Alumni Spotlight: Maximo Reyes
Maximo Reyes came to the UNITY family when he was in 4th grade after he and his mom moved to the Silver Spring area. A neighborhood friend’s dad took him to his first UNITY football practice, and that was the beginning of a wonderful relationship. Maximo had never played football but Coach Mike and Coach Walt were able to teach him the game pretty fast, he recalls.
Fast forward eight years and Maximo, a senior at Albert Einstein High School, is just months away from starting his college career at the University of Maryland after receiving the Maryland Promise Scholarship—a full ride given to only 35 students out of 2,500 applicants who have shown outstanding academic achievement while overcoming many obstacles and challenges throughout their lives. He’ll be studying aerospace engineering, with the hopes of working at NASA in the future. Football is still on the table, and he plans to try out for the team as a preferred walk-on.
I learn all of this on a call that Maximo does with me from a Myrtle Beach Spring Break trip with his friends. Throughout our entire conversation, he is so impressive, so grateful and so humble. He matter-of-factly states that he had about a dozen other offers to play football at the Division 1 and 2 levels but ultimately chose to stay close to home and go to college for free. “My mom was excited when I told her I was going to college for free,” he said.
Being able to graduate from college debt-free is a big deal, and everyone at UNITY is so proud. Maximo says those early years with UNITY were instrumental in guiding him to the successful student-athlete he has become. “I learned the grit of it. What they really always taught me was perseverance. We weren’t always the best team, we weren’t always at the top of our league but we always tried and we always had fun. I think that was the best thing that they really showed us. That’s what’s really carried on with me. Having perseverance, never giving up, being mentally strong and always having respect for others no matter what. All the coaches taught us—from my first coach to my last coach—everything was all on respect. I think that was the most important thing they really taught me.”
And he says with a little laugh, “I’m not gonna lie to you, I wasn’t the most respectful kid until I got to UNITY.” Learning the value of respect really helped him at school and at home, where he took on a lot of responsibilities with his three younger siblings. He says the “never give up” attitude also allowed him to keep fighting through some pretty tough times.
He doesn’t like to focus on all the negative things he saw growing up, but he tells me that he always looked up to Ray Lewis and sees similarities in their pasts. He thinks back to the days when if he saw something happening that he didn’t like, he’d walk away, literally roll the dice and whatever he got, he’d do that many pushups until he got tired. “I think being able to articulate your past and show how it’s motivated you is the best way to go. I want to tell people what it’s done for me and how it’s changed me.”
His final thoughts on UNITY are simple and powerful.
“UNITY is the place to be. They taught me to become a leader in multiple ways, and it’s the type of thing that I will never let go.”
