This past week, we had the opportunity to talk with the smart and incredibly talented Elite student Ethan Thomas, an 8th Grader in our Virtual Academy. He plays football and is an athlete at Platinum Athletics.
While Ethan was working out at Platinum, he heard from his coaches that Elite Academic Academy was an awesome school and they had many Platinum student athletes enrolled. Him and his mother, Alicia, decided to trust their coaches, and it paid off!
“I’ve been liking Elite and I feel like I’m learning a lot more than other charter schools that I’ve been to.”
Ethan enrolled in the Virtual Academy and Ms. Nicole Lively, now our school counselor, became his teacher.
“Ethan is such a phenomenal kid and I’ve seen extraordinary growth from him this year,” said Ms. Lively. “Ethan, we are SO proud of how hard you have worked over the last year.”
He has worked so hard that he was recently offered a full ride scholarship to Santa Margarita High School for the 2021/22 school year. He has found success in Academics at Elite and has been doing so great on the football field, that the school could not pass up this opportunity to snag him!
For Ethan, this scholarship is just the first step to a bigger dream of playing college football, getting his degree and making it to the NFL.
“When Santa Margarita came to my football game, they told me about their school but I didn’t have any way of getting there. It is pretty far from where I live. But when they offered me a scholarship and scheduled transportation, it really set the tone for me to go there,” said Ethan. “Also, it’s a really good school for my education and has a lot of unique courses and clubs that I could join too, and that’ll look good on my resume for colleges.”
Ethan’s main goals in life are to work hard, get an excellent education and one day make it to the NFL.
“That’s one of my main goals right now is to just make it to college and play football in college, and have other opportunities to do a lot of good things,” said Ethan.
Out-Working the Others
One of Ethan’s mantras is to “Work hard when nobody else is willing to work and out-work everybody.”
And we see him live that motto so often at Elite.
Not only is Ethan a talented football player with the drive to make it, he’s also a very smart student.
He does well in school, and his Ms. Lively says he’s always there whenever there is a tutoring or extracurricular session available, especially in science–his favorite subject.
“I want to go to school so I can be an engineer and have a good fallback plan and be educated. I don’t spend all my money even if I do make it to the NFL.” said Ethan.
Ethan told us he is looking forward to being in high school and starting a new chapter in life.
“I’m most excited about the high school experience and and just having fun playing. I will go to high school more serious and mature because I know how tough things could get because I’ve seen it before,” said Ethan. “I just want to do my best and I’m looking forward to playing a lot of football games and hopefully getting D1 offers to colleges throughout my freshman to senior years. I’m looking forward to a lot of extracurricular activities and all the clubs they provide like the robotics team.”
We are so proud of Ethan! We’ll leave you all with a small message from his Teacher of Record, Ms. Lively:
“It has been a privilege to be your teacher, Ethan – you are such a kind, dedicated, honest and funny young man. Alicia (his mother), you have done an amazing job raising such a wonderful son!”
We can’t wait to see Ethan’s academic and athletic career grow, and wish him the best at Santa Margarita High in the 2021/22 School Year!
To learn more about Elite Athletic Academy, head here.
