Student Athlete of the Week – Isaac Calderon

Cathedral City left tackle Isaac Calderon is this week's student-athlete of the week.

Isaac Calderon is an offensive lineman who lives up to his position and keeps pushing forward both on and off the field.

"The people that I work with, people like my teammates, and the feeling of accomplishment just really drives me," Calderon said.

For Calderon, his journey didn't start the smoothest with others saying to him he couldn't do it, but all it took was one coach to say. 

"Don't listen and say that you can't. Just keep working towards it," Calderon said. "They would work me till I got sick and just kept building on it and building on it and got stronger, got faster, and got where I am."

From being doubted to being one of the hardest-working athletes on the team, his work ethic has not gone unnoticed by his coaches.

"We talked about what he needed to do in the different things like that, and he did all of them," head coach Richard Lee said. "So now he's, you know, a central part of our offensive line and he's done step by step by step shown step by step improvement. Like I said, if we had everybody in the program do that, you know, you can do something special with that when you have guys like that."

Along with being the spark plug to the offensive, Calderon's presence is also felt off the field.  

"Honestly, probably the positivity. It's kind of fun to just like talk to him and see his character pop out," senior right tackle Ulises Rincon Lopez.

 With all the work he's put on and off the field, Calderon is the definition of a student-athlete.

"I'll give an example: we start school at 10:20 on CoLab days, which are Wednesdays. He's here like 8:30 in the morning, and he's sitting there with a book in front of him, and he's doing schoolwork and stuff like that," head coach Lee said. "He's just one of those guys who is on point all the time. He does the things you need him to do, and that's the perfect example of what you want with a student-athlete."

We are always looking for Student Athlete of the Week nominations. If you know a senior who should be featured next, be sure to contact the KESQ sports department.

The Student Athlete of the Week segment airs every Tuesday.