Why La Mecha
An injury in Seoul, an interview with World Lacrosse, and the idea that became this journal.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” Robert Frost wrote.
2023, my father and I flew to Puerto Rico searching for a place to establish a headquarters for the Puerto Rico Lacrosse organization. The search led us to COODEP, its vision for a sports school, and to Parque Charles H. Terry, a park financed, remarkably, by my great-great-grandfather nearly a century earlier. What some might call a serendipitous encounter opened the door to something far greater than sport, though I would not fully understand where it was leading until 2025 in Korea.
Representing Team Puerto Rico, during the opening game of the U20 World Lacrosse Championship in Korea, I tore my AC joint and was ruled out for the remainder of the tournament. The injury also disrupted my recruitment, which ultimately never unfolded as I had hoped. Still, I remained with the team, and World Lacrosse interviewed me about the Ponce Lions Project and our work in southern Puerto Rico. The path I had spent years pursuing seemed to end there, but that interview revealed another opportunity, one I can now pursue through La Mecha.
The name of the journal was inspired by my dad. The person who ignited my love for the island and my greatest advocate. His love for Puerto Rico is contagious, and although his instinct to connect with everyone sometimes embarrassed me when I was younger, I now recognize it as a gift that has opened countless doors and one I hope to carry throughout my life.
La Mecha began as an extension of the Ponce Lions Project. Our goal is to share the people, businesses, and ideas helping shape Puerto Rico’s future through the game of lacrosse. We hope to connect athletes, coaches, professionals, and members of the Puerto Rican diaspora with opportunities on the island, while also introducing Puerto Rico to people who may have never considered it as a place to live, work, or invest. In Spanish, la Mecha is the fuse, the small beginning that sets something larger in motion.
Our work is rooted in Ponce, where we helped restore an abandoned public school into a sports academy that houses our program and offers after-school opportunities to students. The school is one of the hundreds of public schools that have closed across Puerto Rico since 2007, a challenge that extends far beyond Ponce and one that demonstrates both the realities the island faces and the resilience of the people working to revitalize it.
It is a reminder that opportunity often begins by seeing potential where others see obstacles.
As I prepare to study business at Boston University, I have become increasingly interested in how sport can bring together community, education, and economic development. During a gap semester I never expected to take, I have had the honor of working in the Office of Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner, Pablo José Hernández, in the U.S. House of Representatives. I never could have imagined that a journey beginning with my father and me searching for a home for Puerto Rico Lacrosse would bring me to Capitol Hill, where I now have the opportunity to serve the island. Through these pages, I hope to introduce readers to the people and organizations shaping Puerto Rico’s future, highlight opportunities across the island, and share the lessons I continue to learn along the way. If La Mecha inspires someone to visit Puerto Rico, return home, volunteer, or simply see the island through a different lens, then it will have served its purpose.
— The Editor · La Mecha, a Ponce Lions Project