From homeless to heavyweight
Miranda finds a family at Central
By Larry Happel
Communications Director
Central College
PELLA, Iowa - Ramona Aparicio's subcompact Geo Metro was touted for its bottom-of-the-market sticker price and its ultra-light three-cylinder engine that produced a fuel-efficiency rating near 50 miles per gallon.
Promotional materials never mentioned it sleeps four.
But for a tumultuous portion of Central College senior wrestler Jaime Miranda's childhood, the Metro wasn't just an economy car. It was his family's bedroom.
Back in the coastal city of Aberdeen, Washington, that's what Aparicio had to resort to for Miranda and her other two young children. She was toiling in a local fish factory, but that didn't generate enough income to muster rent for an apartment after her husband dropped off the four of them in a Pizza Hut parking lot and drove away, never to return.
That's far from the only obstacle thrown in Miranda's rocky path to Central, 1,946 miles away. He dodged many, and crashed face-first into others. When he stood in that parking lot and saw the taillights vanish in the coastal Washington horizon he not only lost his father, he lost his home. When the family later lived in one of the countless apartments it briefly occupied and it burned to the ground, he lost his precious few possessions. Before he finished high school, he lost his mother.
Not surprisingly, when Miranda made the unlikely trek to Central, there was no need for a U-Haul. He brought only a few well-worn t-shirts and shorts, but packed a duffel bag filled with anger and resentment.
Yet in three-plus years at Central, things changed in ways even Miranda didn't expect. He was surprised to discover that when Central professors and tutors say they're available for extra help, they mean it. He found a focus for a career working with at-risk youth like himself and opportunities to share his story, even on a national stage. He found faith. He found that letting go of his anger removed a barrier to success. And through coaches, teammates and their parents, he found a family.
"What Central sold me on was family," Miranda said. "They've lived up to everything they said. I don't have any blood relatives here, but it would be wrong to say that I don't have a family here."
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Communications Director
Central College
PELLA, Iowa - Ramona Aparicio's subcompact Geo Metro was touted for its bottom-of-the-market sticker price and its ultra-light three-cylinder engine that produced a fuel-efficiency rating near 50 miles per gallon.
Promotional materials never mentioned it sleeps four.
But for a tumultuous portion of Central College senior wrestler Jaime Miranda's childhood, the Metro wasn't just an economy car. It was his family's bedroom.
Back in the coastal city of Aberdeen, Washington, that's what Aparicio had to resort to for Miranda and her other two young children. She was toiling in a local fish factory, but that didn't generate enough income to muster rent for an apartment after her husband dropped off the four of them in a Pizza Hut parking lot and drove away, never to return.
That's far from the only obstacle thrown in Miranda's rocky path to Central, 1,946 miles away. He dodged many, and crashed face-first into others. When he stood in that parking lot and saw the taillights vanish in the coastal Washington horizon he not only lost his father, he lost his home. When the family later lived in one of the countless apartments it briefly occupied and it burned to the ground, he lost his precious few possessions. Before he finished high school, he lost his mother.
Not surprisingly, when Miranda made the unlikely trek to Central, there was no need for a U-Haul. He brought only a few well-worn t-shirts and shorts, but packed a duffel bag filled with anger and resentment.
Yet in three-plus years at Central, things changed in ways even Miranda didn't expect. He was surprised to discover that when Central professors and tutors say they're available for extra help, they mean it. He found a focus for a career working with at-risk youth like himself and opportunities to share his story, even on a national stage. He found faith. He found that letting go of his anger removed a barrier to success. And through coaches, teammates and their parents, he found a family.
"What Central sold me on was family," Miranda said. "They've lived up to everything they said. I don't have any blood relatives here, but it would be wrong to say that I don't have a family here."
Read Full Story
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