Delgado's Determination

The date is etched into Michael Delgado’s mind: Aug. 31, 2008, a day that changed his life forever.

He was involved in a horrific car accident that left him, then a 17-year-old college freshman with dreams of playing professional soccer, paralyzed from the waist down.

The accident ended his playing career but wound up opening the door for him to pursue another dream.

Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Delgado not only survived, but has thrived.

Despite being in a wheelchair, he became an assistant coach at his high school and as a head coach, directing not one, but two college soccer teams at the same time.

Delgado eventually joined the professional ranks with the Texas Outlaws and has taken roles of assistant coach, director of business outreach and operations, and most recently as interim general manager of the Major Arena Soccer League team.

Michael Delgado's story of perseverance and his indomitable spirit is one in which inspirational movies are made.

"We all refer to him as a living example of a man dealing with adversity," Outlaws head coach Ed Puskarich said. "An absolutely true gentleman, and student of the game. The Texas Outlaws organization is lucky and proud to have him associated with us."

Then again, Delgado wouldn't have it any other way.

"A big part of it is our outlook on life, our perception of how we think things should go and how they go," he said in an interview earlier this week. “I guess the big piece of it for me, is every day we get to wake up again as a blessing. My faith is a big part of it as well. I can't stop, I can't give up, because there are, unfortunately, other people out there that have things worse off than me.

“So, each day, the one thing that I can bring to the table and that I can control, even under the circumstances, is my work ethic or my work rate in the training session. The next is going to come, as long as we don't give up."

To really appreciate Delgado's story, a little background is needed. He was born in California in 1990. His father, Memo, was from Mexico, his mother, Robin, was born in Austin, Texas.

"My dad always played soccer," he said. "My mom was really intentional about making sure I played other sports first, because she knew once I started kicking the ball that that was going to be it. I really appreciated that, because I got to play other sports and really try to find myself and see what I'm passionate about."

And we don't have to guess what sport wound up in Delgado's heart around the age of seven.

"Ever since I started, it was balls at my feet all the time," he said. "I lived, breathed, and slept soccer. My dad and I started playing in the backyard and then going into a team setting. I just always had a huge passion and love through the game."

In 2002, the Delgado family moved to Mesquite, Texas, where the soccer universe got a preview of Delgado's determination.

"I always played for smaller, independent clubs," Delgado said. "We've got the FC Dallases, Solar Soccer Club and others, but being from a lower income household I didn't really have the money to be driving out to Frisco and train with FC Dallas. This is about a 50-minute commute from Mesquite. Back then, they didn't have the toll roads. It was a longer commute, like an hour and 20. That wasn't something that I knew was doable."

On Delgado’s first day at Poteet High School, his mother dropped him off at the registrar's office. He met another student who was captain of the soccer team and sparked up a conversation.

“I'm looking up at him,” Delgado said. “He's like 6-2. I'm a freshman. I was like, 5-5, maybe, then. I'm like, 'Holy shoot, this is going be interesting.' "

Delgado then laughed before becoming serious again.

"If all the players look like this, I'm going to have to put some work in," he said.

Which he did as a man marker, as a defensive midfielder and center back.

Delgado, 34, became an integral part of the team as a junior. In Poteet's season opener against Jesuit School of Preparatory School of Dallas, he was matched up with a 6-2 senior who already had committed to Notre Dame.

"I was like, 'Okay, I got my work cut out,' " he said, keeping his foe scoreless. "After that game, he was like, 'Man, where do you play? You want to come trial for our club team?' I just did what I had to do. I was a little gnat all over him. Every game I was man marking someone. I was shutting down the number one guy on the team."

As a senior, Delgado got proper recognition, captaining Poteet, which dove deep in the state playoffs, while earning second team All-Texas and district defensive MVP honors.

"My goal was to try to chase the dream and try to go pro," he said.

During a break, Delgado and his good friend and Poteet teammate, David Balyeat, who currently plays for the Dallas Sidekicks, traveled to Argentina and got offers to sign with soccer clubs.

"I saw a different side, culture-wise, a whole different level of commitment, level of fan engagement level," he said. "Back then, soccer here was still growing. So, when I got there, I was like,’ Holy heck, this is different.’ I called my mom and said, ‘I’ve got three different offers. I would like to stay.’ My mom was like, ‘If David was staying, you can stay, but you can't stay there alone.’ "

They didn't stay and returned home.

