Hawks’ Diaz balancing football with fatherhood

Dodging defenders on the football field comes naturally to Gustavo Diaz.

As River Ridge’s starting running back, the 5-foot-6 senior has rushed for 232 yards and three touchdowns on 50 carries to help the Hawks to a 2-0 start.

Dodging caution tape and ladders on the ground while sprinting through a hospital construction zone? Diaz has some experience there, too.

At about 1:20 a.m. on Jan. 27, Diaz got a phone call that his son, Julian — now 7 months old — was about to be born.

Diaz said he grabbed whatever clothes he could find on the floor of his room, threw them on, got in his car and drove to St. Peter Hospital. He entered through the emergency room, but quickly learned he was nowhere near the maternity ward.

“I was freaking out,” Diaz said. “I was like, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ First of all, you’ve got to find the right room.”

His mind was racing — so were his legs.

“I was running. I was sprinting, like, ‘Oh man, where am I going?,’ just trying to read signs as fast as I could and going through elevators,” Diaz said. “I was probably lost for a good seven minutes.”

Amid the construction and chaos, Diaz eventually found a nurse, who pointed him to the right room.

About 15 minutes later, he was a father.

“It was so surreal,” Diaz said. “He’s really my son, he’s really here. At that moment you really think, ‘Well, how are things going to be now that he’s really here?’ ”

At first, Diaz wasn’t so sure.

“You think of what other people have told you — ‘This is over for you,’ ‘You can’t do this anymore,’ ‘Your whole life is going to change,’ ‘You’re going to drop out of school’ — all of that,” Diaz said.

His parents helped sort out any doubt.

“They told me, ‘Yeah, you can look at it like that, or you can set your own path, set an example for someone else, set an example for your son when he grows up,’” Diaz said. “And that’s what I decided to do.”

He missed two days of school following Julian’s birth, and has missed time since, but finished his junior year with a 3.5 grade-point average. He also balances schoolwork with a part-time job at Tea Leaf 2, a Chinese restaurant in Lacey where he helps with cleaning.

Diaz said he didn’t make it widely known until this school year that he was a father, though close friends, teachers and coaches knew. This year, he’s taken pride in being more vocal.

“A lot of people in my position that have a future going to college and living their life, they would just say, ‘You take care of him, it’s not my kid, it’s not my responsibility,’ ” Diaz said. “But I took that responsibility. I want to be in his life. I want to be the best father I can be for him, and support him through anything he goes through.”

So far, prior experience around kids has helped. Diaz the second oldest of four. He has an older brother Luis, 19, who graduated from North Thurston last spring, 8-year-old brother Miguel, and a 5-month-old sister Sarah.

Diaz said helping taking care of Sarah during the time he isn’t spending with Julian has sped up the learning curve. He has also taken a parenting class, and attends all of Julian’s doctor’s appointments.

“When I didn’t have my son, I was helping my mom, learning everything,” Diaz said. “So that really helped — changing diapers, waking up in the middle of the night when she was crying, I understood how that was.”

Because of his visitation arrangement, Diaz sees Julian three days per week in a public setting. He said they often go to the Regional Athletic Complex and sit in the park.

Every other Saturday, Diaz spends the entire day with his son, often at Miguel’s Black Hills junior football games.

“Usually, on Saturdays my little brother has his games, so if the weather’s not too bad, we’ll go watch,” Diaz said. “I’m trying to get (Julian) into football early.”

Diaz didn’t know if he would even play football this season. Neither did his friend and teammate, senior defensive lineman Tyler Campbell.

“The first thing I thought — because (Diaz) has always been about football — was, I don’t know how it’s going to work with him practicing and doing all this stuff,” Campbell said. “But he’s been coming out here every day.”

And Hawks coach Steve Schultz is more than happy to accommodate Diaz, who sometimes has to leave practice early to visit Julian.

Schultz said the team adjusts the schedule during practice to make sure Diaz gets the necessary reps to be ready for Friday nights — and would do so for any player in a similar situation.

“He’s had to grow up a little bit faster than maybe what you should as a high school student,” Schultz said. “But he’s taken that on, he’s doing all the right things.”

Diaz was the starting free safety for the Hawks last year, but shifted into the running back role this season after the graduation of last year’s Class 2A SPSL rushing leader Michael Key, who racked up 1,444 yards and 23 touchdowns.

“We always knew what (Diaz) could do back there in the secondary,” Schultz said. “I knew he was going to play running back this year. He may not have, but I did.”

Diaz leads the Hawks through two games with 247 total yards, and also kicks — he is 4 for 5 this season on extra points.

His running skills will be needed as River Ridge battles league rival Franklin Pierce (0-2) at South Sound Stadium at 7 p.m. Friday. The Cardinals handed the Hawks their only regular-season loss last season.

But, some of Diaz’s focus is on next year. He plans to study collision repair at the Universal Technical Institute — though he said he wouldn’t mind an opportunity to play college football.

“He has his whole life planned out after high school,” Campbell said. “He knows what he’s going to do, and he’s on track with that.”

As for Julian, Diaz is all set for a possible future in athletics.

“We’ve got plenty of footballs, soccer balls, whatever he needs,” Diaz said.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 8:25 PM with the headline "Hawks’ Diaz balancing football with fatherhood."