Serra High’s football star turned space pioneer
How Serra High’s football star turned space pioneer faced the test of his life
Travis Leonard can do the math. Even without a slide rule from his AP calculus class.
He graduated this spring from Gardena’s Junípero Serra High with a 4.7 GPA, but perhaps the top headline of Leonard’s impressive résumé is his two-year participation in a pioneering International Space Station Program (ISSP) at the Catholic school. That’s resulted in an academic scholarship at the University of Southern California’s elite Viterbi School of Engineering.
On the other side of the equation, the 6-foot-2, 280-pounder anchored the offensive line on a Cavaliers’ Mission League football team that went to the semifinals of the CIF-Southern Section Division 2 playoffs last fall. Leonard’s highlight reel impressed the USC Trojans’ coaching staff enough to invite him to be a preferred walk-on freshman for the nationally ranked football team, which starts practices this August.