User:Andrewstallings88/sandbox

DJ Diveny (Born on September 3, 1991) is a professional freestyle soccer player and social media personality. He has the current largest soccer instagram account in the United States by an individual not including professional soccer players.

DJ has appeared on NBC Sports, Fox Sports, Univision, MSG, Good Day New York, CBS, Fubo Sports, ESPN and various other regional, national, and global networks. DJ currently resides in Seattle, Washington, but spends much of her time in New Jersey and New York throughout the year. In addition to going viral on social media, he travels all over the world to perform and inspire people with amazing skills and his story

Early Life
Diveny was born in Summit, New Jersey to Dan and Louise Diveny.

DJ grew up in the small town of Washington, New Jersey as an only child. He attended Warren Hills Regional School District where he excelled in both the classroom and the field, courts, and track. He developed a wide range of interest from design and architecture to science and technology, while growing into an elite athlete that earned 10 varsity letters across 3 sports in high school.

By age 11 soccer became a resource, a passion, and an obsession. DJ began juggling while trying to break his own record each day. By age 12, he juggled a 5lb medicine ball 526 times. From there, DJ began learning tricks to increase the difficulty of his own challenges. During this time, he set out a goal to become a varsity high school player as a freshman. A feat rarely achieved. After a few years of training, it was the summer going into freshman year. DJ’s father took him to the weight room and field every single morning to train and was the game changing support that not only led to DJ playing every varsity match that year, but instilled the idea of achievement through hard work.

These lessons translated to leadership and DJ became team captain for both the soccer and track teams in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010.

Awards and Honors

 * 2009 Warren County PoY, first team all-conference, Second Team all-area, third team all-state
 * 2010 MVP Boy's Soccer / Track and Field
 * 2010 Scholar Athlete of the Year WHRHS

Higher Education
This theme continued, as DJ failed to make the roster for New Jersey Institute of Technology men’s soccer in 2010. He had not been recruited and attempted to walk-on; again, a feat rarely accomplished at that level. Reimplementing the same determination to make varsity, DJ trained on his own the rest of the year and requested another tryout from the coach. No response was given. DJ took his request a step further and submitted an athletic resume to the coaches office. Still no response. So, he went to the athletic director and demanded there be another walk-on tryout date. Finally, he got his request and NJIT held a 45 minute 11v11 game for players looking to walk-on during finals week. DJ played and showed well as the coaches glanced at the field periodically from the bleachers while chatting. DJ had heard nothing for a few days and assumed he had not impressed the coach enough. A few days later to relieve some stress before a final, DJ did as he always would: went to the field to juggle a ball. While keeping the ball up and doing some freestyle in casual clothes, the coach had been jogging on the opposite side of the track. DJ didn’t realize this, but after a few minutes the coach made his way over and ultimately invited DJ to preseason for August 2011.

By Spring 2014, DJ was named a team captain. During this time, DJ went out to the field to juggle a ball again, this time approaching another athlete. He introduced himself to the player who was in fact on the New York Red Bulls Street Team. Within an hour DJ was invited by the player to tryout at a match. DJ joined the Street Team that summer and began his professional career as a freestyler, performing dazzling skills at events and parties on behalf of the club. By 2016, DJ started his own company, DJ Diveny Soccer LLC. where he continues to work with amazing people from all over the world through the ball.

DJ uses this story to reassure himself and others that hard work and passion can lead to success. Believing in yourself with persistence helps create luck that can be life changing.

Awards and Honors

 * 2011 Walked on to NJIT Division 1 Men's Soccer
 * 2013 All-Academic All Conference NJIT Men's Soccer
 * 2014 NJIT Men's Soccer Captain
 * 2014 Magna Cum Laude BSc Applied Astrophysics

Accomplishments

 * 2014 Focus Mission Trip to St. Lucia speaking with underprivileged youth through sports
 * 2015-2019 Coached over 2000 players ages 5-22 through group training, teams, camps, and private lessons
 * 2016 Performed at Copa America Centenario Reveal Show on Univision
 * 2016 Performed in Macy's Alfani commercial
 * 2016 Performed for Audi at International friendly - Bayern Munich vs Chivas
 * 2017 Performed in Red Bull commercial
 * 2017 Performed in Yanmar commercial
 * 2017 Raised $5700 for Southern New Hampshire University's Soccer for Success fundraiser by doing 5700 juggles & got them to their $20,000 goal
 * 2017 Performed with Hublot for Juventus partnership
 * 2017 Filmed the Great American Total Solar Eclipse
 * 2017 Performed for US Soccer vs Costa Rica
 * 2017 Broke the Internet / Daily Motion / Bleacher Report / Sport Bible / Original
 * 2018 Performed for Qatar Airways - multiple cities (2022 world cup promotions)
 * 2018 Performed for La Liga - el clasico viewing party
 * 2018 Performed for Budweiser for World Cup final viewing party
 * 2018 Neymar Jr's Five World Finals - Santos Brazil - Creator
 * 2018 Oh My Goal - Freestyle Ultimate Battle Season 3 Champion
 * 2018 Published Global Young Leaders Initiative
 * 2018-2019 Performed with Nike for NBC Sports Premier League Mornings
 * 2019 Performed for Volkswagen at Detroit Autoshow for US Soccer partnership
 * 2019 Freestyle Tour in Thailand
 * 2019 Published in Train Magazine
 * 2019 Performed with International Championship Cup
 * 2019 Goal Studio Trickshot World Champion
 * 2019 EASports Volta Football Top Scorer - London FIFA20 World Launch Event
 * 2020 to date - over 200 million views on social media channels
 * 2020 1 million followers on Instagram