OCC men’s soccer: On A Mission

Steve Virgen

The pain gripped him so. It was as if a piranha was devouring him.

Geno Vitale-Sansosti said the suffering was so severe, he wanted to die.

His body ached for another fix of heroin. He had been on heroin for

five years and described his life as “beyond rock bottom” when he was in

Theo Lacy Jail in Orange.

“It’s like you’re in the worst nightmare and you can’t wake up,’

Vitale-Sansosti said of the withdrawals he experienced while in jail at

age 22. “It was the worst pain in my life. It felt like something was

eating me alive.”

Vitale-Sansosti, now 25, is the starting center forward and captain

for the Orange Coast College men’s soccer team that plays at Santa

Barbara City College in the second round of the Southern California

Regional Playoffs Saturday.

Like the Pirates’ turnaround season -- OCC has more than quintupled

its wins from last year, 3-14-2 to 16-3-4 -- Vitale-Sansosti has overcome

defeat as he kicked his heroin addiction and focused on his love for

soccer.

His road to recovery has had more twists and turns than he could ever

dish out on the playing field.

THE HEROIN HABIT

Vitale-Sansosti’s fascination with drugs began with marijuana when he

was 11. But, smoking pot became boring.

“That got old because it became like any other habit,” he said. “It

was like drinking water.”

He first tried heroin by smoking it at age 14. The drug made him feel

pain-free, but he was not totally attracted to it until he turned 17.

That’s when pain really came into focus.

His friend, Nelson, was shot in the chest and died while at a party.

The news crushed Vitale-Sansosti as the two were very close. He ran back

to heroin because he remembered how it could seemingly erase the pain.

“Heroin made me forget about everything,” he said. “I remember feeling

no pain, none in my back (because I had back pains) and none in my mind.

I fell in love with it from there on. I didn’t buy any marijuana after

that. I just went with heroin. By the time I was 19, I was shooting up

heroin and cocaine.”

In Santa Cruz, where he was born and raised, he used to rob people at

ATM machines just to maintain his habit. He said he only stole from men

and he would apologize to them before leaving the scene.

After constant trouble and a stay at a Juvenile Hall for assault with

a weapon, his mother asked him to move to Southern California to seek

recovery at New Beginnings Recovery Home in Westminster.

The move only worsened his habit. He failed to recover and went back

to Santa Cruz. The next three years he went back and forth from the

recovery home to Santa Cruz. And then to Santa Ana, where the stealing

intensified.

He would burglarize houses and write bad checks for a fix. The drug

addiction lightened his pain and his worries.

The only dreadful thought now was losing heroin because then he would

have to kick into withdrawals.

HOUDINI

Throughout his life, Geno has earned two nicknames.

Tigre -- because he is like a tiger when he pounces on the ball in

soccer.

And, Houdini -- for the escape he pulled off after the Santa Ana

Police arrested him.

After a chase that led to being handcuffed and put in the back seat of

a squad car, Vitale-Sansosti managed to escape because of a bum left

cuff, he said.

He asked for the window to be opened because he felt hot. And that was

his chance to escape.

“I reached out and opened the door...gone,” he said. ‘I ran through a

backyard, I jumped over a fence and I hid in a garbage can.”

He said he then crawled under a house and remained there despite a

helicopter fly-by that had an officer, on a loudspeaker, asking him to

surrender.

Vitale-Sansosti would not give up. He feared the withdrawals. He had

been clean for 11 months when he was 20 and had endured heroin’s

ugliness.

He hid under dirt and came out after he thought it was safe. He jumped

through backyards and returned to his hot spot to meet with his dealer

and receive his free fix for the day.

He then went about his business: making money by dealing and selling

fake social security cards.

Later in the day, undercover police found him walking along the

street. He was on the run again. But this time, they caught him and

hog-tied him off to the Santa Ana jail where he was booked for resisting

arrest and possession of narcotics. And there was a warrant on him for

breaking and entering. He was then placed in Theo Lacy.

THE RECOVERY

“You get so low you have nowhere else to look but up and if you dwell

at the bottom for a while then it really starts to stink,”

Vitale-Sansosti said of his thoughts before he finally recovered. “You

die or you start to trust something to pull you up.”

He began to trust in God, his love for soccer renewed and he placed

his faith in the 12-step program at the same recovery home he had failed

in previously.

Alonzo Mitchell, founder of the New Beginnings Recovery Homes, has

seen the changes Vitale-Sansosti has made. Through his recovery they have

become family, Vitale-Sansosti said.

“Geno has come a long way,” Mitchell said. “I’m really proud of him.

