By Jeronimo Lago Huerta has brought Argentina’s beautiful game of soccer from Buenos Aires to Helena, and he’s getting a kick out of it.
The journey started four years ago and will end with graduation from Carroll this May.
“I was so scared, I barely knew English,” Huerta said. “I couldn’t have a conversation. I could listen, but I couldn’t keep up with the tempo of speaking. I was even scared of soccer.”
Huerta will graduate with degrees in Management of Marketing and Financial Planning with a 3.5 cumulative GPA – and a dream of playing professional soccer. He’s been a midfielder on the Carroll soccer team for four years, a starter almost since he arrived.
Born July 24, 2000, the Argentinian has always been surrounded by sports.
Growing up, Huerta’s family was heavily involved with volleyball. His mom was a professional player, his dad was a coach. His two brothers and sister played volleyball at the amateur level.
Being the shortest in the family, Huerta had to take a different route. He began playing soccer when he was 3 years old. Growing up, Huerta still played volleyball, handball, and rugby, but he ended up focusing on soccer.
As he prepares to walk on the stage to receive his diploma, Huerta will be thinking about all the assists he’s received as he reached his goals.
When Huerta was 6, his dad passed away from lung cancer, which instantly changed his family’s life. His brothers moved to Spain, and he moved to a different part of Argentina with his mom.
Transferring to a new school, meeting new people, and, of course, grieving for his father, were all very tough on him.
But a childhood friend gave him strength.
Huerta met Santiago Morazzani when he was 4 years old, because their mothers played on the same volleyball team. They have been “brothers” ever since. Their families traveled on vacation trips together, because his mother didn’t want to go alone.
“I just became so close to him because he was the only thing that remained constant in my life,” said Huerta. And that bond would go a very long way throughout his life journey.
When he was 8 years old, Huerta started playing soccer with his school. Huerta realized his talent level was beyond the rest of his classmates, but he never saw himself as “good” at the sport by any means. Like every other kid on the team, he kept playing the game, practicing, with aspirations of being a professional athlete like his mom.
“Because of her, I always had the idea that I need to do things better,” he said. “When I saw people recognizing her, that motivated me to be like her, to be an athlete.”
His practice paid off. When he was 13, he got called up to be with the reserves of the main, professional team of his club. Uai Urquiza consisted of older players, 18-24 years old.
If he could hold his own against his more experienced teammates, maybe he had a future in soccer.
At 15, he faced a tough decision: Uai Urquiza was relegated to the second division, and his friends didn’t want to stay there. They wanted to keep playing at the highest level. He attended trials for different teams, but he ultimately decided to stay with his newly relegated team. Though Huerta enjoyed playing with his friends, his team offered him a pretty enticing deal: he would be fully promoted to the main team instead of being with the reserves. He was also offered the possibility of skipping practices if he took English courses to stay on track academically.
With that, Huerta realized that his dream of moving to the United States might be a real possibility.
Huerta wanted to learn what it would be like to move to America. He turned to Zoey for help.
“I absolutely love the show ‘Zoey 101,’” he said.
“Zoey 101” is the story about Zoey, a teenage girl who moved to a California boarding school. Ever since first watching that, Huerta was fascinated by what seemed to be the American school life.
With America in his heart and his mind, he doubled down on his studies. He focused on his English classes. He took college-prep exams like the SAT, ACT, and Toffels.
He was no longer even considering going to Argentinian colleges or taking the exams in order to be accepted into them.
Jeronimo set out to follow in Zoey’s footsteps.
Sometimes the stars align. At that very moment, his lifelong friend, Morazzani, a year older, had just committed to Carroll.
If Morazzani could play soccer in America, why couldn’t he? His dream was in reach.
Morazzani helped his friend build the bridge to Montana by connecting him with Coach Doug Mello, Carroll soccer coach. During Easter of his senior year, Huerta received an email from Carroll saying he was accepted into Carroll with an athletic scholarship from the men’s soccer team.
He vividly remembers how scared he was when he stepped off the plane in Helena.
“I wasn’t scared of being homesick, but overwhelmed with all the things I had to learn by myself,” he recalled.
His best friend, and now teammate, Morazzani, missed preseason, which only added to his anxiety.
Once the friends were reunited, he settled down.
“Everything slowed down and became easier, and after a month I was fine,” he said. “I learned the language fast, was comfortable with classes, and became friends with more people.”
Even though he wasn’t getting the playing time he wanted to, he was the most “into soccer” he had been since he started playing. Classes were going well and he was making friends.
Even though he describes himself as “not very out-going,” by the time he arrived he was already a talking point among his peers.
