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WILKES-BARRE — The thought of her son not being with her for Mother’s Day brought tears to Rhonda Vieney’s eyes.
But at the same time, she wouldn’t want him to be anywhere else.
Her son, Shakir Soto, was on a 6 a.m. flight to Denver on Thursday morning, for the Broncos rookie minicamp.
“It’s emotional because he’s not going to be here,” Vieney said. “All I want is for all his dreams to come true — all his goals in life.”
When her son signed with the Broncos as a priority free agent shortly before the seventh round of the NFL Draft ended two weekends ago, Vieney called it one of the happiest days of her life.
She still remembers when Soto called her out to the back deck of her brother’s house, where his April 29 draft party was winding down, to break the news.
“When it was getting down to the end of the sixth round it was very emotional because I didn’t hear anything yet. I didn’t know what was going on,” Vieney recalled. “He told me, he said, ‘Mom, I’m going to Denver.’ It was very emotional. I just started crying. It’s very exciting because this is what he wanted to do all his life. Since he was probably about eight years old, he always said he wanted to play in the NFL.
“It was a very exciting day. No words can express about the way I felt that day.”
Life hasn’t always been easy for Vieney and Soto. But the April 29 celebration made all of the hard times worth it. Her son was in the NFL.
The GAR grad is one of four children, and Vieney was on her own, with no child support. It didn’t help that Soto was expelled three times in elementary school before he got on the straight and narrow in high school.
When he was expelled in first grade for behavioral issues and spent a year at an alternative school, Vieney said Soto was released two weeks before the end of the school year.
Even though he was in a different setting because of his actions, Soto continued to work hard in school. Vieney received word from the school’s principal that Soto had done enough to get passed to the second grade.
“He’s come a long way. A very a long way,” Vieney said. “When he started football, he would always cry that he didn’t want to get on the field. We had to pay him. But after a couple years, after he got used to it, I knew that he had a lot of potential in it and that he would make some kind of career in football.”
Though the eldest of four, it was just Soto and his mom for the first six years of his life and the two were inseparable.
But as his younger siblings came into the picture, Soto embraced a new role.
“I’m the oldest of my generation and I have to set the example for the other kids following behind me, and pretty much show them you can do that, too, if you work hard,” Soto said. “Setting the bar for them. A lot of them are doing really well. My brother (Jayson Scott is) going into the Marines, my younger cousins are all playing sports and they’re excelling in sports and working hard. I talk to them as much as I can, whenever they have questions.”
While Soto would cause trouble at school at a young age, Vieney said she never had a problem at home. And, she said, his grades never slipped either.
So when Soto earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh during his junior year, she couldn’t have been prouder. Vieney called it “one of the proudest moments in my life.”
Then when he graduated high school early, finishing in December, it was just icing on the cake.
“That was very special to know that he did have the academics and everything to do that. I never doubted it because he was very smart,” Vieney said. “I always told him you can do anything you want to do as long as you put your mind to it and have the heart, dedication and work toward it, and that’s what he did. I was very proud of him because I did want him to do that, because I knew that I couldn’t afford to send him myself.”
Soto said Vieney was one of the reasons why he worked so hard in school.
“She’s always been there for me,” Soto said. “We’re always there for each other. I keep nothing from her. She keeps nothing from me. When I was younger she always told me everything no matter what it was.”
Even though Pitt was a school Soto fell in love with from the beginning, he couldn’t have imagined being too far from his mother. This way she could come to all of his home games, barely missing a game during his four-year career.
“I know how much it would mean for her to be able to come out there and watch me play,” Soto said. “The decisions I can control, like (the distance), I think about my mom when I make those decisions.”
But Denver is much different than Pittsburgh. Soto won’t be back until late June when he gets some time off before training camp.
But neither are too worried. Soto is only a phone call or Facetime away.
“I’m always excited for new adventures,” Soto said. “She’s happy for me. Obviously it’s far, but it’s different. I’ll have money now to bring her out (here). It’s not like I’m collecting college checks to pay rent and stuff like that. It’s a different situation.
“Our lives took a whole turnaround. It’s like rags to riches.”
