By Tami Barrera

The amazing volleyball feats of Deer Valley High School student Jason Agopian have paid off – he signed today to accept an offer to play for UC Irvine.

When Jason, who is the son of Antioch City Councilman Gary Agopian, started high school he joined the football team and was good at that sport as well. What father would not want their son to aggressively pursue a career in football when you have a well rounded athlete like Jason?

But as sophomore year hit, it became a deep-seeded thought in Jason’s mind to try his hand at volleyball. As Jason became more and more involved in the sport he began to notice that he had a passion for the game and approached his mom and dad, Robin and Gary, saying that he wanted to do volleyball only, not football.

Jason’s parents asked him to please sleep on this decision and come back to it again later. Jason did sleep on it and at the end of sophomore year he left football and focused on volleyball.

Just this year Jason was asked to try out for the Junior USA Volleyball Team. Unfortunately, he had to turn it down as he had broken his arm. This mishap did not hold him down, however, and with last year’s MVP award under his belt Jason had prestigious college recruiters looking at him.

Jason received offers from UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, BYU, Hawaii, Long Beach and many others. But Jason had his eye on UC Irvine because he not only respects the school, but believes in it as much as he believes in its coach John Speraw.

Gary Agopian said, “Although there were financial and personal sacrifices for our son to achieve his dream, it is all worth it in the end. To see your child succeed when given the chance is just awe-inspiring.” He added, “Parents need to support their children” in their dreams because you never know what they are capable of unless you give them a chance.

Jason plans to walk in the footsteps of the volleyball greats that have preceded him, including Matt Webber from Liberty who went on to play for Team USA and Evan Patek who hails from Foothill. Jason wants to do Antioch proud, and would love to be a part of the Olympics in his future. Good luck, Jason.

the attachments to this post:

Jason Agopian Sign

Jason Agopian Family

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.