Student-Athlete of the Week – Damian Durinzi

INDIO, Calif. (KESQ) – Our latest student-athlete of the week is Damiano "Damian" Durinzi from Indio High School football.

“He works hard in the classroom. He works out on the field," James Dockery, Indio football head coach, said. "Everything that kid does, he does at full speed.”

Durinzi is a star senior athlete for Indio High School. He's known for his speed in track and field, and football. It's a skill he only just started using in sports.

“I only started playing organized sports my freshman year," Durinzi said. "After that, it just kind of rolled because good coaching and whatnot.”

While Durinzi has only been playing football since his freshman year, he said his time with the Rajahs has brought a lot of growth

“Attitude had to change," he said. "I came in, wasn't the biggest talker. I wasn't biggest person on the field ever.”

“He's one of those guys that leads by example," Dockery said. "And I think this year, he's learning like the power of his words and how to talk to people.”

Durinzi is a captain for the Rajahs, continuing to lead by example as Dockery said. But his leadership goes beyond the field and into the classroom with his 4.75 GPA.

“I like math, that's huge with me, and then anatomy [is] now starting to be a big one for me," Durinzi said. "National Honor Society over here at our school and CSF I'm in which are two pretty good clubs to be in actually in this in this school, and I find them fun.”

There's no question about Durinzi's intelligence on and off the field. But, for Coach Dockery and his team, they get to see another side of Durinzi that's best described like this:

“Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire," Dockery said. "Passion. Competitive. I finally met somebody that talks more than me, and you can ask him about that because that guy is a motor mouth.”

The ability to take about anything, well that's just a part of who Durnizi is.

“I'm pretty sure people know that about me. Always going to be a talker. I'm a huge talker," he said.

Durinzi plans to carry his passion into the future, and keep speaking his mind. After graduation, he said he hopes to play Division I football, and study engineering.

If you know a local senior who should be our next student-athlete of the week, please reach out to share@kesq.com to submit a nomination.

The student-athlete of the week segment airs every Tuesday throughout the schoolyear on KESQ News Channel 3.