URI senior offensive lineman Antal Keszthelyi has discovered that, in America, you can never stop working hard if you want to see your dreams come true.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

It was five years ago that I talked to Lajos Kesztyelyi about the dream he had for his son, Antal.

It was a dream that the boy would grow up in a country where the only limits to success are determined by a willingness to work.

So in 1987, Kesztyelyi and his wife took their 1-year-old son and left their homeland of Communist-controlled Hungary with just $500 and two small suitcases back to begin their pilgrimage to America.

“That’s all they would allow us to take,” Kesztyelyi said. “They searched everybody on the train. If you tried to take more than $500 they took you off the train. They even made us take off the baby’s diaper to make sure we weren’t trying to sneak out more money.”

Kesztyelyi didn’t know anybody in America, but he had heard it was the land of opportunity. It was a place where dreams could be more than just a vision in a man’s mind.

It wasn’t an easy pilgrimage. The family spent two years in an Austrian refugee camp waiting for a chance to reach America. When he left Hungary, Kesztyelyi’s father had given him a couple of gold bracelets that had belonged to Lajos’s grandmother. His father told him to sell them if he needed money. Because Lajos wasn’t allowed to work in the refugee camp, he not only had to sell the bracelets, but also his wedding ring.

Finally they flew into New York City in 1989 with $150, but nobody in the family knew how to speak English. A relief agency put them on a bus to Rhode Island, but the woman who was supposed to meet them in Providence didn’t show up. So, they began their American journey on their own.

“I had to go out and find work. You can imagine how many people wanted to hire somebody who couldn’t speak English,” Lajos Kesztyelyi told me that day.

Somehow he found work, but he quickly learned that the American dream doesn’t come gift-wrapped.

In Hungary, he had worked as a mechanic, but his Eastern European credentials didn’t matter in America. He had to start at the bottom of and work his way up, which was fine with him. He learned the language and learned new work skills, but it wasn’t easy financially.

“We moved seven times in the 14 years we have been here,” Antal told me that November day in 2003.

They had started their American dream living in a three-room flat in Providence that had a bedroom, but no beds. They slept on the floor. Sometimes things improved enough financially that they could move up to a bigger place, but then there would be financial setbacks and they would have to return to less-expensive living accommodations.

But Antal was a big boy for his age, and when he was about 7 years old, one of his father’s friends told him: “That kid’s going to be a football player some day.”

So the father became an American football fan. He didn’t know anything about the game, but he started watching it on Sundays with his son. When he was 9, Antal started playing Pee Wee football, although he needed to lose 28 pounds the first year to make the weight limit.

By the time we talked in 2003, he had grown to 6-foot-3 and 270 pounds, was a La Salle Academy senior and had become one of the best offensive linemen in Rhode Island high school football.

A few days before we talked, he had informed URI he would accept its football scholarship offer.

“He will be the first member of our family to go to college,” Lajos Keszthelyi proudly declared.

Football was going to pay for his son’s college education. A game the father didn’t know existed before he came to America was paving the way for his son’s American Dream.

“How’s your father?” I said to Antal as we stood outside the URI football locker room a few weeks ago.

“He’s good. He works at Electric Boat. He’s still working hard,” said Antal.

“Has he come to your games here at URI?”

“Of course. He brings my two younger brothers. I think he’s proud,” Antal said.

You have never seen Antal Keszthelyi’s name in headlines, and not even in the fine print. He has spent his collegiate career toiling in the trenches, like all offensive linemen, but he’s an American sports success story, even if he’s not headed for a big-time pro contract.

“It’s definitely been an experience,” Keszthelyi said of his five years at URI. “Coming out of high school, where you’re a big fish in a little pond, it takes a lot of hard work. My ultimate goal was to play, and I figured if I worked hard it would eventually come.”

And it did.

He was red-shirted in his first year in Kingston in 2004, but by the end of his first real season in 2005, he was seeing some varsity playing time. An injury cut short his sophomore season two years ago, but he was back playing again last year.

So it probably was only human nature that he figured he automatically would be a starter in his senior season this fall. But he learned you can’t take anything for granted in sports — or life.

“A couple of freshmen came in and took my job,” said Kesthelyi.

“During the summer, I just didn’t work out like I was supposed to. That’s a good parallel to life. I wasn’t doing the things I was supposed to do over the summer and it showed. I just got lost, so to speak. It’s definitely a life’s lesson.”

He could have just figured that was it. That new coach Darren Rizzi was planning for the future and didn’t have time to waste on a senior who didn’t come ready to play.

But then he remembered his father’s credo

“My dad still says it. Hard work always pays off. It might not pay off right away. It might not pay off in two weeks, but it always pays off sooner or later”.

So he began working to regain his starting berth. By middle of the season he was back as a regular on the Rams’ offensive line.

“Any tough times I’ve had, whether it’s been with football or school, I always thought to myself: ‘If you work hard, it will pay off.’ You definitely can get discouraged, but you just have to keep your head up.”

Now his life is coming to another juncture. URI played its final home game of the season yesterday against Maine. Next week, Keszthelyi ends his college career when URI travels to Northeastern. There’s a good chance next week’s game also will mark the end of Kesthelyi’s formal football career.

“I love football, so if I can keep playing that would be great,” he said. “Maybe I’ll go to a combine. I’ve got nothing to lose, but I’m not counting on it. I will graduate in May with my degree in animal science. There are a lot of different fields I can go into with it.”

What about the American dream that the father had for his son?

“It’s going to keep going,” said Antal. “It’s just like one of the games. It’s not easy. You just have to keep working harder and harder.”

Sounds like a good game plan.

jgillool@projo.com