Freshmen Friday | Jose Fletes

Jose Fletes is a freshman here at Mt. SAC Early College Academy. He stands out with his shy but powerful personality. He came this year for a better school environment and his older sister Destiny Fletes, a sophomore. 

Being here at MECA has helped him with many things as he explains, 

“It’s a better school, and you can get college credit…. what was happening in middle school, my mom doesn’t want that to happen in high school so she just wanted to put me in a good school” he goes on to say “ Yes…[MECA]  is helping me… MECA it’s a good school it has good people here”

One of Jose Fletes extra curricular activities is boxing. Both he and his sister do boxing. 

“[I’ve been Boxing for] a year and three months.” he says “ just to take care of myself and my family.., if im with my mom and someone tries to start stuff… to defend.”  he goes on “I also do it cause my dad is kind of old now, I don’t he can like protect us no more so I have to step up do it myself” 

He explains that his mom got him into it but for good reasons, as it has helped him with so much more. When I asked him why boxing and why not chose a different self-defense class.

He said, “It’s just like, better for me like, takes me off different things to clear my mind.”

I asked him what he thinks about boxing as a career. 

“Yes I would… because I like doing it, yes because I’m… a big boxing fan, especially Canelo … so boxing I might do that as a career [because] it’s enjoyable to me” 

He has been into boxing for a long time and it has been a connection with his grandpa where he still watches it with him to this day. This has also had an impact on why he does it now. 

“And my grandpa too likes watching it with him, made me do it (boxing)” he goes on as I ask him how long have you been watching boxing. “A long time since I was five” 

Someone else in his life has had a big impact not only on his boxing but his mentality. His coach has taught him lots, and if he didn’t have boxing as Jose says,

“Yes, I would go down that road of fights like coach taught me …is someone just tries to starts stuff with you  just leave it alone or just go tell someone, instead of handling it yourself cause there’s consequences behind it” He goes on to talk about his coach, “He’s smart and he’s nice and he’s a good coach, he taught me a lot of stuff.”

Jose loves to train as he explains his favorite moment of boxing, 

“Just training for like two or three hours with my coach, sweating a lot, getting tired but I still did it like I kept going down but I kept getting up and doing it.” He explains