Article courtesy of Joe Bailey, SM Times Sportwriter 5/14/20 Over the last couple years, I've seen Christian Morin play a little football and basketball.
He was a good enough player at Pioneer Valley. He wasn't a star, but he certainly held his own. He did have those traits coaches always seem to look for: He was a leader and he carried himself like one.
Over the last couple weeks, though, I've learned a lot about Christian Morin. Not the athlete, but the person. And it's changed the way I see him. In fact, I've learned a lot about so many of our area athletes and it's continued to open my eyes.
The athletes we watch at games, or practices, carry with them s"In life, I had been dealt a bad hand because I have had to grow into a man without the guidance of a mother..."
Christian wrote in his scholarship essay for the Northern Santa Barbara County Athletic Round Table. "My father, my two brothers and I were forced to live in a garage as a means of living. This was a struggle, which only fired up my drive for success in all that I do."o much more than we see out on that field. More than we could imagine.
Christian, for instance, earned a 3.96 GPA throughout high school while playing the three major sports all four years. Now, as a graduating senior, he plans on attending Fresno State or Long Be
Christian also wrote about the work that went into that 3.96 GPA while playing sports year-round.
"There have been nights where I am awake, studying and doing school work until 4 a.m., knowing that I had to be up two hours later, ready to start my day with a morning practice."
As fans or sports writers, we judge every touchdown or every blown assignment in that moment. Every spectacular play and every screw up is judged instantaneously and all perspective gets lost.
We don't always see the struggle, the grind that brought that player to that point in time.
We have been able to tell Christian's story through our Senior Spotlight series. Through this project we'll publish more than 40 stories on high school seniors (and Hancock College sophomores).
Reading the stories compiled by the legendary Kenny Cress has helped shine on a light on what many of these kids go through and what they want out of life away from the field.
ach State to study kinesiology.
But Christian had to work much harder to build up that GPA and play all those sports than most kids have had to.
When he was an eighth grader, Christian's mother passed away, forcing his father Abel to raise he and his two brothers alone.
Things eventually got better for Morin and his family.
"My single parent, my father, is such a great dad it motivated me to be the best son from my limited perspective that I could be," Christian wrote.
