![\"bigfoot\"](\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/bigfoot.jpg\")
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\nStrange, since the 23-year-old Georgia Southern placekicker finished the 2010 football season as an Associated Press Third-Team All-American, as the College Football Performance Awards Placekicker of the Year, and as one of 10 Finalists for the Fred Mitchell Placekicker of the Year Award. He was named to the Mitchell Watch List for the 2011 season.<\/p>\nBorn in the state of Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico, in 1988, Mora\u2019s father decided to move the family to Dalton, Ga., in 1994.<\/p>\n
Mora played soccer for his middle school team and it was his soccer coach who suggested he might want to consider playing football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the one that did all the goal kicks and was the hard hitter on the soccer team all through middle school,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
The same year, his older brother started to play for his high school football team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to go watch his games \u2013 and us soccer people really didn\u2019t have anyone showing up to the stadium \u2013 but, when I went, just seeing that environment was fun and I wanted to be a part of it,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
Mora said that his high school football coach, Ronnie McClurg, played a big part in his success as a player.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is someone who cared more about me as a person than a football player. I would say that he was the one that guided me throughout my high school years and into my college years,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
Mora said that McClurg also played an integral part in helping him pick what col\u00adlege he would choose to play for.<\/p>\n
Knowing that Mora\u2019s family didn\u2019t have the means to send their son to college on their own, McClurg assumed the role of Mora\u2019s advisor, making it known to pro\u00adspective schools that Mora was not going to play anywhere where he wouldn\u2019t be provided for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe [our family] are by no means wealthy,\u201d said Mora. \u201cWe\u2019re wealthy in that we care for each other, we\u2019re always there for each other and we\u2019re together no mat\u00adter what,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
Mora said that, although he made good grades through high school and had earned the HOPE Scholarship, he already knew that if he didn\u2019t have a scholarship to play football that he probably would have ended up going to community college.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great that I was given this oppor\u00adtunity to showcase my talents and at the same time get a degree,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
When it came to choosing Georgia Southern as the school where he would showcase those talents, Mora wanted to go to a school that had traditions that reflect\u00aded those of the winning years of Dalton High School. He found those traditions at Georgia Southern.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think another factor that played into it was that it\u2019s far enough away from home where I\u2019m able to start anew, but still close enough to where my family can come to the games every single week, which they do,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
As proud as Mora is of his success as an athlete, he is even more proud of his academic achievements. He said that he realizes not many college players will ever make it into the NFL, and he sees getting a degree and doing well academically as the real payoff for getting to play college ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the fact that school is setting me up for life is more rewarding than getting hardware for my accomplishments on the field,\u201d Mora said.<\/p>\n
Mora earned an undergraduate degree in business administration last spring, fin\u00adishing with an overall 3.9 GPA, and is now enrolled in graduate school for his final season as an Eagle.<\/p>\n
Matthew D\u2019La Rotta<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Record-setting Eagle Placekicker Returns for His Final Season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-fall-2011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}