Student Adapts to Texas With the Help of Football

If you ever want to ask anyone about what living in another country feels like, you should to ask junior Michael Ariyibi. For majority of his life he lived in Nigeria, but he also lived in England and has been to a lot different places except Argentina and North and South Korea. Because his father had a business that traveled a lot, Michael was never home in the summer and didn’t complete a year of school. “I never had the chance to finish a whole school year when I was in Africa because we always had to leave. I didn’t ask any questions, I just got on the plane when Dad said it was time to go,” Ariyibi said. For Michael, moving to Texas was different. It wasn’t like all the other places he had lived - it was different. From the way people walked, talked, and everything else, it was just “weird” to him. The adjustment to the way things were here was not as easy as it was in other places. “When I moved to Texas, I had to adapt to everything. The clothes, the slang, even the little things like the way I greet others. It was all different from what I’m used to,” Ariyibi said. Since coming to Texas, the greatest thing Michael has gotten to experience was football. It brought him closer to others and made him feel welcome. Playing for Grand Prairie has been the best thing that happened to him.

“Football is the best thing and my favorite thing I had ever done since I’ve been here.” Ariyibi said. “The team has been like another family. Football allows us to put all our differences aside and brings everyone together.”

#football #travel