Balaam Brothers Feeling At Home With Redhawks
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Rodrigo Torrellio wanted to mention his junior college teammates to Roberts Wesleyan University men’s soccer coach Scott Reber shortly after he arrived on campus last January, but he knew that he couldn’t.
“I needed to prove that I was a good player first,” Torrellio says, “so he knew that I was a trusted source.”
Torrellio let his game speak for the first couple of weeks and then approached his coach to chat about Toby and Noah Balaam.
Reber liked what he heard and before long the midfielder from Bolivia was helping two brothers from the Big Island of Hawaii find their way to Rochester.
“Rodrigo reached out and started the conversation,” says Reber, who has players from 10 countries and three states on his roster this season. “I think that he was kind of blown away by the culture and how well he fit in here.
“A lot of times when guys come in and have a good experience, they talk to their friends, and they talk to their former teammates about having a positive experience. You need to check a lot of boxes to get a positive review on Yelp, so to speak, but when you do it really helps the program grow.”
Reber encouraged Torrellio to reach out to the Balaams, who he played with at Southwestern Oregon Community College, and have them take a closer look at Roberts.
“I contacted Noah first and he committed,” Torrellio says. “By the end of the spring season we got Toby to commit, too.”
The Balaams, who live about 25 minutes from the ocean in Kamuela, got their first glimpse of the Roberts campus when they reported for preseason in August.
“I couldn’t be happier with my choice of coming here,” says Noah, who is 18 months younger than Toby. “It’s a lot different than I expected. Coming to New York, I thought that I would see a bunch of cities and then I came off the plane in Rochester and I saw a lot of trees. Then I came to campus and it was just beautiful.”
Reunited with Rodrigo
The Balaams live in a suite with Torrellio and teammate Luis Cataldi Milan. The share a room, just like they did for the first 10 years of their lives.
“It’s good,” Noah says. “I wouldn’t want to live with anyone else.”
“I love the team,” Toby says. “I just think that there is a good culture here and it’s good to be a part of.
“I like that it is a smaller school. I really love all of my professors and that I get to know them on more of a personal level which I wouldn’t really get at a bigger school.”
Torrellio is happy, too.
“It’s great. We are best friends and brothers,” Torrellio said. “We were expecting high-level soccer and a place where we could develop as students and that is what we have found.”
The Balaams are also finding their place on the field. Toby has played in 11 games, scoring two goals and registering one assist. Noah, who has been sidelined recently with an injury, has appeared in nine games.
“They are grinders,” Reber said. “They are just hard-working guys who are full of grit and hustle. They are not looking to do that highlight-reel stuff, they are going to do what it takes to help the team be successful.”
Getting their kicks
While their friends back home are more into surfing and playing football, the Balaams have always played soccer.
More times than not it has been together as Noah “played up” on many of Toby’s teams. They were teammates for two seasons in high school at Hawaii Prepatory Academy prior to Toby’s graduation in 2019. Toby took a gap year to travel to Korea in and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, so the brothers entered junior college together in 2021.
“I guess I take it for granted, but it really is kind of crazy,” Noah says. “My brother and I have been playing together since we were kids, we played in community college and now we are playing here together.”
Speed is the name of the game for both of them.
“Fast, he’s really fast,” Noah says. “I am not as fast as him, so I have to be more technical.”
Toby agrees.
“We are very similar,” he says, “but I would say that he is more technical and that I am more physical. Noah has always been playing with older kids, so he developed more technical skills.”
While he is a physical player, Toby says the mental aspect of soccer is the most challenging.
“I just think that it’s the best sport,” Toby says. “It is a physically challenging sport, but that is not even the hardest part of it. The mental side is way more difficult. You cannot really appreciate the full value of what you are seeing unless you have played the game.”
In addition to the small class sizes, Noah, a computer science major, and Toby, a philosophy major, enjoy the spiritual aspect of Roberts.
“I think that being here has connected me to God in a really crazy way,” Noah says. “I feel like I see him in everything now.”
“I think that COVID was a blessing for me because it reconnected me with soccer and ultimately with God,” Toby says.