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Faith Christian star to forgo senior season for soccer opportunity

Jon Randall shined for the Eagles' football and basketball teams, but is now pursuing a soccer opportunity with Real Colorado.

ARVADA, Colo. — It sounds like the beginning of a folk tale.

"His name was Jon Randall, and yeah, he was crazy. He was extremely helpful. I don't remember how many kick returns he had, but I think he almost had one every game," said Carson Wolf, a senior football player at Faith Christian Academy.

"I mean, we're losing a kid that took five kick returns back and two called back, and hit a 50-yard field goal in a game," coach Micah Connor added.

And then starts to resemble more of a superhero movie.

"He just doesn't have breaks," Connor said. "He's full-speed all the time, everywhere."

"He was ridiculously fast. I couldn't tackle him. He was just up and down the field and no one could catch him," Wolf said.

But all of these stories are quite real, and when Jon Randall's speed didn't kill, his brute strength helped the FCA football team.

"We knew that as a sophomore when he started kicking off for us and the returner got blown up and tackled down field. We were like 'who got to him?' and they ran it back on the replay and it was the kicker," Connor said.

"He didn't know the kicker was supposed to hang back and play safety. He kicked the ball and then ran 35 yards down field and tackled the guy with the ball."

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Randall said: "I love to go and make the tackle. I feel like I can be myself out there and legally tackle someone."

So why is this fearless, tough, cheetah-like athlete giving up his chance to play football his senior year?

Because he has an even better futbol opportunity with Real Colorado. But he'll take the lessons he learned with him.

"Learning football and how to hit someone and move and move your feet and get up and hit is definitely different and takes me into a soccer where I can explode differently, where other players don't have that training," Randall said.

"Jon is aggressive in everything he does in his competitiveness and in every sport, that competitiveness takes over. He's an exceptional athlete, he's fast, strong, when he gets contact, he runs through it," Connor said. "Honestly, his greatest characteristic is just his aggressiveness and his competitiveness."

Coach Connor described Randall as the most dynamic athlete that he's ever seen.

"Honestly, that means a lot because I really like Coach Connor. He's awesome. I think I've earned that title because nothing has been given to me and I train and work through blood, sweat, and tears, and that's all you can do at this level."

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