MONTICELLO — Carpenter and laborer Richard Amaya made the decision to venture 2,516 miles from his hometown of Guasdualito, Venezuela to Monticello, Indiana.
Unemployment in 2022 had been at 5.7%, according to World Bank Group and inflation within the country was at 186.54. Amaya wanted a well-paying job and live somewhere his children could receive a quality education.
Amaya moved in April 2022 and has found jobs helping repair and build solar panels across the United States.
What the elder Amaya couldn’t have foreseen the was investment he was about to make. Specifically for his younger son Ricardo.
Ricardo Amaya who played center midfield for Twin Lakes signed a scholarship to play soccer at William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
“When you wanna do the things you want to do, it’s not impossible,” Ricardo Amaya said. “You only have to make goals in your life. When I came here, I didn’t think I never thought I’d come here to sign for college to play college soccer. I had it in my mind but if God has it for you, no one can take it away.”
He will be the first person from his family to attend college on an athletic scholarship after he logged 14 goals, six assists and was named the offensive MVP for Twin Lakes in 2024.
“I’m very proud in the way both my sons achieve,” Richard Amaya said with his older son Roniel interpreting. Roniel attends classes at Ivy Tech.
He implored his sons Ricardo and Roniel, wife Romina Urbina and daughter Rania to join him. Ricardo with Romina Urbina, Rania and Roniel would make landfall in Indiana in December of 2022, eight months after Richard.
And there it was. The Amayas back together going from the tropical weather of Venezuela where it reached 90 degrees in December to experiencing the family’s first Midwestern winter with snow and ice on the ground.
“They wanted for us the best future we could have,” Ricardo Amaya said. “They had to bring us here.”
Excellence in sports a shared dialect in English and Spanish
Sports became a language Ricardo’s fellow students at Twin Lakes could understand. It would help him overcome early challenges to blend in with his American fellow students.
While Ricardo initially struggled to learn English, there was an innate self-belief that he’d make friends with his teammates and coaches.
“It was hard to leave our country and come to another country with a different language and different culture,” Ricardo Amaya said. “It wasn’t easy at the beginning but it becomes easy after you get used to the culture because (in Venezuela), we are much different.”
Why stick to one sport?
Amaya became a varsity lettermen in four different sports in football, basketball and baseball in addition to soccer.
“I was always the kind of guy that liked sports a lot,” Ricardo said.
Amaya had never kicked a football before but became the starter for Twin Lakes in 2024 but was determined to learn and be skillful. Along with soccer, he learned the basics of basketball, baseball and dabbled in rodeo while growing up in Guasdualito.
So when approached with the prospect of becoming a kicker for the football team, Amaya didn’t hesitate.
He learned to strike a football with proper technique in less then two years under the tutelage of coach Kevin O’Shea and special teams coach Kevin Anderson.
“The nice thing is with Ricardo’s background he had a lot of mechanics down,” Anderson said. “The first meeting, Coach O’Shea told me we had a new kicker and we needed more distance from this guy. I went out and worked with Ricardo on some of his mechanics.”
Amaya became an asset for Twin Lakes, a team that finished 5-7 in 2024 and won its first IHSAA playoff game since 2019. He kicked two touchbacks in his first game but Anderson would discover he could weaponize Amaya’s ball placement.
He’d tell Amaya to aim just inside the opposing 5-yard-line to give his gunners, coverage and containment players an opportunity to hinder the offensive side from reaching past the 20-yard-line. Amaya converted 35-of-40 extra point tries and went 2-for-3 on field goal attempts.
“I told him kicking is a lot of fun and if you make the kick, you’re expected to do it,” Anderson said. “If you miss, everyone hates you and it’s your fault. I put that right on the plate and that’s how we started our first day of kicking together.”
Amaya surprised his community again when he was added to the varsity boys basketball team by coach Kent Adams.
The Venezuelan native had earned respect on the hardwood as well after playing on the freshman and JV teams during his junior year and joining pickup games during the summer.
Amaya wasn’t a starter but was seen as a valued defender and ball stopper off the bench.
“What a story of this kid’s resilience,” Adams said. “To stick with it, want to play and he does everything. He’s got a bright future.”
Risk becomes investment and source of family pride
The future of Amaya appears bright as he’ll set off on his next adventure in Iowa in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in sports management.
Sports are Amaya’s passion and he used them to build relationships and extinguish language barriers.
The roots of success were planted by Richard Amaya, to seek greater opportunities for all his children.
“Coming to Monticello was the best decision ever and to bring them here for a better future,” Richard Amaya said. “I’ve been proud of them since day one.”
Ethan Hanson is the sports reporter for the Journal & Courier in Lafayette. He can be reached at ehanson@jconline.com, on Twitter at EthanAHanson and Instagram at ethan_a_hanson.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Risk becomes reward for Venezuelan family in Monticello
Reporting by Ethan Hanson, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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