ORLANDO, Fla. – “I want to let everybody know I’ve learned from it, and it won’t happen again.”
So spoke Cyle Larin amid a lengthy first press conference since his return to the Orlando City SC team after his DUI arrest and league-mandated absence to undergo an assessment as part of the MLS Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health program last month.
The big striker cut a contrite, but also quite bullish, figure as he fielded questions unflinchingly in front of the team’s training HQ on Tuesday morning following a similar grilling on local TV the previous evening.
Larin returned to the team for last Friday’s 1-0 win at Real Salt Lake after missing the three previous games while fulfilling the terms of the SABH policy in South Carolina. But this week marked his first media availability since the unfortunate events in the early hours of the morning of June 15.
“It is a life lesson,” he said. “You learn from it and you move on. [The lesson is] just not to make bad decisions when you are in [certain] situations and not to throw away everything that you’ve worked for your whole life.
“I am happy to be back with the team and I think the team is happy to have me back. There has been a lot of support from both coaches and players. The win last week was very important. I know before that it was a tough stretch, but now everyone’s happy that we got a win and now we move on [to the next game]."
Orlando and Larin next host Toronto FC on Wednesday night in Week 19 action (7:30 pm ET on TSN in Canada, MLS LIVE in US).
The Lions' leading scorer cannot talk about specifics of the incident, as it is an ongoing legal case, but he still acknowledges he let down the team, and its fans, by appearing on the local news in handcuffs at 5 am via the police dash cam video.
“It’s a hard situation to be in. I’ve never been in a situation like that,” he admitted. “I went away for a bit and I got to spend time with myself. It made me realize what’s important in my life. You learn from it and you move on. Obviously I apologized to the team, but anything else I said to them I keep between me and them.
“There was a lot of support from friends and family as well as the organization. I did something that I don’t usually do and I learned from it, so that’s the only thing I can take from that, and just not to do it again.”
The 22-year-old Larin, who has been a popular figure among the fans and the city in general, also asked that he not be judged on one incident.
“I would say that you live and you learn,” he added. “If you have something you love to do, don’t do something that will jeopardize that, but one mistake doesn’t define you or your career. It cost the team and it cost me. There were a couple of games when I wasn’t there and I knew I could have helped them, but now I’m back and I’m good to contribute [to the team] again.
“Obviously I learned from it and aim to go back on the field and do my job better than I did before, help this organization do something special. I need to slowly gain back the trust of the fans and the people that I let down. I know it will take time, and I have to take care of myself, both on and off the field.”
