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STUDENT PROFILES Thanks to the coaches and teachers at Northern and Northwest High Schools for their student recommendations and input, which make it possible to recognize these talented, dedicated students for their accomplishments in academics, athletics and cultural arts.
by MEREDITH BARKLEY
NORTHERN GUILFORD Luis Benitez, senior Sport: golf Northern Guilford golfer Luis Benitez sees the game as good preparation for life. The challenges, coming in many forms, are getting him ready for the years ahead, he figures. “The biggest thing is fighting the urge to quit when you’re having a bad day,” Benitez, a senior, said. Working through down times and witnessing the results “makes you happy that everything worked out correctly. “Mentally learning and challenging yourself and seeing improvement definitely works with every other element in life,” he observed. Benitez said he shoots in the upper 30s for nine holes, a level of
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achievement he credits to “a lot of time and practice.” Yet another of those life lessons. He believes it will serve him well in business, which he’ll study at UNC Charlotte starting this fall. He hopes to make the university’s golf team, too. But with seniors getting another year of eligibility because of COVID, he realizes there may not be room for him. If he doesn’t make the team next fall, he’ll likely play club golf and try again the following season. Regardless of how that turns out, his course of study is set, he said. His mom, a real estate agent, and dad, a physician, have urged him to focus on business and finance, and he said he’s looking forward to it. He’s already dabbling in the stock market with money he’s saved from birthdays and a summer job. That’s meant poring over financials. “It’s a lot about research and finding companies that are undervalued and overvalued,” Benitez said. His financial adviser has helped.
“One of the biggest things in stock trading is to take all the emotion out and put it into analytics,” he said. That’s another takeaway from golf. “If you have habits you need to change, emotions are the biggest roadblocks,” Benitez said. He found that out while working on his swing. “That’s really the only reason swings change. You have to break away from that barrier.” He’d like to eventually make the PGA tour. But, insist his parents, education comes first. “So I’ll follow that,” he said. And if pro golf works out afterwards, that will be wonderful.
NORTHERN GUILFORD Garrett Benfield, sophomore Sport: wrestling For Northern Guilford’s Garrett Benfield, wrestling is very much a family affair. His father, Matthew, wrestled as a youngster and is a Nighthawks assistant coach, and his older brother, Max, who graduated last year, wrestled with the team.
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“I sort of grew into it,” said Benfield, a rising junior who has wrestled since kindergarten. In fact, perhaps the highlight of his wrestling career so far was winning the NCHSAA 3A state title for Northern last year – dad and brother at his side. “We got to be on the same team for one year,” he said of his brother. His father helped coach the championship squad. As a freshman wrestling at 126 pounds, he lost a close match during that contest. His opponent, he said, “started to take over in the third period. I couldn’t keep up.” So, he and his teammates have worked on endurance this year, he said, “going hard for two full hours” during practice. Last year Benfield hit a growth spurt during the season, which made it difficult to maintain weight as the season went on. After the season, when keeping weight within certain limits wasn’t as important, he ate more and gained. This year, growth spurt over, hitting his weight – now 152 pounds – isn’t as hard, he said. Still, it’s something all wrestlers work on. His diet: mostly fruits, vegetables and lots of chicken. He eats two meals a day during the season, he said: an egg for breakfast, fruit in the
