Francisco Moraga, national high jump champion: "I like to teach athletics, that is what brings me closest to pedagogy"

The athlete is a student of the first generation of Pedagogy in Physical Education and Health at the Catholic University. He was one of six UC students who excelled in the national competition held April 20-21.

Study a career that enhances your passion. This is the reality of Francisco Moraga (20), a second-year student at Pedagogy in Physical Education and Health UC, who placed first nationally in the high jump category at the 2021 National Adult Athletics Championships, as part of the athletics team of UC Sports, with a mark of 2 meters and 2 centimeters. After the triumph, the student tells us how he manages to connect his love for sports with the teaching profession.

“In third grade I began to realize that I liked teaching athletics, that is what brings me closer to pedagogy,” says Francisco about how his interest in being a teacher arose. And it is that since he was little he saw his mother run as part of the UC Sports Club. “She was an athlete in her time and she encouraged me a lot to get into sports. That's how I ended up following in her footsteps, ”she says.

The student has been practicing sports at a professional level for ten years, beginning in his school days at Colegio del Verbo Divino, and has already won in various versions of the Interscholastic Athletics and, in 2016, in the South American Under 18 Athletics tournament. Thanks to this, he has been able to enhance his studies in Pedagogy in physical education, he assures, since “there is a lot of knowledge that one knows from before. Later, when they pass them on in the classes and one already knows a lot”. “I have been able to train without time problems and study at the same time, I think I have managed to cope very well with both”, she adds.

Although today he feels confident in his decision to be a teacher, in 2019 he entered College UC to make sure it was the right decision: “I was looking between Kinesiology and Pedagogy in Physical Education – which was going to be released the following year -. During the second semester I took courses in kinesiology, physiology and nutrition, but I always had the bug of studying Physical Education, being a coach is something I've always wanted. In the end I gave the PSU again and it was enough for me for both degrees, but I decided to leave for what I liked the most: pedagogy”.

For Francisco, one of the things that stands out about the degree is its interdisciplinary approach, being taught between the faculties of Education, Medicine and Sports UC: “The race sees many things, not only sports, but also health, physiology. One must know all the scientific terms to know what we will teach the students”. "What motivates me is to make Chilean sport grow and to promote it more, especially athletics, which often takes a back seat to other sports," he says.

The National Adult Athletics Championship was held on April 20 and 21, with maximum capacity and following all the sanitary measures defined by the authorities. Five other UC students achieved first places in each of their disciplines: Antonia Crestani and Guillermo Corrrea, in the pole shot, Lucas Nervi, in the discus throw, and María Ignacia Montt, in the 100-meter dash.