Andres Arroyo is proud of his Puerto Rican heritage and embraces the notion he's running for his country.
For Love of Country: Arroyo Races for Puerto Rican Heritage, Toward Olympic Dreams
Friday, May 13, 2016 | Track and Field, Olympics
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"I know I’m representing everyone. I just want to do great and make them proud." -- Andres Arroyo, UF junior middle-distance runner
By: Zach Dirlam
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Andres Arroyo once ran a six-minute mile in a pair of hand-me-down high-top Shaqs.
The worn-out black sneakers were a gift from his cousin. Well, actually, his cousin gave them away instead tossing them in the garbage. But they'd suffice for Arroyo, who logged lap after lap around his neighborhood in those shoes in preparation for a second middle school track tryout.
The first one, back in sixth grade, didn't go well. Arroyo showed up, ran the mile, got cut, and gave his undivided attention to baseball, his true passion. Two years later, with some encouragement from his father, Arroyo laced up those ragged shoes and posted his six-minute mile to make the team.
By the spring of his freshman year at Colonial High School in Orlando, everyone recognized track, particularly distance running, would be Arroyo's future.
But he couldn't give up baseball. A native of Puerto Rico, baseball wasn't just a sport for him. It was an essential part of his heritage.
"Me being me, I wanted to do both," Arroyo said. "Baseball was pretty much my whole life. (My family) lived through baseball. It's such a great passion over there, in Puerto Rico."
So, once spring arrived, Arroyo would head straight to the track after school. Once he finished training, he'd run to baseball practice, usually arriving just in time to loosen his arm and jump right into whatever head coach Jerry Kennedy scheduled that day.
Arroyo, primarily a pitcher, though he loved shagging fly balls as a centerfielder, made the daily transition look easy.
"If you didn't know he was a track runner, you'd have never known it when he showed up to practice. He was full of energy," Kennedy said. "He threw the ball well. We used him on the mound quite a bit his last two years."
While Arroyo wasn't an overpowering pitcher, he was crafty. Kennedy praised his secondary pitches, which kept hitters off balance.
Arroyo loved his curveball. Back in his little league years, he once threw a curveball at a batter's head. Frightened by the baseball hurtling toward his face, the hitter dropped to the ground, abandoning his bat on the way down. There was just one problem: the ball broke back over the heart of the plate for a strike. Needless to say, it became his go-to pitch.
"It was a pretty good curve," Arroyo grinned.
Everything changed after his junior year.
Following a sweep of the 1,600 and 3,200 meters state titles and a sixth-place finish in the 800 meters at the 2012 New Balance Outdoor Nationals, scholarship opportunities came flowing in. Winning the cross country state title the fall of his senior year stoked the fire he'd lit just months earlier.
Arroyo knew what he had to do. Track was his future, and he couldn't maximize his potential splitting time between distance running and baseball. Giving up the sport he loved above all else was extraordinarily difficult, but it was the only choice he had. Telling his father, who played travel baseball in Puerto Rico well into his 20s, was the toughest part.
"He was really good about it," Arroyo said. "He sat me down and said, 'You're sure this is what you want to do, right?' We went through our options, and track was the better one."
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Now a junior for the Gators, Arroyo's Shaqs are long gone, though his eyes light up and a wide smile washes over his face as he reminisces about those trusty shoes. White Nike spikes are his footwear of choice these days.
Mile races are also a thing of the past for the five-time All-American, who chose to specialize in the 800 meters upon his arrival in Gainesville.
And while it may have been heartbreaking to give up baseball, Arroyo's achievements in the years that followed certainly reinforce the fact he made the right decision. In his final track season at Colonial, he ran the 800 in 1:47.79, just 1.34 seconds off the national high school record. He also swept the 1,600 and 3,200 meters titles for a second consecutive year.
While Arroyo's first two years at Florida were relatively successful, he's just now starting to truly validate the hype which surrounded him coming out of high school.
At the SEC Indoor Championships this past February, Arroyo broke Olympian Mark Everett's 26-year-old school record in the 800 meters, finishing in 1:46.20 to take runner-up honors. Although he didn't make the 800 meters final at the NCAA Indoor Championships, Arroyo came back motivated and mentally tougher by his first outdoor season-opening race. In front of a hometown crowd at the Pepsi Florida Relays, he posted a time of 1:45.78, moving him up to third on the program's all-time outdoor top 10.
Arroyo celebrated his Olympic standard run with fellow Puerto Rican Wesley Vazquez at the Pepsi Florida Relays.
"The big thing is when you get a guy out of high school that's that good, they come in and have these grand aspirations," UF head coach Mike Holloway said. "He bought into the progression and understanding that it takes time."
The most significant thing about breaking 1:46 had nothing to do with Florida's record books. It meant Arroyo came in under the Olympic standard.
So long as two of his countrymen don't top that time, he'll have the opportunity to represent Puerto Rico at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
This is not an undertaking Arroyo is taking lightly either. He feels a deep bond and sense of pride for the people of Puerto Rico.
"You feel that connection, like you're brothers," Arroyo said. "That's a big part of being Puerto Rican. When you leave the island, that's when you start feeling that concept. I know I'm representing everyone. I just want to do great and make them proud.
"I don't just want to go to the Olympics and just be there. I want to do something. I know there's still a lot of work to do."
That work he has ahead of him starts with Saturday's (May 14) 800 meters final at the SEC Outdoor Championships. Arroyo eased into the final with the fifth-fastest time of the prelims.
Eight of the nine men he'll be running against are ranked inside the top 30 of the NCAA outdoor descending order list, meaning it'll take something special to bring home a title he came within three tenths of a second of winning last year.
He's already experienced heartbreak, both on the track and when he gave up something near and dear to him just to put himself in this position. All that remains for Arroyo is to keep making sure his sacrifice was worth whatever gains lie ahead.
"These upcoming races, not just SECs, are going to be really different from what I've seen before," Arroyo said. "I'm really excited, super confident.
