Thread: A peek into future of Texas and NFL Football

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/12931832.htm

A peek into future of Texas

By Bud Kennedy

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


José Cortez is your newest Dallas Cowboys hero.

He won the game Sunday the same way he came across the U.S. border: by foot.

When Cortez kicked the Cowboys into first place Sunday with a 45-yard overtime field goal, you could almost hear the shouts go up all the way from Texas to his native El Salvador.

A crowd of 62,278 fans cheered.

But when he came running across the border in 1990 as a 15-year-old fleeing a bloody civil war in his homeland, nobody was watching.

That's right.

Your newest Dallas Cowboys hero first came to the United States across the California border without immigration papers.

When he sprinted from Tijuana across busy Interstate 5 into San Diego, he led his mother and sister along. Together, they had traveled for two weeks through Guatemala and Mexico, praying for safety and success in a new home far from the bloodshed and car bombings of a war that killed 75,000.

He is now here legally.

He has told the story shyly in newspaper and magazine interviews throughout his football career, which has included stops in San Francisco, Minnesota and New York. I won't retell too much here, because I hope he'll tell it soon in our pages.

Just say he has recalled hearing gunfire at night and waking up to find dead bodies along the street, and walking to school and feeling the percussion of a nearby car bomb.

No wonder he can coolly kick a game-winning field goal.

Cortez's kick was also a lift for the 85,000 immigrants from El Salvador living in this part of Texas. Lately, they have been grieving the death and destruction of Hurricane Stan's floods, forgotten here as the United States copes with our own recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The president of a local Salvadoran community organization says he hopes that someday we will know something about El Salvador beyond the good food at Salva-Tex-Mex restaurants.

"We're extremely happy, because Cortez represents the typical Salvadoran," said Nick Argueta of Richardson, an electrical engineer and president of the American Salvadoran Association.

Cortez is only 15 years removed from a farm. He grew up playing soccer amid jocote fruit trees. Even in the United States, he has worked roofing jobs between pro-football gigs.

"He came here like most of us -- because of the war," Argueta said.

"Now he's a symbol. Due to his hard work and discipline, he symbolizes how you can find success here in America if you focus on your goals.

"We are very happy. And we're also happy because the Cowboys won, and we're Cowboys fans."

When Cortez's winning field goal cleared the goalpost, play-by-play announcer Victor Villalba shouted over the team's Spanish-language network, "And José Cortez tells everyone that he is the kicker for the Dallas Cowboys!"

Villalba said he hasn't asked Cortez about past ordeals.

"But it doesn't surprise me," Villalba said. "He is a fighter. He had his work cut out for him making this team. It's been that way everywhere he's played."

Cortez has said in interviews that he started playing football because his high school team in Van Nuys, Calif., needed a kicker. He had played goalkeeper for the high school soccer team after he and his family moved to Van Nuys to join his father, a hotel cook.

In one of his first newspaper interviews after he landed a college scholarship kicking for Oregon State, he said that in the beginning, he "didn't know anything about football except that you played in front of a lot more people."

He arrived in California not knowing a word of English.

In other words, he was like thousands of schoolchildren today in Texas.

As an immigrant who went to college and on to stardom, Cortez symbolizes the Texas of the future, said Steve Murdoch of the University of Texas at San Antonio, the official state demographer and an expert on the state's changing population.

"If he were from Mexico, he would be the perfect example," Murdoch said. "Here is somebody who came to the U.S., found work in Texas and found success, the same way immigrants from Germany and Ireland did a century ago. You can see how much influence immigrants can have."

Manny Bazan hosts the radio post-game call-in show for Spanish-speaking fans on the Cowboys' local affiliate, KFLC/1270 AM, part of a network that extends across Mexico.

"The fans are very proud of Cortez," he said. "They want Bill Parcells" -- the coach -- "to give him a chance. They love the Cowboys, and they're very proud to have a Hispanic player."

Not everybody understands that Cortez is from Central America, not Mexico. When his kick won the game, the Cowboys' English-language announcer, Brad Sham, shouted jokingly, "Happy Cinco de Mayo!"

Villalba laughed at his counterpart.

"That's OK," he said. "I guess it is like Cinco de Mayo. It's a celebration for the entire Hispanic community."

It's also a reminder that some of our future Texas leaders might be arriving right now on foot.

I see that Bud Kennedy is a man who is useful a useful idiot. If only 75,000 peope died and the war has been over for 12 years there is little reason why so many should have come here or to still be here other than economic advantage and our lax enforcment. There are 85,000 El Salvadoreans living in Texas alone. War has been used as an excuse for TPS Temprary Protected Status that seems to just run on for ever.

Football despite its statistics is a superficial activity. The sports athletes make eight figure salaries. How much of that money has Jose Cortez put into economic development creating jobs in El Salvador how much assistance has he given to bring more El Salvadoreans here. The first factor is a positive the second a negative how does Cortez stand?