On the first day of high school, the goal of most freshmen is to just survive the day, especially when that day includes a class taught by the most demanding teacher on campus.

Other kids had warned Diego Chavez that his freshman English teacher at Santa Cruz Valley High in Eloy, Ms. Sommer Meza, was strict and borderline mean.

“The worst,” they told him.

But Chavez was no ordinary freshman. To him, they were describing the perfect teacher, so he made a point of introducing himself to Meza on the first day in her class.

I want to excel academically, he told her. I want to be valedictorian. I want to earn scholarships. I want to win four individual titles in wrestling. Can you help me with the academic part of all that?

Meza hadn’t met Chavez but knew of him and wasn’t surprised he sought her out. Another student, Brittany Duran, had done something similar a few years earlier, and she became the first Santa Cruz Valley student to win the prestigious Flinn Scholarship, which covers the cost of four years of study at one of Arizona’s three state universities.

Orante Jenkins, Santa Cruz’s principal at the time, gave Meza a heads up that an impressive kid named Chavez was in the freshman class.

“I think this is going to be our second Flinn scholar,” he told her. 

"He was on our radar," she said.

And there Chavez was on day one, standing in front of her with a list of things he wanted to accomplish.

"His first goals were academic,” she said. “Being a student-athlete was always about being the best student first.”

All those goals? Over the next four years, Chavez put bold checkmarks next to each.

He was valedictorian and continued a streak of having never made less than an A in any class.

He won four wrestling titles at four different weights and helped the Dust Devils win two team championships.

And he just started his freshman year at ASU, where he is a wrestler on full scholarship. Only it’s not a wrestling scholarship. Chavez won a Flinn Scholarship, awarded by the Flinn Foundation, headquartered in Phoenix, in partnership with Arizona’s three state universities.

It’s among the most prestigious scholarships in the state and highly competitive. It’s the kind of scholarship that when potential applicants read or hear about the accomplishments of past winners, they think they are long shots. 

Chavez thought that, too, even with a 4.0 GPA, four wrestling titles and several leadership positions on his resume.

The Flinn Foundation selects 20 or so students annually for the scholarship, which covers tuition, fees, housing, meals, a two-week international seminar the summer after a student's freshman year and another study abroad experience later in their college careers.

The total value of the scholarship is around $130,000.

There are nearly 700 current and former Flinn Scholars. Chavez will be only the seventh to compete in sports at the college level and the first one to do so at ASU, according to the foundation.

A few weeks ago, Chavez attended a retreat with other Flinn Scholars, and one of them asked him what he did to relax, to relieve stress.

“I was like, ‘I just wrestle.' That's, that's my place to get away from everything, to have fun, to struggle. I feel like that's just the best way to really test your limits. And what I do on the wrestling mat, it helps me so much in the classroom and what I do in the classroom, I feel like it translates over to the wrestling mat as well. They go hand in hand.”

They have been hand-in-hand for most of Chavez’s life. His dad, Sergio, liked wrestling, and his older brother, Sergio III, took up the sport at an early age. Chavez’s father would take all three boys to tournaments, splitting his time between watching his two oldest boys compete on separate mats and trying to remember to change the diaper of his youngest son, Xavier.

Chavez’s mother, Carmen, was involved, too, often attending matches and always emphasizing academics.

Their house, which sits on two acres just outside of Eloy, became part training facility, part transportation center and part summer camp. When the pandemic hit, the Chavez males spent part of 10 months building a 1,500-square-foot wrestling facility next to the house.

In the years prior to that, their dad would invite a training partner for each son to stay with them for a weekend, a week or even the entire summer. There wasn’t much to do other than lift weights, travel to wrestling practices and play video games. And read. Carmen required at least one hour of that every day.

 “Pretty much when kids came to our house, they were stuck out there,” Sergio said.

Fields of dreams: How farming and football helped Eloy harvest NFL talent

From an early age, “Diego was was very, very competitive at everything he did,” his father said. “Not only did he want to be the best wrestler in a tournament, but he also wanted to be the best student and get the best grades.”

After Santa Cruz won the two team titles, several wrestlers transferred to other schools, seeking better opportunities. Chavez, born and raised in Eloy, stayed. He wanted to show younger wrestlers, including Xavier, who is entering the eighth grade, that Santa Cruz Valley High offered them everything they needed.

It’s an example of leadership that likely impressed the people that selected the Flinn scholars.

“It sucked not to win (more team titles),” Chavez said. “But to build the friendships and show those younger kids that it's not always about winning, but also building the relationships and enjoying the sport, that’s what it’s all about.”

Sun Devils Athletics: ASU's new sports facility to be named Mullett Arena

Chavez enters ASU with a much different mindset than he did in high school. There is no long list of goals he wants to accomplish. He’s likely to redshirt this year for coach Zeke Jones, so his role on the team will remain undefined for the near future.

Academically, Chavez intentionally has not mapped out his future. He's enrolled in Barrett, ASU's honor college, and for now, his major is business entrepreneurship. But that is subject to change, as is Chavez, 19. In fact, he's counting on it.

“I just want to be as open as possible,” he said. “And I know along the way I'm going to build some new goals and interests. My biggest thing is just meeting new people, making those connections and figuring out who I am as a person and what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”

Reach Kent Somers at Kent.Somers@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @kentsomers. Hear Somers every Monday at 7:30 a.m. on The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.