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Robb Elementary student meets childhood hero


Jennifer Fry

Staff writer

Robb Elementary fourth-grader Zak-Anthony Velasquez’ wish indeed came true April 21 at a spring football scrimmage between University of Texas at Austin Longhorns teammates. Hours before the game, UT quarterback Sam Ehlinger, Velasquez’ childhood hero, walked up to the boy and his family to say hello as they were looking at the Longhorns’ trophy display case.

It was one o’clock that afternoon. The family had just arrived to the Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium, home of the Longhorns. The scrimmage was not until 6:30 that evening.

“He just came out of nowhere,” said Velasquez’ mother, Danika Velasquez, 28, who was in attendance for the meeting. “We weren’t put in a room… He just popped up.”

“Whenever I first saw him, I was kind of nervous,” Zak-Anthony said. “After he was showing me around I started talking a little bit.”

The journey from Uvalde to Austin to attend a Longhorns game was not unusual for the Velasquez family. The boy and his dad go to a game once, if not twice, a year. But this time the trip was different.

“At first I wrote the essay that I wanted to meet [Sam Ehlinger],” Zak-Anthony recalled. “Then my mom and dad told me I was going to meet him. I got excited.”

Though the boy knew about the possibility of meeting “Sam the Man,” what he didn’t know was that his father, Jonathan Velasquez, 30, had been in conversation with officials at the university to make it happen.

“I haven’t really told him that I’ve been in contact with the people of UT,” he said in a phone interview before the event. “I just don’t want it to fall through.”

After the initial meeting, Ehlinger and Zak-Anthony spent about 30 minutes together. The football star took his biggest fan on a tour of the stadium. They visited the locker room, toured the gym and walked onto the field, among other things. They paused by the longhorn that each player touches before he goes on the field for a game.

In the locker room, Zak-Anthony tried on Ehlinger’s helmet.

“They told me I was the first person to put on his helmet,” Zak-Anthony said. Even Sam himself had not tried it.

During the visit, Ehlinger made a point to pass along some of his wisdom to the boy.

“He was giving [Zak] pointers about football,” Danika noted. The thing the boy should do, the star suggested, was 100 push-ups and 100-sit-ups a day – and not to start weightlifting until high school. He also reminded the boy to make good grades in school a priority.

“He told me that his mom [had] said for him to have straight-A’s or else he wouldn’t play football,” Zak-Anthony remembered.

For Sam, the meeting was profound.  He told Danika, “It was humbling to have someone admire and look up to him.” Though he played the sport for the enjoyment of it, it had not come to his mind that others would watch the game because of him.

“Zak has been following him since [his] high school [career],” Dankia said. “It’s not that he’s a Longhorn… but that he’s a great athlete.”

The day of the meeting, Zak-Anthony wore a custom-made t-shirt which had “Sam the Man” along with Ehlinger’s jersey number, 11, printed on it. Ehlinger autographed the shirt.

School officials and others in attendance nicknamed Zak “the Twitter Celebrity.” If it was not for his father choosing to record the boy reading the essay and post the video to social media, none of this would have happened.

“This just blew up,” Jonathan said. “Honestly, I didn’t put it on for all this. I told my wife, it would be cool if he just liked it.”

The plan from now on? “I think whenever me and my dad go to a football game again, we’ll try to meet him,” Zak-Anthony smiled.

Zak-Anthony Velasquez (left) and University of Texas at Austin quarterback Sam Ehlinger pose for a picture at the Darrell K. Royal Stadium in Austin.

Zak-Anthony Velasquez (left) and University of Texas at Austin quarterback Sam Ehlinger pose for a picture at the Darrell K. Royal Stadium in Austin.

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