Meet Andy Nunez | Soccer Coach and Trainer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Andy Nunez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Andy, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I was born and raised in South Central LA and it is where my passion for soccer began. Soccer eventually became my therapy and my escape from the real world. Which is the reason why I decided to start my own business and realized that I did not want to be like everyone else and do something that I know I would regret later on in life. I wanted to do something that I would wake up and be extremely passionate about. My passion has and always will be soccer. I believe if I can teach others about the beauty of the game and how much joy the game can bring, why not start a business where I will not feel miserable.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The beautiful game has giving me so many trails and tribulations throughout the years. As a kid I always told my mom and teachers that I wanted to play professional soccer. Of course, that wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Family and friends would always mention that I would play professional soccer and that led me to dig deeper to achieve something that I have been dreaming. In High School it wasn’t a walk in the park. I had to overcome so many challenges being the only Afro Latino in the team. I would try to fit in and try different sports so people wouldn’t question why was I the only different color kid playing soccer. That caused me to drop my game and it caused me to lose a bit of passion in the sport. I had a deep conversation with one of the assistant coaches and he mentioned “what is the real reason why you play the sport ?” When I was asked that, that caused a click to turn on and it drove me to push harder than ever. That same season our team won CIF and our school (John C. FREMONT) had not won it in 30 plus years.
Fast forwarding to college, a buddy of mine mentioned that he was only going to play one year then go professional overseas. I wanted to follow him in his footsteps when I had gotten offered the same opportunity to play overseas. I got a bit cocky and decided to play recreational soccer when I had tryouts in a week and tore my ACL & Meniscus in the recreational soccer game. This then caused the teams to not even look back at me and I had to start all over again. I decided to teach kid’s during my injury and help develop them and learn from my mistakes. Years later once I got my confidence back, one of my sessions asked me “ why didn’t you go pro”. I just looked at them and did not have an answer to the question. The question did drive me and it put a fire under me. I tried out for a MASL soccer team and out of 200 people only 2 people were selected. I was one of the lucky ones & all I cloud think of is I finally accomplished something that I have always dreamed of as a little kid. Even when I played professional I still made time to coach the kids and help out at Torrance High school as an assistant coach. My love for the game caused me to play at a high level and continue to teach others how beautiful the game is.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give a special shoutout to Los Angeles Galaxy Soccer Center for inspiring me to allow myself to grow and teach others on how to develop in the soccer game. Los Angeles Galaxy Soccer Center gave me a job where I did not know that it was possible to teach people from all ages about the game. I will forever be thankful to them because of that.

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Image Credits
Oswaldo Lira
Wendy Calaycay