By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
LYFORD — Idol Ramon remembers being motivated by Harlingen South track & field upperclassmen receiving interest letters from college programs in his early years with the program.
He worked hard to become the veteran motivating younger teammates, and his efforts earned him plenty of options to continue his athletic career.
Ramon was offered a preferred walk-on spot to compete in cross country and track & field for the University of Texas-San Antonio in April, and he accepted almost immediately. The distance runner will be competing in Conference USA at the NCAA Division I level.
“I was talking to (UTSA assistant track and cross country coach David Hartman) for a while, and he called me and said, ‘We’d love to have you on the team,’ and I said, ‘Heck yeah,’” Ramon said. “It felt like I made it — well, somewhat made it — and all the hard work paid off for the opportunity to run DI. I’ll just work harder than ever before to get that (scholarship) and show them, ‘OK, this kid has what it takes.’”
Harlingen South track & field coach Ralph De La Rosa believes Ramon is up for the challenge of competing in the college ranks. He said the grit and discipline Ramon showed as a freshman when “nipping at the heels” of the varsity runners turned him into a DI-worthy miler and will help him reach his potential at UTSA.
“The student-athlete that Idol Ramon is, is pretty special. He’s an intelligent kid that runs really well, and I think he still has a lot of ceiling left. He’s going to really grow at a Division I school,” De La Rosa said. “Those milers, man, they are no joke. And when he gets there, he’s going to have to get used to the workouts, but I think once he does he’s really going to help that team get better while he’s getting better, so I think it’s going to be a win-win.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly ended his senior season, Ramon set his sights on preparing for college early. He has moved into his apartment — where he’ll be living with former District 32-6A foe turned Roadrunners teammate, Los Fresnos’ Michael Paredes — and spent the extended offseason completing workouts sent by Hartman.
De La Rosa and Ramon both felt a strong “championship season” was ahead for the distance runner. Two weeks before the shutdown, Ramon won the 1,600-meter run at the Roberto Garza Relays in Rio Hondo with a time of 4 minutes, 30.75 seconds, and finished second in the 3,200-meter run after clocking a 10:04.96 — both personal records, and a mile time Ramon said put him at the top of 32-6A and No. 3 in the region.
“It was really exciting to see, it felt like everything was going to peak at just the right moment, but then we got shut down,” De La Rosa said. “I really thought he was revving up to have a really big finish. There were just a lot of really good things happening for him.”
Though his senior year didn’t come to fruition, Ramon reflected fondly on his early running years and is excited for what’s to come. He’ll be studying biology with a pre-dental focus while running for UTSA.
Ramon credited his parents for getting him involved with running, and he hopes to continue making them and his Hawks coaches and teammates proud at the next level.
“(In seventh grade) I was, like, ‘Mom, Dad, I want to play football,’ because everyone does football. And they said, ‘No, you’re going to break in half,’ because I was a little 4-foot-8 kid, not even 100 pounds,” Ramon said. “They told me to do cross country, because they both ran in high school. At my first meet I got seventh place and thought, ‘I guess I’m OK at this,’ and I stuck with it.
“My parents both lettered freshman year, and I wanted to keep that tradition. I guess it was just the mentality of always wanting to be the best and striving to do that,” he added. “(I hope I taught my teammates) that if you put in the work, depending on how bad you want it, you can achieve your goal, too.”