From Pitch to Gridiron: Vicente Garivay's Transition from Soccer Goals to Kicking Field Goals
Photo Credit: DDSN
PROSPER, Texas — Fresh off trading in defending in a back five to learning how to knock an extra point through the uprights, Vicente Garivay is a free-agent kicking prospect looking for an opportunity on the gridiron.
Garivay switched from playing soccer for numerous academy clubs across North Texas for most of his life to embarking on a journey to become a professional placekicker in both the collegiate and professional ranks. Garivay decided to switch sports after numerous offers and trials with soccer clubs across the globe. At 21 years old, he made the switch to fulfill a lifelong dream to kick at the professional levels.
Garivay began playing soccer at around four years old. His parents saw the opportunity to put Garivay in soccer as a foundation sport to ease his way into football or another sport. Garivay excelled even at a young age, scoring 8 goals in the first game of his youth career with numerous other accolades along the way.
“I joined the club late at around 10. We were blessed because my mom is a teacher and she had a friend whose daughter was a high recruit and played at the club level since she was around five or six,” Garivay said when asked about his early soccer career. “She was very burnt out from playing for so long so she recommended waiting and letting me enjoy my youth career, and around 10 or 11 is where it starts to get serious.”
Eventually, at around 11 years old, Garivay joined FC Dallas’s youth club program. Garivay fell in love with the competitiveness and ascended through the ranks at a rapid pace. After only a year at FC Dallas, he joined the premier team, and after another year, he officially joined the academy team, which was a pipeline for homegrown products to rise into the professional first team.
Eventually, that same year, Garivay was selected alongside another player in his age group to train with Óscar Pareja and the FC Dallas first team. The idea of going into the world of professional soccer began to linger in Garivay’s head, and a goal was in his sights to go pro.
Fast-forwarding to his freshman year of high school, Garivay left FC Dallas. Looking for a new opportunity, he joined the Dallas Texans Soccer Club Academy. He also made Prosper High School's varsity soccer team as a true freshman.
Due to the buzz of that accomplishment, the idea of kicking first came into the picture. Garivay was approached by one of the members of the high school football staff, asking him if he wanted to think about trying out as a kicker for fall football—all without ever kicking a football. Prosper, at that point, was preparing to lose their homegrown phenom, Cade York, who was graduating and going on to play at LSU. Garivay would ultimately decline, as in his contract with his academy team, he was prohibited from playing in any outside sports organizations, including high school sports, the next year.
Ultimately, after two seasons with the Texans, the pandemic hit. Player contracts that usually voided during the summer voided earlier in the spring, allowing Garivay to be on the move once again. Garivay’s last stop in his high school years would be Solar Soccer Club, where he impressed enough to once again be moved up to play and captain against older opponents, be selected to play in the first ECNL Best XI showcase, gather some smaller college offers, and reconnect with an agent from Europe who had been scouting him since he was 15 years old.
Garivay eventually signed on post-graduation, opting to take the international route to the professionals, traveling to Germany, Mexico, and Colombia, spending weeks in trials with numerous clubs looking for his services.
Unfortunately, between the cost of living abroad, the international visa process, and the death of a close family member, he felt the best decision was to come back home and work for a trial for an MLS team. Garivay booked trials with Orlando City B and the LA Galaxy II. Being back in the States came with a demolished sleep schedule, waking up in the early hours of the morning due to being abroad for so long. Garivay found himself scrolling through social media when he found his next opportunity.
“I would just get on Twitter or Instagram and YouTube, watching all these sports around the time football season was about to start, and I fell in love with football and baseball. I was like, where have these been my whole life,” said Garivay about what sent him to go all in on kicking. “One Thursday morning, I saw the story of the Cowboys' new kicker, Brandon Aubrey, who had made the switch from a professional soccer player to becoming a kicker. It lit a fire under me; it inspired me to try it.”
With all that and hearing other stories, such as former Colts punter Pat McAfee recalling learning how to punt from a YouTube video, Garivay began to teach himself the basics. He felt that if someone in similar shoes, who had been playing the same game he was growing up and had a similar drive and motivation as a competitor, could turn their dreams into reality, why couldn't he do the same thing? To get to where he wanted to go, he knew he had to go to the best.
So Garivay went to the best in between his trials in Orlando and with the Galaxy. He connected with former Mississippi State kicker and coach Brian Egan on Instagram after scrolling through Brandon Aubrey’s account, where he tagged Egan’s coaching camp OneOnOne Kicking. In early December of 2023, he found himself at Lovejoy High School attending one of Egan’s camps.
“I learned a lot of stuff from him right away,” said Garivay, talking about his experience with Brian Egan at his first kicking camp. “What's awesome about him is that he is the best, and even though he has a lot of kids out there, he always takes the time to stop, assess your film, teach you the correct steps, and work with you.”
Garivay was essentially on a fast track to learning how to be a kicker—from understanding how to get comfortable with his new form, to learning that quality reps over quantity reps are important, and even changing his diet and physique to gain more muscle to help him excel during the first few months of kicking. He also found out along the way he wasn't the only soccer player to recently make the switch to kicking.
Oscar Ortiz, another one of Egan’s kicking prospects who had been playing professional soccer in Spain for six years, was also inspired by Aubrey’s story. Ortiz began practicing kicking on a rugby field in Spain and then got in contact with Egan, fully making the jump into becoming a kicker. Moving to Dallas to work out and train with Egan, Ortiz and Garivay met during Ortiz’s first kicking workout.
“The first thing I took from him (Garivay) was he would teach me how to do no steps and one step, and so I would see how he did it and apply it to myself,” said Ortiz on his first camp with Garivay. “It’s things that you can relate to and understand and help each other get better in what you’re doing.”
Both Ortiz and Garivay have learned a lot from each other in their sessions each week. But as well as for others, Garivay wants to be a part of the tools others use to succeed in a change outside of just football. He hopes to continue to inspire others to reach their dreams and make the switch.
“Don’t be scared of making the switch or trying something new,” says Garivay. “Even if you’re older in your career or still young, don’t be afraid to try something new because you don’t know what can happen.”
In the end, both Garivay, Ortiz, and anybody else looking to become a placekicker, the goal is to make it to the NFL or the professional equivalent. With the support of his family and coaches, Garivay is currently working with a recruiter to gather his kicking film and get an opportunity at the junior college level before making the jump to higher collegiate ranks. Garivay’s story is far from finished—if anything, it's just starting. Garivay will continue to work, be deep into his faith, and tell himself one thing: “You’re money” every time he sees the ball sail through both uprights.