Hurricanes head coach surprises 5 football players with scholarships at University of Miami
Five walk-on football players at the University of Miami got a whirlwind surprise by Hurricanes head coach Manny Diaz.
As the first full week of Spring football workouts came to a close, Coach Diaz made an unexpected announcement last Friday.
Diaz called up Michael Scibelli, Suleman Burrows, Camden Price, Jared "Moose" Griffith and Elias Lugo-Fagundo, and began talking about behavior and what the five players all have in common.
"They come here everyday and they put the work in, wondering if one day they'll have a chance to go on scholarship. And guess what? Today's that day," Diaz said, as the entire team erupted in applause and swarmed their teammates with hugs and high-fives.
Later in the video, Lugo-Fagundo, a red-shirt junior from Puerto Rico, and Diaz were seen making a Facetime call to the player's family and the coach shared the exciting news.
"Hey listen, your son just got put on scholarship! He did it!" Diaz said with a huge smile.
"What a surreal experience. I can’t put into words how big of a blessing this has been for me and my family," Lugo-Fagundo replied on Twitter. "Thank you [to] all of the coaching staff, and all of our bothers for believing in us. God is good."
The video racked up over 200K views, with thousands more off a retweet from ESPN's SportsCenter.
"No better feeling. Thank you," Griffith replied on Twitter.
The team's first spring football game is in April and the regular season kicks off in September against Temple University.
