NATHANIEL MATA | THE MONITOR
RIO GRANDE CITY — Brandon Gracia has come a long way since running in jeans as a freshman in PE class. The Rio Grande City senior rose to prominence in the Valley cross country scene, and his success paid off this week when he signed to run at the University of Texas.
“It feels amazing, like finally,” Gracia said. “Yeah, I know that making it to state and all that in high school, that’s an accomplishment for all my hard work, but this is college. I’m getting paid by the college to run at their school and get the education. It’s a really big thing for me.”
Gracia was humbled by the opportunity to continue his education with the financial boost that his partial scholarship will bring. He mentioned that school would have been hard to pay for otherwise.
“That’s a really important thing,” Gracia said. “I’m making my family proud by going UT, and hopefully I can excel in running and academically.”
The Class 5A Region IV Champion and UIL State seventh-place finisher just a few weeks ago will take his talents to the Big 12 institution and run both track and cross country for the Longhorns.
Gracia said despite a few attractive offers to schools such as Southern Alabama and UTRGV, his choice wasn’t difficult.
“It was an easy choice for UT, because it’s always been my dream school,” Gracia said. “When I found out they were interested, I was like, ‘Oh, I want to go there. Hopefully, they offer a good amount.’ I thought about it a lot, and I chose UT because I always wanted to go there, and for me to be able to go over there and prove myself. … I think I made the right choice.”
Joe Ramirez, the person who benefited the most from finding the talented runner, said the youngster’s growth is not over just yet.
“It’s been gratifying to see him grow as a person, because we knew nothing coming in, and after his first practice, we knew a lot,” Ramirez said. “It’s been a steady incline up and up and up. His next head coach at UT sees a lot of growth and the sky’s the limit, because he’s only had three years of this. He’s looking at the potential, the growth is still there. It hasn’t been maximized yet.”
Gracia isn’t the only Valley athlete signing to the Longhorns’ track and distance programs. He’ll be joined by Edinburg North’s Beth Ramos and Edinburg IDEA Quest’s Valery Tobias, who also made their national letters of intent public on Wednesday.
“It will feel good, because at least I’m not alone,” Gracia said. “Sometimes when you go out to colleges, most of the time, people are alone and have to make new friends. But they’re people from the same area, so they are kind of friends. I don’t really know Valery, but I’ve known Beth for a few years now.”
Gracia will have plenty of time during the next four seasons to get to know his RGV teammates. The runner also shed light on some of the talented individuals from this area who might be ignored by most of the state. The RGC Rattlers were one of three teams that won a team regional championship on Oct. 23, along with La Joya Palmview’s girls and Progreso’s boys.
“The Valley running has great talent,” Gracia said. “There’s a lot of really, really good runners down here, but I guess it gets overlooked, because it’s the Valley, and I guess the stereotype is nothing good really comes out. But there’s a lot of great kids out here. Not just in running, but great people, too.”