Bigger Than Life Itself 

            Roman Montano had it all; he was a three sport standout athlete at Eldorado High School, and was loved by everyone because he did not put himself first.  

            Montano was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He attended John Baker Elementary School, Hoover Middle School and then went on to Eldorado High School.  Montano was a huge division one football prospect with his 6 foot 7 inch frame weighing close to 300 pounds of solid muscle.  He had it all. On the football field he was dominate, on the court he was over powering, and on the pitcher’s mound opponents feared him. 

            When he was a junior, the head football coach of the University of New Mexico was ready to offer him a scholarship. Montano was also a star baseball player and he was getting looked at to play professional right after high school as a right handed power pitcher. 

            "He had some opportunities to be looked at by professional scouts, the Atlanta Braves in particular," EHS Athletic Director Michael Houston said. "They were probably looking at drafting him somewhere in the early rounds, mid rounds. That's the kind of potential he had," wrote Nancy Lufkin on KRQE.com. 

            Despite all of the potential surrounding Montano, he had his friends that were involved in athletics, and his friends that weren’t.   Montano began to go down the wrong path. 

            “I knew Roman since 6^th grade, and he was good and clean until about his sophomore year and that is when he began to go downhill,” said Gabe Ortiz a close friend and teammate of Montano’s growing up.  “It has been about 8 months since he passed and not a day goes by where I don’t think of my friend that I lost to this horrible drug.” 

            After graduating from Eldorado in 2008, Montano was not heading in the direction that he should have been.  He gave up on his athletics and started hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Montano started doing different types of drugs with the worst being heroin, which would eventually take his life. 

            On May 2^nd, around two in the morning news started spreading that Roman Montano had passed.  After being clean for a year from the atrocious drug heroin, he had a relapse.  Montano received a “bad batch” of heroin that acted like poison to the body. This made his blood clot, and killed him almost instantly. 

Two employees from the Kinko’s off of Central Ave. called the police because of a suspicious car that had been running for almost two hours behind their store in a back alley.   When police arrived on the scene they could not see inside the windows of Montano's car because of his dark window tint. This forced officers to have to bash out the window as the door was locked. Inside they found Montano’s body with a needle still in his veins and pronounced him dead on the scene. 

            The heroin epidemic has become a huge problem in the Albuquerque metropolitan area.  The Heroin Awareness Committee (HAC) is doing everything in their power to raise awareness of the dangers involving this drug, and to end this horrible drug once and for all.  On their official online page it states, “We are dedicated to putting an end to the Heroin and Opiate epidemic that is plaguing New Mexico.” 

As you can see Montano was seen as almost invincible because of his size, attitude, and ability. But this just goes to show that heroin can instantly change your life and everyone’s lives around you. If it can happen to Roman Montano it can happen to anybody.

(This is a song that Roman's younger brother wrote after he passed.  This is what inspired me to get deeper into this story.)