Jose Marcos (41) during football season.
Marcos operates on the soccer pitch during the season-opening jamboree. (John Fisken photo)
Jose Marcos is waiting for you to make a mistake.
The Coupeville High School sophomore, who bounces between playing defender and midfielder for the Wolf boys’ soccer squad, lives for that moment when an opponent trips up. That’s his time to pounce.
“Well, I think that I’m good at waiting for my opponent to make a mistake, then taking the ball and passing it quickly instead of stabbing and letting him get past me,” Marcos said. “I need to work on my speed, because when someone does get past me, I sometimes can’t catch up with them again.”
A two-sport athlete (he also suits up for the CHS football team), he enjoys his biology and history classes, listens to rap or rock before a game “to get me pumped up” and uses swimming as a way to relax.
Marcos first picked up soccer while living in Barstow, California (“I started because all my friends were playing on a team, so I decided to join one as well”), and, eight years later, he’s still going strong.
Maybe it’s because the game gives him something new to enjoy every time he takes the field.
“There’s not just one specific thing I can choose about it,” Marcos said. “I just like soccer; it’s a great and fun sport to play.”
He has lofty goals for his team (“to win at least 70% of our games”) and wouldn’t mind putting the ball in the back of the net at least once before the season is done. Mostly, though he wants “to have fun while I’m out there.”
When he’s on the soccer pitch, he can draw on the support of his family, but it’s his friends who drive him to succeed day in and day out.
“My friends were the ones who made me the person that I am now,” Marcos said. “They were the ones that would help me and tell me not to stop running and cheered me on even when I was tired and wanted to stop.
“They made me the athlete I am today.”
