Sports
Soccer-Playing Bruin Lands on Student Athlete Award List
This Mission Viejo High graduate volunteers to stop bullying at local schools in between leading his soccer team to conference titles.
Mission Viejo High grad Joe Sofia is one of 10 athletes competing for the NCAA Senior Class Award. And he needs your help to win.
Sofia plays soccer at UCLA, and has helped lead his team to three consecutive NCAA tournaments, as well as Pac-12 titles in 2011 and 2012.
He also spends his free time fighting bullying by developing an anti-bullying curriculum with some fellow student-athletes that will be distributed to local middle schools.
He has also maintained a 3.965 cumulative GPA and is set to graduate early, with just three years and a quarter spent earning his bachelor's degree in communication studies.
Sofia has already moved forward in the award process, which was recently reduced from 30 students down to 10. But to take the top spot, he needs online votes here. Online votes count for 1/3 of the contest, while coaches and media votes make up the other 2/3.
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