A former Cerritos College football player may be playing professional football in the coming years.
Cerritos College alum and former offensive tackle Mike Diaz has been practicing with several professional football teams with hopes of getting drafted and playing professionally.
“He’s a really good athlete,” head football coach, Frank Mazzotta, said. “He’s a real NFL type of (player).
In the end, Diaz is looking for any way to play the sport.
Diaz has even stayed in contact with his high school assistant coach Victor Salazar for support.
“Right now, he just wants to continue playing football,” Salazar commented in a previous interview with the Whittier Daily News. “He even told me that he was going to try out for a Canadian Football League.”
Diaz has currently been practicing with several NFL teams such as the Cleveland Browns.
He has also worked with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL, another professional league.
“The Locomotives held there training camp here on Sunday,” Mazzotta said. “He attended and practiced.”
At 6-5 and 320lbs Diaz managed to transfer from Cerritos College and play for the Arizona Wildcat for the past two years. Before heading for Arizona, Diaz left his mark in his native Montebello, California.
His sophomore and junior years at Schurr High School in Montebello went well. Diaz earned All-League honors on both offense and defense. As a junior, he was a 2nd Team All-CIF selection on defense. His senior season, Diaz was named to the 1st team All-Almont League on offense.
At Schurr, Diaz also played basketball for three years and averaged 11 points a game in his senior basketball season.
At Cerritos, Diaz earned 1st team All-Conference honors as a sophomore tackle and 1st team All-Mission Conference Northern Division in 2006.
Diaz was a mid-year enrollee to Arizona in 2008 and suffered a knee injury after getting hurt during spring training.
In 2009, Diaz was an option for starting left guard or left tackle but was left in the reserve. But in game four of that season, center Blake Kerley was injured and gave Diaz a chance to start.
Diaz took that opportunity and ran with it as he started nine games, the one being the upset win against USC, which gave them a second place in the PAC-10 and a berth in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl.
