PIKE POSITION
Albuquerque High School senior Alexander Ortiz
has added the term “quality football player”
to a resume that includes “gymnast, tumbler”
10 2019 Albuquerque High Schools Football Yearbook
Two years ago, a friend of Ortiz suggested the
budding star gymnast join the football team for
summer workouts. Ortiz, whose father was an
excellent gymnast and enrolled his son into the sport
at an early age, wasn’t planning on actually playing
for the football team. Gymnastics was his life, with
constant training, nonstop performances, even travel
to events across the country. A college scholarship
was in the offing, had he stayed on that track.
Instead, he pivoted like he does on the football field
under heavy pressure.
“They put me as a starter so early, I realized I
could play,” he said. “And I realized I wanted to try
something new. I’d done gymnastics my whole life.
There were always times I wanted to do other sports.
My cousins played soccer, baseball, basketball – it was
hard not getting to play because I had gymnastics. I
had committed to one thing. But I was burnt
out. People said it got too hard for me – but
trying another sport, I just changed my mind.”
It wasn’t that Ortiz was tired of the grind: In
addition to football and cheer, he also joined the
track team, so it’s not as if he suddenly has a ton
of free time. It’s just – he’d been doing gymnastics
almost full time since sixth grade, making it to
nationals, his life heading in one direction.
When he went out for football as a sophomore,
the sport got its hooks in him in a hurry.
“I wanted so badly to do gymnastics and play
football, but for gymnastics, there was a tuition
deadline, and I had had to make a choice then and
there,” Ortiz said. “I chose football.”
In some upcoming game this fall, Albuquerque
High head coach Tim Johnson halfway expects to see
his starting running back Alexander Ortiz dance his
way to a touchdown, then run off the field to join the
rest of his cheerleading squad.
The former level 10 gymnast might just be the only
running back in the country to pull double duty on
the football and cheer squads, where he performs
as a tumbler.
In just his third year playing football after a lifelong
gymnastics pursuit, Ortiz is expected to star for the
Bulldogs at both running back and safety, where he
piled up 100 tackles (77 solo) plus two interceptions
and two fumble recoveries as a junior last season.
Alexander Ortiz, Albuquerque High