Sports

A Dutch mark in the football team

Massimo Ciaschetti, Student • September 7, 2023

Varsity football team practices at GHS

Totally new environment, totally new people and totally new hobbies; that’s how you can describe the life of the dutch exchange student Thijs van Gestel.

He’s been in the U.S. for a month now and he’s already starting to feel at home; thanks to his outgoing personality he hasn’t problems in finding new friends and everyone is so curious to know everything about this new student in GHS.

Football isn’t a big sport in the Netherlands, and Thijs doesn’t live in a big city so he has never got the chance to try this sport, but here not only he tried it, but he’s loving it.

Thijs’s english is not perfect yet, and he often finds it difficult to understand everything that coach Byrd screams at the players while practicing, but that’s not a problem for him because he’s sure that this one-year experience will help him a lot with his second language.

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One thing he doesn’t love is to be covered in bruises but he says: “it doesn’t matter as long as I have fun training and playing”.

Sadly he probably won’t be able to continue this hobby when he goes back to the Netherlands because he’ll be too busy with college, but he doesn’t want to think about this now, the only thing he wants to do is to live this opportunity.

He hasn’t got a role in the team yet, but he’s willing to learn everything about football to shine in the Junior Varsity, and who knows, maybe even in Varsity.

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About the Contributor

Massimo Ciaschetti

A new school year has came, either you are brand new to a high school or you might be returning for another year, or if your this specific student then you might have traveled the world to be able to come to America to try high school in the American view. Massimo Ciashetti is a foreign exchange student that is from Italy. He has come to Grantsville High School all the way to Utah to try highschool in the American way and see how things are different here than it is in Italy. He decided that he wanted to try something new and come to school here in America. When he and his family went on a family vacation to America they went to Los Angeles and visited the Grand Canyon. After they got back Massimo was interested in coming to school here in America to try something different and he thought that it would be an amazing experience. Him and his family found an agency that is for foreign exchange students and they got all of his information and put him on the website for any family in America to choose him to come live with them and go to school in America. A Family in Grantsville Utah chose him to come live with them and go to school in Grantsville. I asked him, “Why did you choose to come here? There is seriously nothing here. He said, “ I was put on a website for foreign exchange students and a family here picked me and that's why I came here” He can’t choose where he gets to go. He got picked by a family and then he traveled all the way from Rome, Italy to New York to Chicago then to Salt Lake to meet his new family in America. He still has been trying to get used to everything.