Success Stories
Farias Soccer Academy
Hannah Landry
At 4 years of age Hannah sat on the sidelines of a soccer game – hood up, knees bent – saying “I am cold and I don’t want to play this stupid game”. You would not have thought that same young lady 10 years later would be screaming at her teammates in the middle of a tropical storm downpour to “play the wind” and “keep it on the ground”. Two years later she was being offered several full-ride scholarships to various Div. 1 and 2 schools in the States. Only after a long, hard deliberation did she decide that the University of Ottawa had everything she wanted in a school and soccer program and wanted to make the Gee Gees her home for the next 4 years. Early in this journey she met Eduardo at a St. Mary’s soccer camp. She played “ok” that summer but “not to her potential”. As the next summer rolled around, all she talked about was going back to learn from the “best soccer coach in the world”. So off she went and it was that summer under the coaching of Eduardo that everything turned around.
From that summer on there was no turning back. Eduardo ignited in her a passion that got her up early in the morning to jog, to juggle, to kick, and to work like no one had done before. A few years passed before she met up with Eduardo again and this time it was under the name of FSA. That fire he had first ignited in Hannah at St. Mary’s turned into an inferno and keeping her from FSA was impossible.
In Hannah’s mind, FSA “IS” the reason she was a starting defender in her first rookie game with the Ottawa Gee Gees against a Div. 1 team in the US and they won the game 3-1. Hannah is not only a talented player on the field but also excels in all areas of academics. She earned over $50,000 in academic scholarships and awards on completion of high school. At the top of this list of major awards is an all expense paid trip to represent Canada at an International Science Fair in Stockholm, Sweden from Sept. 1-6, 2013. While there, she presented to international judges a water filtration device she researched and designed for use in developing nations. This same research will be published this fall in a national scientific journal. She has also won major awards in Canada over the last 3 years for several other scientific research projects and designs. Hannah is also a youth leader in her community. She founded “Youth Who Care” – a volunteer youth group at her school in grade 10 that has through her years in high school given thousands of hours of volunteer services to her community. She and the group’s 52 youth members have given countless hours to their local food bank, homeless youth, the IWK Health Center, anti-bullying campaigns, Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech, and the Kids Help Line. She has also taken this leadership in high school to her time on the basketball court and soccer field, being team Captain and MVP and receiving the NSSAF Athletic Leadership Award of Excellence, Scholar Athlete of the Year and High School Athlete of the Year. The award, however, that brings the most pride is winning the Queen Elizabeth 2 medal at graduation for Community Leadership and High Academic Standing for all three years of high school. FSA has helped to shape Hannah into the person she is today: well-rounded, strong, ambitious and talented. Wendy and Eduardo are amazing coaches who push you to go beyond what you “think you can do” to a place where “you ARE doing all that you can”. The more you accomplish at FSA the more confidence you have to try things with your club team. This confidence not only makes YOU better but also your team as a whole. In the end it is not an individual that wins championships but what the individual can do for his or her team that helps them win. FSA helps you become that contributor.
