Zavala overcame odds, inspired team

Peggy Zavala was busy.

It was the final game of the season for the Costa Mesa Pop Warner Junior Midget Mustangs, and the team mom had orange slices to hand out and minor injuries to check on.

But through it all, she kept close track of her 10-year-old son, Joseph, who plays defensive tackle.

Near the end of the game, which ended as a 38-20 Costa Mesa victory over Santa Ana, Peggy Zavala went over to the bench to check on her son.

“Joseph, there’s five more minutes in the game,” she said with a smile.

But for Joseph Zavala, there wasn’t.

“Actually, there’s five minutes and 16 seconds,” Joseph responded.

Joseph Zavala wasn’t being a smart aleck.

Joseph Zavala has autism.

Peggy and her husband, Anthony, saw that diagnosis when he was just 2 years old.

“He was totally not a normal kid,” Peggy Zavala said. “He didn’t cry, didn’t make any sounds. He didn’t like to be touched or held.”

The Costa Mesa residents put Joseph in special education classes through kindergarten. Often moody, he didn’t have friends over much, his cousins taking their place. He didn’t talk until he was 6 years old.

Part of Joseph’s disorder for awhile, Peggy Zavala said, was wanting things in threes. This became a problem when she took him to the bookstore one day, with the intention of buying him a single book.

“The children’s section was way in the back,” she said. “I came to the front with three books, but I only paid for one. When he saw that he was only getting one book, he literally started tearing the store apart. He was knocking over shelves of books. We had walked over there, and I couldn’t even get him home.”

He still has his quirks, such as only wanting to ride red-colored rides at amusement parks. But perhaps more disheartening to Anthony Zavala — a big football fan — was the fact that Joseph showed no interest in playing sports. But as he grew up and got used to his Risperdal medication, used to treat anxiety, Joseph began showing signs.

Starting in the first grade, he began taking regular classes at Kaiser Elementary School, with big sister Angel — now 13 years old — there for support.

Exercise is thought to be good for children with autism, because it makes their brain function smoother.

The Zavalas’ neurologist, Dr. Ira Lott of the UCI School of Medicine, encouraged Joseph to exercise and stay fit.

Joseph also became involved with karate and swimming with limited success, and participated in the Newport Beach Red Hots, a special-education soccer program.

“That was fantastic, but all of those kids are on their own,” Peggy Zavala said. “There’s no real team; they don’t even really play a game.”

One day, Joseph said he wanted to play baseball, but football season was coming up instead. Working at her job at Mimi’s Café, one night Peggy Zavala ran into people wearing Costa Mesa Pop Warner shirts.

The rest was history.

“Before I even met any of the kids, I called them up,” said Gary Baume, Costa Mesa Pop Warner Jr. Midget Coach. “When I called and spoke with Peggy, she told me right off the bat that he was autistic and overweight. I told her we’d do everything we can to help him out, no matter what it is.”

There was one problem; Joseph was well over the league’s maximum required playing weight of 130 pounds. But Joseph Zavala, used to eating as much as he wanted, changed his diet.

He started counting calories and reading nutritional labels.

“For an adult to lose five pounds is hard, and this kid just kept going and going,” Anthony Zavala said. “And he loves his food, but he was reading all of the labels.”

Joseph made weight on Oct. 7 and played every game afterward for the Mustangs.

Joseph, the second-youngest player on the team, likes to sit alone on the bench, but he will also talk to his teammates during the games.

“He asks how he can be better, how he can make himself better as a blocker,” teammate Kyle Orton said. “He just puts his heart into everything and tries his best every time. If he doesn’t get it, he tries again.”

His teammates, who were never formally told that Joseph has autism, could tell by interacting with him. But instead of picking on him, they help him during the game.

In the win over Santa Ana, teammate Kevin Salyer helped Joseph put on his armbands, while Kyle Iverson talked to him on the sidelines.

When Joseph was called into the game, his teammates yelled, “Let’s go JoJo!” Instead of being a liability, he helped form a team unity.

“At the beginning of the season, we were all trying to do our own thing,” teammate Jordan Fernandez said. “Then Joseph, we were all trying to help him out, and that brought us close. It’s good knowing that we can help him and he can understand.”

Baume said Joseph Zavala bought into his four-step system of “Believe, prepare, perform, win.”

“He believed he could do it, and he prepared himself for the weight loss by changing his eating habits,” Baume said. “He followed through with his performance, and he came out the winner. Even if he didn’t get the weight down, I’d make him part of the team somehow because he wanted to be here. But he worked really hard on it.”

The season is now over, and Peggy Zavala said that Joseph misses his new friends already.

After the last game, Joseph walked over to his mom to ask her if he could go home with teammate Romar Ortiz.

Days earlier, Ortiz was also the first person other than a cousin that Zavala had gone trick-or-treating on Halloween with.

As her son walked away, Peggy Zavala smiled.

“That’s a miracle,” she said. “This team has been so amazing to him; it’s been the best thing to happen to him. He has so much self-confidence that he’s starting to make friends with kids at school on his own.”

He has a youth football team that will vouch for his character. And Joseph wants to come back and play again next year.

“We’ve always taught him that everybody in the world has something they’ve got to overcome,” Peggy Zavala said. “This just happens to be his, but he can’t use it as an excuse or a crutch in his life. You just have to work harder and get through it.

“He’s unbelievable. He amazes me every single day.”

Anthony Zavala was struck the first time that his son actually took the football field.

“Before that, there was an empty hole inside of me,” he said. “To see him his first day on the field, it was just a big rush. I said, ‘Man, the kid’s doing it.’”