Morazzani and Kaden Connor, another teammate, had already told their friends about Jero by the time he moved in.
“Freshman year was when I started getting closer to him. Because we were always together for soccer we just became good friends from that,” said Keegan Lyons, fellow classmate and soccer teammate. “A lot has happened since, but it feels like the time I spent with him was always great.”
Freshman year was a great beginning for Huerta’s new life, until the infamous COVID-19 outbreak. Soccer fields emptied. Dreams were put on hold.
“I remember joking around in the beginning. When it became real, people started leaving, but I didn’t know if I would be able to go home to Argentina and that led to anxiety,” he said about the outbreak. “I felt lonely. Everything was closed, I couldn’t play soccer and I wasn’t making the best decisions. As a result, my grades dropped.”
Halfway through lockdown, Connor invited Morazzani and Huerta to come home to his place in Boise, Idaho, for two months, until the two were able to go home again.
I was so scared, I barely knew English.
“I remember my mom was talking to the government trying to get me on a plane with other Argentines from around the world to head home,” he said. “While we were watching ‘Star Wars’ at night, my mom called me and said that I had to be in Los Angeles by the next night. So, we left at 6 a.m. and drove all day. I was finally able to go home.”
Arriving home, he felt more relaxed. Seeing his friends again was great for him.
“People weren’t really following rules strictly. It felt more like a vacation,” he said. “I will always remember my freshman year because of that.”
Once the COVID storm eased, he was back in Montana. His sophomore year was the best season to date for the “Jero 101” personal show.
“It was great, amazing. I moved in and lived with the best friends I made, and everything just became so normal,” he said. “I stopped feeling like I wasn’t just coming to the U.S., but I realized like I was actually living here and making the most out of it. It was so fun. I was also doing great in classes, and soccer was great.”
Just like for the other billions of people around the world, life started becoming normal and good again post-pandemic.
During it all, Huerta became close friends with teammate David Macy, from Vicenza, Italy.
“We just naturally started hanging out,” Macy said. “I guess what got us closer is that we are both foreigners and I could connect with him more than with the Americans on the team. Argentina also has a lot of cultural similarities with Italy, so it wasn’t that hard to become good friends. He is just a good person to be around. We can always just speak our minds with each other.”
But as his buddies, all a year older, headed to graduation, Huerta prepared to say goodbye to his best friends.
“I wasn’t really stressed about it, but I just wondered how it was gonna be and how everything would plan out,” he recalls.
A new friend, Robin Erickson, reached out.
“We had a lot of friends graduating and I wasn’t sure how the dynamic would be on the soccer team or even in the room,” said Erickson. “I wasn’t super close to Jero before that. We were always cool with each other, but nothing more than that. Still, we agreed on living together, and that’s when I really started getting to know him. It was nice to have someone to talk to about soccer and I always knew I could count on him whenever I needed him.”
Sadness came again, however, as his junior year ended. His grandmother passed away. She had taken care of him when his dad passed. She watched over him when his mom was busy.
“I was told the week after finals that she passed away, but she actually had passed the week before. My mom didn’t want me to worry during finals week,” he said. “I felt bad because I wasn’t there. I was shocked because I didn’t see her, but the worst part was not being there for my mom.”
He also could not attend her funeral.
Now finished with his final year, he’s looking ahead – and worrying a little again.
Senior Day, held during his final game at Carroll, came as a shock.
“I just thought, there is no way this is happening. There is a possibility that I’m not gonna play anymore,” he said. “The mixed feeling of season ending wasn’t depressing, but I wasn’t happy at the same time.”
He’s been enjoying his time with his friends and roommates to distract him from uncertainty about what’s next.
“It feels a little bit of joy that it is over, but there is also this feeling of ‘Now what?’” he said. “School is pretty structured. You start with pre-school, then elementary, then middle school, high school, and college. But now that that’s over, what’s next? Like, I’m actually going to have to figure out my actual life now.”
The one thing that he is sure about is that he will keep chasing his lifelong dream of being a professional soccer player. He will be meeting with his mom and soon-to-be agent at the end of April to figure out the logistics of the next steps of his career, which includes going to trials for teams in Spain.
“My Carroll experience was great. It was definitely better than I expected when I was getting ready to come,” he said. “The relationships I’ve made, the experience of actually living in a different country, the social aspect was way more than I thought it was going to be. Like, I knew I would play for the team and get a degree, but the social aspect was a pleasant surprise.
“I’m worried about the next chapter like any other person would be. I just don’t know how it’s going to be, but I trust myself that I’m going to figure it out.”
