Foreign Exchange Students Find Success Within Sheridan HS Football Team

It may not have been the exact type of fuutball that he was hoping to play, but one foreign exchange student made the most of it and made at least one play.

Victor Figueiras is from Belem, Brazil and is a senior at Sheridan High School.

He chose to visit the USA for 6 months, and it was the foreign exchange program that selected Sheridan.

Figueiras says he had hopes of playing the style of fuutball that he is familiar with, which in the US, is called soccer, but his timing was off, because high school soccer in Wyoming is played during the spring season.

He ended up getting introduced to American Football instead and even though he had no experience, he got hooked after one practice.

Figueiras adds he will never forget his first tackle in a JV game.

“I just let the receiver go by me and so I started chasing him as fast as I could and then I tackled him really hard. His cleats were stabbing my ribs and it hurt a lot, but I didn’t even care, because I was so happy that I made my first tackle that I was like, ‘Yo, I don’t care about anything right now, my career can be over right now. I just made a tackle,’ and I went to celebrate on the sidelines and then Coach Mowry, he got like, ‘Yo Victor, you got to come back to the field. It’s not over yet.’ I was like, ‘Oh, ok Coach.'”

Figueiras says through his experience, he learned a lot more than just the game of American football itself.

“I learned a lot about brotherhood. I learned a lot about consistency. I learned a lot about hard working, a lot of values that the coaches taught us, that are some lessons that I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep to my life.”

He says he is scheduled to return home to Brazil in January.