American Studies’ versatile Rojas Tineo headed for RIT

Joaquin Rojas Tineo can seemingly do it all.

A solid baseball player, a brilliant magician with the basketball, a blossoming chef in the kitchen, and a budding Steven Spielberg when he’s not doing all of the above, Rojas Tineo is a true renaissance man.

“I really like cooking,” said Rojas Tineo, who recently graduated from the High School of American Studies. “But I also like making documentaries. A while ago, I was in a program in Harlem and I wanted to make a documentary about basketball in New York. But my partner didn’t want to do that, so instead we did one on the sneaker culture in the city. There was a little bit of basketball in that because sneakers are so big in basketball. But I really enjoyed doing that.”

And while he may not be ready for his own Food Network show or earning an Oscar nod for best documentary just yet, Rojas Tineo is more than ready to follow up an excellent high school basketball career at American Studies with an even better one at the Rochester Institute of Technology. That upstate destination will be his collegiate stop later this month.

“I was sitting down with my guidance counselor one day last year looking at schools and she thought RIT would be a good fit for me,” Rojas Tineo said. “Then me and my dad visited it and I really liked the feel of the school. I also liked their business program, and that’s what I want to major in.”

The RIT basketball program is also in need of a talent boost as the Tigers went 5-20 last season. So it doesn’t hurt to bring in a player like Rojas Tineo, who averaged 20 points and 12.5 rebounds last season for the Senators.

“I went up there and met the guys and played a little bit with them, and they’re all good guys,” Rojas Tineo said. “They have a lot of guys who are shooters on the team, so they said it would be good to have a guy come in who can penetrate, and that’s what I do. They had a down season last year, but I was told they are usually a pretty good team.”

To prepare for his new college career, Rojas Tineo has been partaking in a highbrow basketball camp in Port Chester run by the father of a soon-to-be-famous hoopster.

“I’ve been playing AAU basketball with this team in Harlem called the Underdogs,” Rojas Tineo said. “But I’m also going to this basketball camp. Ty Jerome is a family friend who just got drafted (in the NBA Draft), and his father is a friend of my father. So he runs this camp every summer, and he invited me to it this year. So I’m doing that. It’s kind of like a training camp, and it helps you develop your skills more.”

Jerome, a former University of Virginia star, was a first-round pick of the Philadelphia 76ers last June.

So between preparing for his freshman year at RIT and playing at a prestigious summer hoops camp, does his days at American Studies seem like a lifetime ago?

“It really feels like it’s been a while since I was there,” Rojas Tineo said. “I’m already seeing my friends from school less and less.”

Rojas Tineo credits his two-sport career at American Studies with helping him both succeed at a challenging high school, and be prepared for the rigors of college.

“Basketball meant a lot to me,” he said. “Obviously I didn’t have as big a role in baseball as I had in basketball. But just to be part of a community like that — the American Studies community — was big for me. Sports was a real good outlet. Whenever we had a practice or a game, it took my mind off my next assignment or my next test.”

Rojas Tineo and his family are planning a short jaunt to the Dominican Republic later this month before he heads upstate to start school. And while there is some sadness at leaving his old school and friends behind, Rojas Tineo is excited about what his future holds.

“I’m looking forward to beginning a new chapter in my life,” he said.

And Rojas Tineo may even conjure his inner Spielberg again once he reaches RIT.

“I think that’s something I’d like to continue with,” he said of his documentary work. “I know RIT has a very big animation program, and that looked really cool to me. That really drew my attention. So I may be open to doing that as a minor.”