There are many great goal scorers in the state, but senior forward Eduardo Nava has something that sets him apart for Elgin. And it all started with his uncle.
As a child, Nava favored using his right foot — his natural foot.
His uncle gave him some valuable advice, however.
“Even as a young kid, I hated using my left,” Nava said. “My uncle told me, ‘If you want to be good at it, you have to be good on both sides.’
“He said there are so many kids that can play with one foot but there’s limited that can play with both. The ones that can play with both are better.”
Nava ran with that advice last season, helping lead the Maroons (20-1-3) to a historic supersectional appearance. Despite battling injuries, he was a dominant force offensively, finishing with 23 goals and 12 assists in 14 games.
“Every game he played, he was a special player,” Elgin coach Jimmy Romano said. “He’s an all-around player. He can’t beat players just one way. He can score many different ways.
“He plays so many different ways with his style, so he’s unpredictable. He’s not a forward that is just playing one style, one way. When he touches the ball, magic happens.”
Romano, who is entering his second season as the Maroons’ coach, has noticed another byproduct of Nava’s versatility.
“The great thing is he’s a target that other teams have to double or triple team, which then opens up things for other players on our team,” Romano said. “It takes a player to have a strong mentality and be able to not get the ball for certain periods of time and be OK with that to open up the moment for them.”
Nava knows Elgin’s younger players look up to him, but they may also be intimidated by him and his accomplishments as well.
He said he’s worked hard to make sure they feel comfortable, resulting in an environment where everyone can feel free to use their skills to help the team win.
“My mentality had to change a little bit,” Nava said. “It just doesn’t revolve around me. I’ve been trying to fix it. I try to help them a lot.
“As a young player, coming to a team with a player like me where my skills are high and my ego is even higher, they get scared to do something. They think I’m going to get mad. I see it and I coach them. This team has helped me as much as I’ve helped them.”
Nava confirmed he was nervous when Romano took over last year. Romano didn’t meet the team until the first day of tryouts.
The Maroons and their new coach adapted quickly, however, putting together the best season in program history.
“I know people say they bought in, but they didn’t buy in to me,” Romano said. “They caught on to what I was doing. We caught on together with what we wanted to do, what we wanted to accomplish and how we want to play.
“We all shared the same vision.”
With a full offseason working together, Nava is ready to turn the page on last year and focus on the ultimate goal — winning a state championship.
“If you want to live your future, you have to leave the past in the past where it belongs,” Nava said. “With this team, we have developed enough to have a great season because of the summer. We had so many games and practices. That’s going to help us a lot.
“Everybody knows what happened last season, but we all put it behind us. It’s a fresh start.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.