American football with a Mexican flare finds its way to UNL

Eduardo Sicilia dreams of being the first.

“I’m a big legacy guy,” said Sicilia, the native of Cancun, Mexico, a soon-to-be University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate and winner of the Center for Entrepreneurship’s 37th annual New Venture Competition for his online football scouting program. “… I think that being a coach in the NFL would allow me to create that legacy.”

Perhaps his legacy might be, that in a home country that is obsessed with a different kind of fútbol, Sicilia chose a different path.

“I hated soccer,” he said. “I know it’s funny because I’m Mexican.”

American football — taught to him by his father — always seemed to resonate more. He liked its physicality and precision, its camaraderie and brotherhood. Its controlled chaotic nature.

“It’s chess on grass,” he says.

He played quarterback in high school and won a state championship in Mexico before playing the position as a foreign-exchange student in nearby Greenwood, Iowa.

But his playing career came to an end a year later in Mexico when he broke a leg in three places and tore ligaments in his ankle while playing a game his senior year at Instituto Césare.

The injury ended his chances of playing in college, but the game continued to pull on him. He found his next move — almost accidentally. 

He created and posted a football video on YouTube intended to be viewed just by his teammates. When a few thousand people viewed the clip, he knew there was demand for high school football content in Mexico.

He added more video — this time focusing on strategy, the Xs and Os of the game — and was soon approached by a longtime coach in Mexico who paid him to view some video and create a scouting report for an upcoming game.

The seeds to 2%Football had been planted.

Four years later, the application has 37 clients, most of them in Mexico, but also a handful in Nebraska and Iowa.

And as artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of what’s to come, Sicilia believes his client list could soon grow to as many as 200.

The ultimate goal for 2%Football is to become the scouting software for the game at all levels. 

“In my wildest dreams, every high school, every middle school, every community college in the world would use this program,” Sicilia said.

That kind of grandeur spoke resoundingly to a panel of judges last month when 2%Football walked away with top honors in the traditional bracket at UNL’s New Venture Competition, a business plan pitch event with $65,000 in funding and prizes.

A total of 48 teams representing nine colleges and 44 majors at the university competed in the bracket-style format.

Sicilia won a $15,000 cash prize. He and the other finalists will be considered for further investment of up to $25,000 from the Husker Venture Fund, a student-led fund in the College of Business.

“This was the one that has eluded me,” he said, acknowledging that he has won more than his share of venture capital awards in his time at UNL. “This one was the biggest one with the biggest prize money.”

Students used the Center for Entrepreneurship to prepare for the competition by consulting with center faculty and staff through workshops, one-on-one coaching or classes.

“The center is available to anyone, any time, for help with their startups,” said Amanda Metcalf, program and external relations manager, in a written statement. “… Students can come to any one of us and get feedback. There’s never been a time we can’t find the right help for a student or team.

“That support really shined through this year with the most prepared student teams to date,” she said.

Winning the New Venture Competition was the latest validation that choosing UNL was the right decision for Sicilia.

With friends of his family living in Lincoln, he was familiar with Nebraska, and an annual trip to Memorial Stadium each fall was always on the slate.

However, when it came time to choose a college, he decided to be deliberate. He considered Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ohio State. And then he got his first look at UNL’s business school and he was sold.

“I’d been to the stadium many times, but I had never seen the College of Business,” he said. “The building was beautiful.”

And then he heard the story of Hudl — the online service used by virtually every high school in America that provides the tools for coaches and athletes to review game footage and improve team play — and how it developed at UNL and still calls Lincoln its world headquarters.

“As a player you use Hudl your entire life,” he said. “I already knew I was in love with Nebraska, but all of that made it better.”

Matt Mueller, Hudl’s COO, takes a lot of pride in the number of sports-related sports technology companies — 2%Football and OpenDorse among them — that were originated in Lincoln in recent years.

“We’re excited to continue to see this environment grow to nurture and develop startups,” he said. “We can really lean into that. That’s great for Lincoln. A rising tide raises all ships.

“If we inspired Eduardo to come to Nebraska because we were here, we think that’s a huge compliment.”

And while 2%Football accomplished what Sicilia had hoped it would do by providing him a football avenue, there’s still nothing that compares to being on the field each day.

In the fall, he will be on the sideline as an assistant coach at Standing Bear High School, which will embark on its first season of varsity football.

It’s his way of touching grass — and maintaining the human element — that brotherhood— that is one of football’s biggest selling points.

“That’s why I can’t get away from it,” he said.