As it turns out, the best friend of his high school coach, Casey Osborn, was named head coach of a new Division III program at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas. Delgado was one of eight Poteet players who committed to attend the school under coach Kevin Wright.

After playing to a draw in the second game of the 2008 season, Delgado and two soccer players were going to take a friend to Killeen Regional Airport. It was about a two-hour drive.

Remember, Delgado was a 17-year-old freshman.

"At that age, we think we're invincible," he said. “We're off the top of the world. Nothing's going to stop us. Nothing can harm us. The night before a game, we don't always sleep the best. We're thinking about the game. We're excited. We kind of toss and turn."

Delgado woke up at seven a.m. for the team breakfast, and played the game at 4 p.m. After having dinner with his parents, who came to town to watch the contest, Delgado was to leave for the airport at 1 a.m. on Aug. 31.

"That just made it an extremely long day," he said. "I was tired. I drove there in my car. It was a teammate that I went to high school with, one of my best friends that I met, who was from Houston, and one of the [school’s] women's soccer players. About 10 minutes before we got to the airport, I started getting extremely tired. We had to pull over a little bit, and I let somebody else drive, because I was falling asleep."

They dropped his friend off and Delgado gave him a hug.

"That was the last memory that I had until I got to where I was coherent and not all drugged up after the accident," he said.

His teammate started driving. Delgado went to sleep on the passenger seat with the woman in the back. Uncomfortable up front, Delgado decided to fall asleep in the hatchback section of the SUV.

Delgado said that he told his teammate, that if he got tired, wake up, roll down the windows, or take a break at Red Stop, a rest stop.

About a half hour from campus, his teammate fell asleep at the wheel.

"We're in the country, so back roads," Delgado said. "We go off the side of the road, hit a ditch and flip vertically three times.

"Thankfully, luckily, there was a nurse that I believe was coming home from her overnight shift who was driving behind us and saw it, because I don't know what they would have done had we've been alone."

Now, before you scold Delgado for switching seats and not having a seat belt, his decision to sleep in the back saved his life.

"When the car accident happens, I get thrown around. I was asleep, unconscious the whole time," he said. "My doctors tell me it's better to have gone through it like that, because I don't remember anything.

"The women's player got lodged into the floorboard behind the passenger driver's seat, which that kind of saved her. Nobody died in the car accident.

"The police and EMTs said it was a great thing that I did leave the front passenger seat, because if there would have been anybody in that seat when we flipped, that front right side got smooshed in. If anybody had been there, most likely, potentially, could have not been here anymore. The irony of that is, yes, I got paralyzed from the chest down in a wheelchair, but had I not moved, I potentially could not be here."

Delgado underwent a 14-hour surgery. His spinal cord was broken at the T7 and T8 vertebrae. Two rods and more than 100 screws were placed in his back to stabilize him.

"At first, I'll be honest with you, I wanted to stay away from soccer for about two months," he said.

He wanted to leave the hospital by the time he turned 18 on Oct. 17, but he missed it by a day.

"I wanted to make sure that I could drive by the time I got out," Delgado said. "That was a goal. Plus, I knew if I could drive, I could continue to have my own freedom.”

Delgado's friend, David Balyeat, who was about to enter his senior year at Poteet, visited him frequently. Osborn, the Poteet coach, asked him to become a volunteer assistant coach.

"That’s what really set the ball moving forward for me," he said, as Poteet reached the Class 4A Texas State Championship finals.

"Oh, the legacy that we left from my senior year, making it five rounds deep. These boys bought in. They bought in even more. They became that brotherhood, that family, which we had, and it just intensified. From that moment forward, I knew this was what I wanted to do. I want to continue to be around the game. I wanted to coach. I don't know how I'm going to make this happen, because I'm 18 years old. But from that point, I knew I wanted to coach."

Delgado got his never-say-die spirit and work ethic from his parents. He said his father got through middle school before he "made a decision to come across the border and try to pursue a better livelihood for himself first. My mom comes from a broken home."

"Seeing how they put their head down and did everything they could for that, for myself to have opportunities,” he added. “When this happened, that's just kind of my MO. That was what I was raised on. My mom's a hairstylist. Many times when we couldn't pay for a babysitter, I went to work with my mom. So, seeing how my parents had to grind, had to work, to give me a real opportunity to have a better livelihood than they had, it is just the sacrifice that they did for me. The other part to it was, at 17. I was chasing the dream. I was trying to go pro. So then when this happened, it became, ‘I'm going try to walk again.’ My great determination of not settling for what the doctors are telling me, but taking it by the horns and doing everything I can in my power, like my parents did."

He was given the opportunity to be a volunteer assistant coach at Howard Payne, while earning a four-year degree in Spanish education and a minor in coaching.

When Delgado graduated in 2012, he was asked if he wanted to become one of Howard Payne's assistant coaches.

"Now I'm getting a little bit of coin, enough to be able to live out there, get my own place with a roommate," Delgado said. "I have my foot in the door. Now, I don't even want to coach high school. I want to stay at the college level."

Three years later, Delgado got a call that Paul Quinn College in Dallas, a NAIA Division I school, was starting a soccer program.

"We started that first year in the outfield of a baseball field, and we played our home games at a community college down the street," he said.

More than 40 players came out for the men's team and a women’s team was started.

Delgado wound up coaching both teams, not unlike former University of North Carolina head coach Anson Dorrance, who doubled at his school many years ago before focusing on just the women, and U.S. Men's National Team legend Paul Caligiuri, who did the same at Cal Poly Pomona for four years.

"It was extremely hard," Delgado said. "It wasn't easy by any means, but I was able to have a good support staff, assistants around me. Those programs were built by the players and the coaches together. We had to fight and do everything we could to get for the soccer program."

Because he was wheelchair bound, Delgado could not watch practices and potential recruits from a better perspective of the press box, at high school stadiums that did not have an elevator. It should be noted that high school football stadiums can rival some college venues.

"I had to learn to see the game from my viewpoint," he said. "I had to adapt and learn to see things from the view that I had."

When Delgato had to demonstrate to the team a particular move or strategy, he used his players.

"As soon as I get into a private session or team session, I'm watching my players or the people that are training with me, and quickly try to identify who's my player, male or female, that has the soccer IQ, that has the small details correct,” he said.” Once I've identified that, I communicated with them. They are now my hands and feet. If there's something that actually I had to kick a ball, they are my feet."

At times, Delgado used himself as an example of how to defend in man-to-man situations.

"I'm telling them, ‘If I'm able to stop you in my wheelchair, you forwards, my attacking players, we've got some real issues,’ " he said. "I always make it an intent, especially on the defensive side, to show my players how I want them, the aggressiveness. There have been a couple of times where I even fell out of my chair demonstrating.”

In 2023, another door opened to join the front office staff of the Outlaws as director of business outreach and operations. He worked building the club's brand name in the Dallas community, working with local clubs and teams and seeking sponsorships. Earlier this year, he was an assistant coach as well.

When he took on GM responsibilities recently, Delgado had to curtail his coaching responsibilities.

"Now, I'm not going to be down on the field as much as I was the last month and a half, because my responsibility now is to lead the front office," he said. "When we train at the arena, it's easy, because my office is here. But there are times when we don't train here. On those days, I won't go to training sessions because obviously I have more responsibilities here in the front office."

The Outlaws have stumbled to an 0-4 start.

On Nov. 21, Outlaws management decided to change the direction of the team, as Ed Puskarich replaced Tatu as head coach. Assistants Nick Stavrou, and Sagu also were let go.

"We were behind the gun," Delgado said. "Ed put together his staff. We just rolled our sleeves up and got to work. We've got a really young and new team. We’re committed to working to find quality Dallas players here in the Metroplex. This is their first season ever playing professional indoor soccer.

Delgado is paying his story forward with people who have suffered similar injuries. He is a mentor for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation at the hospital where he went for his rehab, Baylor Scott and White Health in downtown Dallas.

"I go and share my story with newly injured patients and just try to be an inspiration for people that are going through the same things I went through, and to show them that, yes, this is a life-changing event,” he said. “There are a lot of changes, but there's not one thing that anybody can tell me you can't do. So, I may need to adapt and change things. But when somebody tells me I can't do something, that even motivates them even more."

He used a soccer metaphor to get his point across.

"It's about the mindset," Delgado said. "When you get knocked down, are you going to stay down, point a finger at others, talk crap about others or be a toxic person in the locker room or amongst your team? Or are you going to rise up, put your cleats back on, tie the boots up, and go out work harder and be a difference maker? I was not willing to let the circumstance be the circumstance. I was going to take a step forward, or, in my saying, take a roll forward."