Kyle athlete to compete in Junior Olympics

KYLE — Seven-year-old Azariah Silguero is headed to the Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympics with the support of his family and the community.

Azariah’s love for sports developed at a young age, encouraged by his parents, with football being his favorite. It wasn’t until this past March that the young athlete started training for track to help improve his football skills — and he caught on quickly.

“He’ll run whole laps without stopping. He can keep up with the big kids,” explained Karissa Silguero, his mother.

This was no shock to the family as his father, Oscar Silgeuro, was famous in Kyle for the sport. He ran track during his time at Lehman High School and went to regionals. According to Athletic Net, Oscar still holds the fifth fastest time in Lehman history for the 800-meter run, 2:05.79. So, when Oscar saw his son begin to run, he saw the potential.

The father and son both trained together, which is something Azariah said he cherishes.

“It was his dad’s sport and I never got to see [my husband] run in high school, so by seeing [Azariah] run and knowing it’s their connection, [it's heartwarming],” said Karissa.

Azariah attended track meets with the team, Run Baby Run, and trained with his father doing various exercises, both physical and breathing, prior to the qualifying meet in Seguin, which ran from June 22-24. Despite this training, the family was shocked to find out what race he would be participating in at the South Texas Qualifier: the 1500-meter run. Azariah typically trained in short distance and had only participated in the 1500-meter one other time. Though they were nervous, the family maintained that they were going to the race purely for fun and said they put no pressure on the young athlete.

In the end, Azariah persevered and “turned on his turbo boost” for the last leg of the race, finishing in 6th place, with a time of six minutes and 47 seconds.

The celebration concluded with a bacon and egg taco, Azariah’s only wish, recalled his mother. He was later surprised with a new Xbox for his hard work.

The Silguero family was ecstatic for his victory, but faced the issue of getting to Iowa for the Junior Olympics.

“I was DoorDashing to help make money because there was a sign-on bonus, so I’m like, ‘Let me DoorDash and whatever I make will go to Iowa,’” said Karissa. “I started putting Post-Its [on the orders saying], ‘Thank you. You’re helping me take my son to Iowa for the Junior Olympics.’ And this one lady saw my Post-It and put it on Facebook — and we reached our goal within less than a week.”

Karissa gleamed as she told the story and couldn’t express how thankful she was to the kind strangers who helped her family.

“I wasn’t expecting that big of a community outreach … When she posted it, I opened my Venmo and there’s like 25 notifications of donations,” said Karissa. “I was really thankful to the community. The Invaders sponsored him a bit and a lot of moms came together [to help], which was really sweet.”

The family of eight is headed to Iowa to watch Azariah participate in the AAU Junior Olympics at Drake University this week. Azariah said that he is nervous, but excited for the race and knows he has all of his friends back home in Kyle rooting for him.