks leading up to the season.
Today: Rick Avelar
The rundown: Avelar is a 6-foot-1-inch, 215-pound senior middle linebacker at Walden Grove.
Who he is: Avelar’s father was the first in the family to go to college on an athletic scholarship, playing football at a junior college. That led to the senior’s love of the game at an early age.
Now, Avelar is looking to continue in his father’s footsteps and play college football himself.
“It all started with him,” Avelar said. “He’s pushed us since we were little kids and I grew to love it.”
Avelar also has a younger brother he wants to set a good example for — not just by getting an offer to continue his football career, but by working to improve the Walden Grove program.
So far, Avelar said the team has improved over the offseason, getting stronger and bigger, in hopes of improving on its 8-3 2018 season that ended in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs.
“I’m hoping to leave this program 10 times better so he can come up and hopefully do a lot better than I am,” Avelar said.
“I just can’t wait to see all of these freshmen, what they do, and just to play more with my cousins (Alex and Jordan Lopez) on the team.”
Proof he’s good: Avelar is being sought after, so far, by Yale, Columbia, Miami and Utah. Walden Grove coach Corey Noble said he’s looking forward to Avelar having a great senior season and having him lead the defense.
Last season, Avelar made 135 tackles.
He said it: “He’s the type of kid that you want to have on your team. He’s the type of kid that you want to have in your class, you want to have on your team, you want to have in your program. The kids joke around and call him ‘Captain America’ — he’s that kid. He’s right out of a 4.0 (GPA), he takes a lot of advanced classes, he’s never in trouble, he’s always on time and the hardest working kid in the weight room. He does a great job in everything that he does. He’s a leader.” — Noble
