When Tyree Pearson steps onto the gridiron wearing that blue and orange, everything else melts away. He’s in his element, connecting with his teammates and hopefully getting in a good quarterback sack or two. “My Dad got me into football,” he says, “and I just love the crowd cheering us on, all the sweat and tears that goes into it. Football takes my heart away, I’m in love with the game.”  Football has taught Pearson about discipline and hard work. He even stays after practice to get in a few more drills, something his coaches have taken note of. “I’ll ask a couple of my other teammates to work out with me and my coach says he feels like I’m a leader on and off the field. He reads me, he knows I don’t take shortcuts, and he knows I’m all about football,” Pearson says. With gratitude to the mentorship of his father, who has also been a guiding force, Pearson looks forward to taking lessons learned with him as he heads to Whitworth University in Washington on a football scholarship. He knows he has hard work ahead of him as he hopes to become a starter his freshman year and, one day, a Seattle Seahawk. “When I first went to Seattle and I saw the stadium, I thought, ‘I want to have that feeling,’ looking up at the sky and knowing I made it,” he says. Putting in the work to make your dreams come true is the advice he would give his peers. “Take care of yourself now,” he says. “If you have a goal, just do it. Stick it out and if you fall out of it that’s okay. Just try to find something new and have fun with it.”