I’ve been there with him for his rough times. And now I’m just blown away

to see him now. He puts 100 percent of himself in everything that he

does. We have his pictures and other stuff about him posted and all the

guys in here love him and respect him. People around here say, ‘If Geno

can turn his life around, we can turn our lives around.’ ”

Vitale-Sansosti trudged through steps 1-8 in the recovery and he

remembered the advice from his brother-in-law, Eric Davis, the starting

NFL cornerback for the Carolina Panthers.

Davis told him, “When you put your mind to it there’s nothing you

can’t do.”

Then, Vitale-Sansosti reached another huge challenge in step 9. Making

amends.

Mitchell said step 9 is “a real important one,” because “when a person

does that, you can really tell that they have made a difference.”

Vitale-Sansosti went back to the homes he robbed in Santa Ana. He gave

them money to hopefully compensate for their losses.

He still wants to go back to Santa Cruz and find the people he robbed

from at the ATM machines.

“I really want to be free from everything because I think after that

the sky’s the limit,” he said.

FOR THE LOVE OF SOCCER

With heroin out of his life, Vitale-Sansosti rediscovered his original

addiction: soccer. He has loved the game all his life and now it was

growing.

“I’ve loved soccer since I was born,” he said. “My mom said, when I

came out that I was looking back and waiting for the soccer ball to come

out. I love the game.”

His love for soccer has been the motivation for staying clean. And

it’s soccer that has caused him to make sacrifices so he can keep

playing.

In 1997, another close friend, Chet, died. Like Nelson, Chet was shot.

Chet died on Christmas day, Nelson’s birthday.

The pain returned for Vitale-Sansosti. He had only been clean since

April.

But, he said the death was either going to take him down or make him

rise higher. Vitale-Sansosti took the high road.

He walked on to play soccer at Golden West College, but he was cut

when it was deemed he didn’t have the necessary talent.

“I just thought, ‘I have to be on a serious mission just to go off in

soccer,’ ” he said. “When I was dropped it was the best thing that

happened to me in the world of soccer.”

Vitale-Sansosti arrived at Orange Coast College, where he endured a

losing season last year,

When the season ended he had to serve time in James A. Musick Branch

Jail in Irvine, because he had written bad checks during his heroin

addiction.

In December of 1999, after taking his last two final exams at OCC, he

turned himself in.

He worked the kitchen as officers and inmates disrespected him and

made fun of his last name. But then OCC Coach Laird Hayes visited him and

it brightened Vitale-Sansosti’s spirits. And it changed his stay in

jail.

Hayes received a tour of the facility from his friend who works for

the Orange County Sheriff Department. They discussed Vitale-Sansosti’s

character and Hayes’ word led Vitale-Sansosti to move to a better part of

the jail and he was assigned duties that dealt with sports.

But for Hayes and Vitale-Sansosti, the close connection had been

solidified before.

“I love the guy,” Hayes said. “He and I have something in common. It’s

that substance abuse issue. I had to deal with alcohol (that ended 23

years ago). I empathize with his situation. I like people who deal with

their problems and do something about it. And he’s done it.”

Vitale-Sansosti conquered his last challenge this past summer. He was

11 units short of being able to play this fall. He studied overtime in

the summer. He didn’t want to miss out on a season which he knew would be

special.

He took history, Spanish and astronomy at OCC, Golden West and Coastal

Community College and worked part-time in construction during the summer.

A high school dropout, he earned his G.E.D. while in the Irvine jail and

became a high school graduate.

He survived the summer and made it back to the soccer field, where

this season he has scored 14 goals and has seven assists.

And he continues with his class work and studying sports medicine.

“He’s very dedicated and it’s contagious,” assistant coach Kevin Smith

said. ‘He’s just a great role model. He’s not one to make excuses for his

past. It’s behind him and he’s moving forward. And he’s making the most

of what’s going on right now.”

The “most” for Vitale-Sansosti would be a state championship for the

Pirates this year. He said he believes the players are good enough to win

the title.

The Pirates ended Santa Ana’s 70-game winning streak on Nov. 6 and are

now convinced that they are the best team. OCC has won eight in a row and

Vitale-Sansosti is aching for that state championship.

He hopes the mothers of Nelson and Chet will be able to attend the

state title game. He still keeps in touch with them and wants to make

them proud.

“I’m on a mission: State championship,” he said. ‘It’s going to be a

lot of work. We know that we can lose, but we know that we don’t want to

lose.”

Whatever the final outcome on the field ... it’s clear that Geno

Vitale-Sansosti has come out a winner.