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    'I didn't want to be a bad person.' Soccer gave Cal State L.A. star a second chance.

    LOS ANGELES — Bryan Ortega isn't sure how his slide started, but he knew how it was going to end. After being kicked out of high school, jailed for robbery and winding up homeless in the middle of a pandemic, Ortega had fallen about as far as he could fall. The next step down probably would be fatal. "I was going through a dark time," he says. "I didn't want this for my life. I didn't want to ...
    by Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times Nov 17, 2023 5 minutes
    Bryan Ortega, standout soccer player on the Cal State L.A. men's soccer team, practices his "bicycle kick" at the Jesse Owens Stadium on campus Nov. 14, 2023, in Los Angeles, California.

    LOS ANGELES — Bryan Ortega isn't sure how his slide started, but he knew how it was going to end.

    After being kicked out of high school, jailed for robbery and winding up homeless in the middle of a pandemic, Ortega had fallen about as far as he could fall. The next step down probably would be fatal.

    "I was going through a dark time," he says. "I didn't want this for my life. I didn't want to be the kid ... in jail. I didn't want people to see me as a bad person."

    So a year and a half ago he played the only card left in his deck and asked Michael Erush, the first-year soccer coach at Cal State Los Angeles, to give him another chance. Two seasons later, Ortega not only has become an all-conference

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