Tusaazemajja is Grade-A star for Fulton College Prep team
Three years ago, Fulton College Prep Athletic Director Larry Potell kept hearing from soccer players at the Van Nuys campus about an eighth-grader at the school with “unbelievable skills.”
“All they did was call him Pele,” Potell said.
The next season, Andrew Tusaazemajja showed up and immediately became a standout, solving the mystery.
“Lo and behold, Andrew and Pele turned out to be the same,” Potell said.
Born in Uganda, Tusaazemajja arrived in the United States in 2003 when he was 11. He enrolled at Fulton, which was in the process of adding high school students to its junior high to become a school for grades six through 12.
Now a junior, Tusaazemajja may soon help Fulton win its first City Section small schools soccer title.
“The kid is leaps and bounds above the other players,” Fulton Coach Eddie Garcia said.
Alberto Bru, program director for Real SoCal, the club team for which Tusaazemajja plays, said, “He’s one of the best players in his age group in Southern California.”
Norman Mejia, the coach at San Fernando who coaches Tusaazemajja in club play, said, “What separates him from the rest of the players is his intensity and drive. He’ll play any game like it’s a World Cup final.”
Friends call him Freddy Adu, Freddy Andrew and Drew.
There’s so much to like about the 5-foot-5, 160-pound Tusaazemajja besides the fact he’s fast, unselfish and wants to become a pharmacist.
Just examine his report card. He gets all A’s. He had an A in trigonometry, an A in chemistry and an A in AP World History.
“I’m expected to get A’s,” he said.
He’s the youngest of seven children who grew up in Uganda and comes from parents who stress education. A sister attends California and a brother is at Cal State Los Angeles. His mother works as a nurse and his father is a security worker.
When players at several private schools found out about his soccer and academic abilities, they tried to persuade him to switch schools.
But Tusaazemajja, 16, likes Fulton and his friends. He turned down the chance to join club soccer’s Academy program because it would have prevented him from playing high school soccer.
“With my club, I play year round,” he said. “I take high school as a break. I get to play with my friends.”
The toughest dilemma for people who first meet Tusaazemajja is figuring out how to pronounce his name.
“I’ve tried for three years and haven’t gotten it,” Potell said.
Teachers who call roll simply give up.
“They try to pronounce it, but at the end, they say, ‘Andrew T,’ ” he said.
It’s pronounced Tus-a-zay-MA-ja.
He scored more than 20 goals as a sophomore for Fulton, which made it to the City small schools semifinals. He has received recruiting interest from Stanford and Santa Clara but dreams of attending UCLA.
As for his days living in Africa, don’t ask him about seeing lions or gorillas. Going to the L.A. zoo would be as close as he’s come to exotic wild animals. He lived in Kampala, the capital with a population of 1.2 million.
He knew English but still had a hard time understanding people in California because of what he said was “their accent.”
He started playing soccer at lunch time at Fulton and was soon noticed. His skills speak loudly wherever he plays. And he thrives on being humble.
“I like passing the ball,” he said. “I like to get my teammates involved.”
In a city as diverse as Los Angeles, Tusaazemajja fits right in.
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