Soccer, baseball and student government: Carvalho does it all at Penn State Scranton

For the second straight year the PSUAC has partnered with a 400-level sports journalism class at University Park to offer feature stories from around the conference. This is the third in a series.

By MAX RALPH

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Raphael Carvalho is a man of many talents.

A junior at Penn State Scranton, Cravalho plays both soccer and baseball. He’s currently the public relations head of the university’s Student-Athlete Advisory Council and is running to be elected president. Meanwhile, he studies biology with hopes of going to medical school and becoming a pediatrician or general surgeon.

And that only scratches the surface of Carvalho’s story.

He’s a first-generation college student and the son of Brazilian immigrants to America, who had him at young ages and worked multiple jobs. He’s trilingual in Portuguese, English and Spanish and works a self-started side job where he paints custom designs onto shoes.

Does he ever get overwhelmed?

“Sometimes stress really does build up,” Carvalho said, giving a nod to his Roman Catholic faith. “It’s kind of one of those things where you have to slow life down a little bit.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to see that where you’re at is where you wanted to be this whole time, but you’re just so focused on what’s ahead of you,” he added.

During a regular week, Carvalho estimates he spends 17 hours in class, 10 hours doing homework, 10 hours practicing sports, five hours eating — often with family — and six hours of free time that often includes his custom shoe designing or golfing. He lives with his parents at home in Scranton and commutes to school.

Carvalho said he balances his pair of sports by defaulting to the one currently in season, sometimes missing practices due to conflicting game times. He scored one goal this season and was second on his team with 21 shots.

Carvalho played soccer and wrestled in high school but never played travel sports due to his parents’ heavy work schedules. He was originally offered to play soccer at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, but the coach who recruited him left by the time he was ready to enroll.

Scranton welcomed him to the team, where he’s now the captain as a winger/striker. Carvalho has scored three goals and added four assists in his career thus far.

Baseball, meanwhile, was something he played for the first time after going to college.

While doing a work study in Scranton’s athletic department, he would check in teams as they entered athletic facilities. He asked to play catch with the team one day, and the coach joked that he could find a spot for Carvalho as a pinch runner. The next day, he joined the team for batting practice and officially earned a spot on a collegiate roster for a sport he’d never played before.

Carvalho has been used as a utility player mostly but has worked on pitching this offseason. His pitch repertoire includes a four-seam fastball, a knuckle curve and a splitter.

“Going into a completely different game like baseball, I had to realize that my mental capacity had to be a lot bigger,” Carvalho said. “I had to overcome a lot of stuff.”

His side hustle, known as “carvalhocustoms” on Instagram, started when he was a high school sophomore watching Youtube videos, though he wasn’t very confident in his artistic ability at the time. Painting has grown to be one of his passions, as he said he’s also been working on a custom snowboard for himself.

Carvalho said he has worked on six pairs so far this year and 45 total for customers, mostly friends though some requests have come from other states he has been unable to ship to. He charges $50 dollars per pair but increases the price based on difficulty of design.

The number of things Carvalho keeps on his plate takes some discipline and significant time management skills to balance it all. He credits his work ethic to his parents, who also contribute to the athleticism required to play two sports in college, albeit at a small school.

His dad, Gustavo Carvalho, was a judo state champion in Brazil, while his mom, Robertha Carvalho, was a volleyball player.

“The difficulty of having to help your child with homework when it’s not your first language, or helping me out with school, applying for college, or taking me to practices and games and figuring out the culture is just so difficult,” Raphael said. “They had to go through so much to get me where I am today, and I couldn’t be here without them.”

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Max Ralph is a student in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism.