Peak Performer: Elijah Roy overcomes personal obstacles, follows in brother’s footsteps as playmaker for Pine Creek
Sometimes sports can provide a different education.
Pine Creek junior receiver Elijah Roy struggled with selective mutism and being around others growing up. It’s a condition in which a child cannot speak in some situations but can speak perfectly in others.
Roy grew out of it through therapy, learning to talk to people, and through football.
“Football is just an escape. I come out here, a blank mind. Whatever I’m going through at school if I had a bad day at school it completely erases my mind when I come on to the field,” Roy said. “Being with friends that I consider my brothers now, it’s just a great escape to be laughing, enjoying what we’re doing, we all love to be on the same field at the same time … the friends I have now I thought I’d never have them. They’re crazy, they’re funny, they’re brothers to me now. I’ll never lose that bond which I love.”
Roy has honed his skills as a football player since the age of four, and played a big role in Pine Creek’s historic victory over Valor Christian on Friday. Roy caught six passes for 129 yards and two touchdowns in the team’s 31-17 win against Valor, the first in the history of the program.
Elijah Roy warms up during football practice on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
“It feels pretty good knowing that we were the first team to beat them,” Roy said. “But there were many greats before us and now we’re just trying to leave a legacy behind and paint a path forward for the young guys and just keep with the same mindset. Last year, first year going to 5A a lot of people didn’t believe in us so we just had to go out here and prove this year that we belong and we’re here to stay.”
Roy’s two scores from the Eagles’ Week 1 victory match his season total from last year. It’s a far cry from Roy’s freshman season two years ago, when he didn’t quite have a permanent position and played a bit of safety before being called up to play varsity in the playoffs. He watched the guys in front of him and learned the position. But the person he watched most of all was the person he’s been following his whole life: his brother Josiah.
Josiah was a senior and the Eagles’ starting quarterback when Roy was a freshman. In 2021, he threw for more than 1,400 yards and 15 touchdowns with four interceptions. Josiah also added another 18 scores as a runner.
“I played with my brother my freshman year. It was big time for me because it was always one of my dreams and he set the path forward for me and now I’m just trying to (grow) and leave a legacy behind just like he did,” Roy said.
Pine Creek wide receiver Elijah Roy poses for a portrait before practice on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
The past seasons since his brother’s departure, Roy has donned the No. 12 jersey for Pine Creek like Josiah before him, maintaining the family business of making plays on the field.
“God’s given him a lot of ability,” Pine Creek head coach Todd Miller said. “As he’s matured, I think his skill on the field has definitely gone right with that. So he’s had a great preseason for us. He’s had two real nice scrimmages and then kind of what we saw during the summer is exactly what you guys got to see on Friday night against Valor.”
Roy hopes to join his brother at Western Colorado University after he graduates Pine Creek, but long before that and before making noise in Class 5A football, he and the Eagles are focused on their next game at Vista Ridge on Saturday.
An offensive leader and playmaker in one of the historically great programs in the region is “not bad” for someone who used to struggle with speaking to others as a child. Roy stands as a testament to what sports can help students accomplish. Miller believes sports provide an additional set of skills for students that complement what they learn in academia.
“There’s probably a half a dozen young men on this team that athletics are an outlet for them and it normalizes life. And it gives them a venue, an expertise to display their skills,” he said. “I didn’t get geometry, I didn’t know what geometry was, I didn’t know how to apply it but I got on the field and I knew how to cut the angle off on a running back and I think some of these guys, that’s their way. This is part of the educational process and it’s every bit as valuable as the things that we teach in that brick-and-mortar building during the day.”
Pine Creek wide receiver Elijah Roy poses for a portrait before practice on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
Pine Creek Elijah Roy (12) catches the ball for the first touchdown of the season against Valor Christian Academy in the first quarter at District 20 Stadium in Colorado Springs, CO. on Friday September 1, 2023. (Laura Domingue/ Special to the Gazette)