Section V Spotlight: East High's Manny Colon
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The future is bright for East High School's Manny Colon.
He helped build and man the credit union at East. His supervisors from Advantage were so impressed, they offered him a part-time job at another branch, where he's been a teller and done some accounting work.
"Well, I started out there last year through a banking and credit course that we took here at East High and we actually built the bank ourselves, inside the school, the interior and all that,” said Manny.
I started there and I exceeded there so they offered me an internship at the West Broad St. branch and I've been there part-time since and it's actually going pretty good, so, if I can pursue that in life, that's what I'll do."
When he's not in the world of high finance, you'll find him on the volleyball floor, the pool, and at this time of year, on the baseball diamond as a second baseman and pitcher for the Orientals.
"His junior year, in the offseason, we were doing offseason workouts, we transitioned him to a middle infielder where he's played second base both last year and this year. He pitched two games last year and has become our number three pitcher this year and has just done a fabulous job,” said Kyle Crandall, head coach.
That would be the end of the story, except Manny does all of this with a handicap.
"Happened when I was about five years old, playing with an old friend in my backyard, and, little kids, we were just shooting stuff around and a plastic Batman toy got shot and it caught me in the eye, and it broke and damaged some stuff in there,” said Manny.
"He struggled catching fly balls, which now, later on, when I found out he only had one eye, it became very obvious that the depth perception was a big problem for him, but he never complained about it. He's just learned to compensate for that and just goes out and plays hard like every other kid," Crandall said.
He's been accepted to Keuka College, next year where he hopes to play volleyball and baseball and continue to get his degree and become a business lawyer.