That’s when reality gave the former two-sport high school standout a real smack to the senses.
At Mesa High, he’d been a 6-foot-6 forward on the 2016 basketball team that won the Division I state championship. And his volleyball skills had gotten him a scholarship to Benedictine University, an NAIA power in Mesa that was led by his former high school coach, Ray Lewis.
But once in college – on his own for the first time – he strayed from the work ethic his father had instilled in him and the volleyball dedication his stepmother, a former college standout herself and then an assistant volleyball coach at Mesa, had promoted.
“I was just acting like a child and being foolish, not doing the things that were really important,” Barraza said the other day as he sat in the Beacom Lewis Gymnasium at Central State.
His grades quickly plummeted at Benedictine and, after just one semester, Lewis called him in.
“I think he thought he had me leeway with me,” Lewis said. “I’d known him since high school and I was friends with his mom and dad. I’d been over to his grandmother’s home for dinner. They were like extended family to me.
“But once I found out some of the mischievous decisions he was making, I sat him down and said, ‘Look, this isn’t going to work out’ and I kicked him off the team.”
Barraza didn’t quite comprehend the finality of the situation at first. He had lost his scholarship, but when the next semester began, he didn’t properly withdraw from the school. Classes began will him on the roll and – even though he wasn’t in attendance – he was responsible for the bill for the schooling.
“I owed $11,400 and I had to pay it,” he said.
He left the factory for what he hoped would be a more lucrative job working construction with his father, who led a carpentry crew.
“Right from the start I said, ‘Don’t think you’re going to get any special treatment,’” said his dad, Javier Barraza. “I told him, ‘You’re coming in as a laborer. You are going to have to earn your position.’
“I didn’t baby him. I don’t mess around like that. When you treat your son with kid gloves, you hold him back. That’s not how the real world is.
“In the beginning there were some bumps and bruises. He got his fair share of yelling, probably more than some of the other guys, because I know where he comes from and what he’s capable of.”
Antonio laughs at those misaligned times now: “Yeah, there were plenty times I was hammering nails and missed and hit my thumb.”
But while his thumb throbbed, his sense of purpose grew. He worked hard and became a crew leader and soon the job was taking him all around the county: Texas, Arkansas, Westport, Connecticut, back to Houston, then Arkansas again, Colorado Springs, Colorado and finally Cody, Wyoming.
Along the way, he took care of his debt,
“When you’re 19 and 20 and 21, all you want to do is go out to the clubs and spend the money on yourself,” he said. “But I couldn’t do any of that. I really had to buckle down.
“I stopped spending money on shoes, on food, on my brother and sister. I didn’t have a girlfriend for a year and a half. I didn’t have a car.”
While he paid off the entire $11,400, he also banked a lot of good will with his dad, his fellow workers and even Lewis.
“He went from an immature kid making poor decisions to a man doing the right things,” Lewis said. “He understands now what hard work is like and what it takes to be successful.”
Javier agreed: “Like all of us on this journey we call life, we make mistakes. And like so many people, he learned you don’t realize what you had until it’s gone.”
Antonio decided he didn’t want to work construction the rest of his life and said he finally reached out to Lewis through Facebook:
“I hit him up and said, ‘You gave me a scholarship when I was young and dumb and I blew it. I’m sorry for the way I acted. If there’s ever a chance, I’d like to take you out to lunch and talk.’”
And that prompted another phone call.
It was Lewis, who, soon after Barraza had left Benedictine, had won a national title with the Redhawks and was named the NAIA Coach of the Year.
He’d just been hired by Central State to coach the struggling women’s volleyball team and launch a men’s program at the school.
CSU had been chosen as one of six HBCUs in the nation – all of them in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) – to share the $1 million donated to predominately black schools by USA Volleyball and the First Point Volleyball Foundation, which nurtures the sport at the youth, high school and college level.
“Generally in programs that are established, your culture brings in your culture,” Lewis said. “But we had to start at square one and really do our homework in order to get the right kids in the gym and create our own culture.”
And that’s when he contacted Barraza and asked him to be a Marauder.
Barraza didn’t hesitate
“Every day I’d been waking up at 5:30 in the morning so I could be on the job site at 6:30,” he said. “On the truck ride to work every day, I prayed: ‘Please give me another shot! I won’t let it go to waste. I disappointed my family once, I won’t do it again.’”
Honoring his grandmother
Javier Barraza had shown real athletic talent himself growing up, but said his father had a different idea when it came to his son playing high school sports:
“Unfortunately, my dad was very old fashioned – it came from his Mexican heritage – and he always said: ‘Kids play games; men work!’
