UTEP football center Eric Lee

When your focus was always basketball it is hard to see yourself playing another sport, it is even more shocking to see yourself playing that other sport at a college level. That is exactly what happened to UTEP’s football center Eric Lee, 22, who became a Miner on July 2012.

Lee initially wanted to play basketball in high school- a sport that he was always playing with his friends back in Riverside, California. When Lee went to basketball tryouts at Rancho Verde High School, he found out that they had been canceled that day, it so happened that football tryouts were happening at that exact moment.

“My friends encouraged me to try out for football,” said Lee. “But I didn’t like football, didn’t really know the rules and all.”

However this did not stop Lee, he made it into the team and has been playing football since freshman year in high school. Being a “big kid”, Lee played left tackle all of his high school football career.

“When I started I didn’t really know how to play football,” said Lee. “I didn’t even care to watch it, next thing you know I’m at UTEP.”

After graduating high school, Lee weighed 230 pounds and was 6′ feet tall- measurements that were still small for his position.

“I wasn’t recruited out of high school, I was small but I was strong.” Said Lee.

Aside from football, Lee’s plan was to study Aerospace Engineering at California State University. He was accepted but did not have the money to attend CSU, his next move was to attend Riverside City College (RCC) and play football.

During training at RCC, Lee sprained his medial collateral ligament (MCL) and had to end the season there. The team went undefeated that year and Lee’s injury was healing so he decided to stick around and keep playing. In January 2012 Lee began his recovery and started training as center position. While training for center position was different, Lee decided to stick with it. People around him told him he was “quick” and that spring he was able to play at RCC.

“We were winning so I wanted to keep training since my injury wasn’t that bad.” Lee said.

Around April of 2012 Lee’s head coach from high school informed him that UTEP might be interested in him. Jeff Banks had gone to California to recruit someone else but Lee was able to perform a workout for him. Later on Coach Mike Price called Lee and asked him “how would you like to be a UTEP Miner?”.

“He wanted me for center, but then I got an offer from Idaho then other schools.” Said Lee.

While the other offers came from bigger schools, Lee decided that UTEP was better educational wise. He wanted to do something in business and knew that UTEP was qualified.

“My family was happy and proud because of what I had accomplished,” said Lee. Who was the first in his family to receive a sports’ scholarship.

Fast forward to Lee’s senior year, he recalls Price leaving and Sean Kugler coming in, not only did the team get a new head coach but Lee got a new position coach as well.

“The transition was hard and a lot of juniors and seniors left because the structure was different,” said Lee. “There was more discipline and athletes were held accountable for their actions.”

When an athlete does not follow the rules they have ‘commitment time’ (CT) or what they like to call as “critical thinking time”, athletes have to dedicate either a Friday or Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm to CT if they have done something wrong.

“Some guys just have a hard time following rules,” said a smiling Lee. “But the change was for the better, the team was used to losing but Kugler brought the mentality to win, he said it was ok to lose only if you fought and gave it your best, he brought us to think that we were going to win every time we set foot on the field.”

Having new coaches and new techniques made it difficult on the team and some did not want to follow, but now they have gotten used to the change and have been able to continue practicing and playing.

“Injuries killed us this season but we still fought,” said Lee. “Next season I wouldn’t be surprised if we made it to conference.”

Other than playing football, Lee taught himself to design websites when he was in sixth grade, and he can draw. He even has his own clothing line named ‘NeighborHood Kids Clothing’ which he began in 2012. Lee liked to skate but being a big guy skater clothes did not come in his size.

“I can draw really well, so I drew something and found a printing machine at Staples that lets you iron the image to your shirts,” said Lee. “That’s how everything started.”

Unfortunately the NCAA contacted Lee and informed him that he had to shut off his clothing website because they said he was using his football status to sell, something that Lee disagrees with.

“It wasn’t about the cash, its just something that started,” said Lee. “Everyone knew about it we just didn’t know that it was a violation.”

Lee plans on relaunching his website once school is over, but he also plans on attending pro day and see if he or anyone else gets “that call”.

“I’m just happy to be done with school, I did what I wanted to do,” said Lee. “I graduated high school, and I’m done with college, I wish I knew myself better to know what is next but there’s no rush. Kugler said that he would make sure that we all walked out of here with our degrees, that’s important to him”

Thanks to football, Lee has learned leadership, discipline, and hard work- “the only way that I have made it this far is by working hard.” Said Lee, who recalls that training and going to school is a lot of work.

“Football gave me an education, it has taught me a lot of discipline and that nothing comes easy,” said Lee. “One thing you have to remember is that there is always going to be someone better than you so you have to keep pushing yourself.”