Nate and Jon Rodriguez, sons of Robert and Gina Rodriguez, are typical youngsters who are also pretty good neighbors.
Jon is 11-years-old and will be in the sixth grade next year at Neosho Middle School. He admits to a liking for math, but shakes his head negatively at language classes. But he also admits he would rather be at home “walking around the pond shooting at frogs with my BB gun.”
He also spends time taking care of his little flock of chickens. From them, he provides eggs for his family and usually has a dozen or two to sell to his favorite customer — Rebecca Hall.
Asked about something that he would really like, but has never gotten for his birthday or Christmas, Jon says he really wants his own phone. He wants to call up or text message his friends and his fellow football players. Football is Jon’s favorite sport and he plays on a local team.
On defense, he plays in the linebacker spot, but on offense he is either a tailback or a quarterback.
“I’d rather play quarterback,” he said, “because the quarterback gets the ball every time.”
His favorite professional football player was Emmitt Smith, a now-retired running back for the Dallas Cowboys.
The biggest reason young Jon liked Emmitt Smith was because they wore the same jersey number — 22.
This past season, Jon’s team didn’t have much to celebrate, having on a 1-8 record.
Suggesting that the team might need a new quarterback, Jon pointed out that he didn’t get to play quarterback very much. But, there’s always next year!
Fourteen-year-old Nate Rodriguez, Jon’s older brother, is a science and math man in school. But wrestling is his big interest. Wrestling for a local traveling team, Nate has won three state championships.
But now that he’s going into ninth grade, Nate will be wrestling for the Neosho Wildcats.
He thinks there won’t be much difference in the kind of wrestling he will be doing for the school.
One thing that will be consistent is coaching. The school coach, Jeremy Phillips, is also Nate’s non-school coach so he sees an easy transition.
Nate began wrestling when he was in kindergarten, but before that season ended, he broke his leg and wasn’t able to finish out the year. However, a year later, now a first-grade student, Nate was back in the game and has wrestled every season since.