“So I had to work. And once I had my own family, that was my main concern.”
Antonio said his parents split up and his mom, Lana Goth, is remarried, as is his dad.
His stepmom, Shauna Barraza Wampler, was a dual athlete, playing basketball and volleyball at Henderson State University in Arkansas, and at New Mexico Highlands University.
As Antonio began to make a name for himself in sports, he unfortunately was targeted in an ugly incident during a basketball game at rival Mesa Mountain View High in January of 2017, his senior season. It was reported in newspapers back then and quickly drew the attention of the Arizona Interscholastic Association.
According to published reports, early in the game several Mountain View students unfurled a big, blue “Trump for President” banner and began to chant: “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
Soon the group zeroed in on Barraza, telling him: “Go back home, border hopper!”
Barraza, who was born in the United States, as was his dad, didn’t respond.
“Yeah, it ate at me a little inside, but I wasn’t going to show emotion and give them satisfaction,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let them push my buttons.
“You’ve just got to be a bigger person than that. There are so many things more important than taunting like that.”
Javier was in the gym that night and it pained him to listen to the taunts, which he said continued into the second half:
“They were yelling how Trump was going to ‘deport our family’ and how he was building the wall ‘to keep you ... out.’ It ticked me off as a Mexican and as a parent. What really got me was that the security and the school administration let it go on so long.
“But I was proud of Antonio. Since he was a little boy, I tried to instill that you can do a lot more with your actions than your words. That’s the best way to shut up idiots like that. And that’s what he did.”
Antonio embraced his dad’s lessons when he traveled the country working construction, too. And that helped him line up the chance to go to CSU. But then came another setback.
His beloved 70-year-old grandmother – Lupe Barraza, Javier’s mom – died of COVID on January 14, 2021.
“One of the things his grandmother had said to him was to keep playing volleyball and get his degree,” Lewis said.
“He almost wanted to give up everything after that,” his dad said. “But the more he thought about it, the more he realized the best way to honor his grandmother was to live his life as best he can.
“Rather than break him, I think it has catapulted him forward.”
Men’s volleyball team hits the court
After being hired by CSU in the fall of 2020, Lewis had to wait a year for COVID restrictions to be lifted so he could field a team.
Last fall the CSU women won the SIAC with a 14-3 record, went 21-13 overall (their first winning mark in nearly 30 years) and had three players earn all-conference honors. Lewis was named the SIAC Coach of the Year.
The men’s effort – which began Jan. 6 – has been more of a challenge. There aren’t many black volleyball players in the high school region, so he’s built his team, in part, with international players.
The Marauders roster includes two Israelis, three Brazilians, a player from Serbia, one from the Bahamas and another born in Mexico, but raised in the United States. The black players on the team are from Las Vegas, Edmond, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh and Nassau.
“We talk about our commonalities and we realize we’re more connected than divided,” Lewis said. “I grew up in a multi-racial household and I love that this team reminds me of my own life growing up.
“We have a ton of different backgrounds, experiences and ethnicities and yet we’re a family. We don’t consider international students as minorities, but really they are. They’re in a different country, using a second or third language.
“And they’re excited coming here to a campus where diversity is celebrated, where minorities are not the exception. A lot of things they’ve experienced in life are similar.”
Barraza said coming to an HBCU campus initially was “a culture shock,” but added, “I love the atmosphere.
“It’s really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I dealt with taunts in my life and I’ve come here and heard other people’s stories and realized some of them have, too.
“And I’ve learned a lot. In my English class we talked about the Civil Rights Movement and about Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King. This has really been good for me.”
While he said he had a 1.8 grade point average at Benedictine, he has a perfect 4.0 GPA now.
While the volleyball team has started out 0-9 – the six SIAC schools who launched volleyball this season are a combined 4-36 – Barraza has had some shining moments. He leads the team in blocks and was named the SIAC Defensive Player of the Week earlier this month.
He hopes to try out for the Marauders basketball team next season, as well, and become a two-sport college athlete like his stepmom.
And he now has a girlfriend at CSU.
“Oh yeah,” he grinned. “I’m living the dream.”
He’s proudest that he’s living up to his dad’s expectations:
“Unlike his dad did with him, he’s always wanted me to go out and play sports and set a great foundation for the Barraza family.
“My senior year in high school, I remember something he said to me.
“Whether it was basketball or volleyball, he said he wanted me to be out on the court somewhere. And he wanted to be that old man sitting in the stands saying: ‘That’s my son out there! That’s my boy!’
“He can do that now.”
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