Today, in his 40s, Cardenas lives in Chesapeake with his wife, Melody. The state championship aside, McFarland, USA suggests my teammates became winners in life. Le explica a White que comenz trabajar en los campos a los 10 aos. Jose Cardenas became a writer for The Los Angeles Times and is currently serving his country in the U.S. army. Gang problems, as depicted in the film, were a real issue in McFarland. And Rita Peebles, a cook in the cafeteria, slipped five bucks into my pocket before every away meet so I wouldnt go hungry when the bus stopped at McDonalds. The mother of the three Diaz boys really did forbid them to run cross-country at one point. But Cardenas isn't that worried about the enduring connection to one of his most regrettable moments. He had been in a bad way since his oldest son was killed in a gang shooting. The odds seem stacked against Jim, who is just as inexperienced at coaching cross-country as the boys are at running it. He has a wife and a daughter. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content Top Gap View the profiles of people named Jose Cardenas. . Jim is so distraught by this incident that he begins to seriously consider leaving McFarland and accept the job offer at the wealthy school. 5, was not in the picture. You all did. Maria Marisol: [reading Jose Cardenas's paper] We fly like blackbirds through the orange groves, floating on a warm wind. By the way, these are me and my kids two sonsfrom the burbs and a foster daughter from Guatemala the ones you are helping me to teach that anything is possible if they work hard enough. Below are 10 McFarland Fun Facts that will inspire and give you a wonderful background about the movie. Visit MrsKathyKing's profile on Pinterest. I ran track in the spring of my freshman and sophomore years but played football in the fall. If I had run as well as I did the previous week on the same course when we won the regional championship, the state race would not have been a nail-biter. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Cardenas and his wife, Melody who has family in Rowan County attended the movies premiere, and got to meet the actor who portrayed him, as well as Costner. Costner gives Whites lessons learned late genuine weight. Not immigrant no more. And that hurts me because I cant do that.". Danny Diaz. After a difficult first half, a disrespectful player talks back to White in the locker room during the coachs half-time talk. He does a great job. Thomas Valles . A few notches down from what the Whites are accustomed to, but the troublemaking Coach White, or at least hes perceived to be a troublemaker, has no other options left. Change). Then you spent afternoons running miles upon miles upon miles. The movie is also going global. Please use Latlong.net at your own risk. He was never sent into combat, but after his two years were up, he joined the Army Reserves and then the National Guard for a total of seven years of military service. I took it for granted that I would go. Niki Caro Writing Credits . You have permission to edit this article. The incident costs White his job, and, with no other employment choices, he moves out of town with his wife Cheryl (Maria Bello) and two daughters, Julie (Morgan Saylor) and Jamie (Elsie Fisher). Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), First Minority Business Trade Show helps spread word for entrepreneurs, Salisbury City Council to discuss new fire station on Mahaley Avenue at Tuesdays meeting, License plate reader cameras assist area law enforcement. Other questions:subscriberservices@theadvocate.com. "We were competitive, but the world of cross-country running is such an insular, quiet community that the runners were more friendly.". One of these leaders was. I came across this letter of yours, and I must say I am touched and inspired by your words. He Served in the U.S. Military, But That Didn't Stop His Deportation. Mr. Cardenas, chin up! It was a real eye-opener for our kids, because the kids in the movie picked in the fields before and after school.. Victor Puentes: Michael Aguero . White loses his cool and throws a cleat at a locker. You are a father. Running 8-12 miles a day, and going to school, AND working in the fields as much as time allowed. "It worries me because you never know whats going to happen, and you cant do nothing here," he says. Sports can be a great teacher, in the losses as much as the wins. He had always wanted to be in law enforcement eventually pursued that career, starting in the 1990s. He also occasionally travels as a motivational speaker and in the course of doing these promotional appearances, he has seen the movie eight times. Those were my parents. Marsh praises local businesses for their support. We are portrayed as the underdogs, but thats not necessarily the way you see yourself as a child.. Great reminder that we can revisit the things that inspire us. First:; I want to say that I loved the poem Jose wrote. After graduating high school in 1990, Johnny went to College of the Sequoias and competed as a runner from 1990-1992. Jim buys Julie a nice dress and has a wonderful time with Julie at the party, even dancing with his daughter who is overwhelmed with joy. We all know different moments of defeat and victory. Give others a chance to shine. We were state champs, and we did come from a poor farming town. 2. Eventually, his love for the water led to the Army. Pretty much our whole team is going to be there, she says. The country code given is in the ISO2 format. Yours sincerely, Bettina, Johnny, Alexis and Natalia from Paraguay. White wonders if he made a mistake. He made his way to Playas de Tijuana, where he's been living alone, along with many other deported U.S. veterans. "All you can do is just hope that everything goes okay and thats it.. You will guide her throughheartbreak or disappointment byscrolling through your youth,looking for a moment that fills yourreservoir of empathy. Also the challenges they all face in life, not to mention cross-country races against better-supported and -trained teams throughout California. A caption says what became of me, a sort of champ in my own life too, I guess. A versatile and innovative financial manager with 30 years of management and leadership experience seeking to utilize skills in adult education and fiduciary oversight of multi-billion dollar . June 7, 2016. JamesEdition can help you find the home that match all the preferences for your dream home. Nearly three decades later, Jose Cardenas is still bothered by that one race. I hope to write a book one these days. Corrections? "He thinks hes out there still, so someone needs to be there to kind of calm him down and stuff. So Ill stop there, but I will say this, because of my parents always pushing me I have an AMAZING life!! You moved on, kept running, went to college and graduated, creating opportunities that didnt exist before. Perhaps that is why stories like Mr. Cardenas and his teammates resonates so strongly, as reminders that what may seem impossible isnt. His group painted a section of the border fence in Tijuana red, white and blue with the names of deported veterans. David has a Facebook page, but there hasnt been any updates posted since 2014. Jim White represents the very best of the best, a quiet, graceful man who somehow let these kids know what was possible, he says. In reality, White had been coaching the cross country team for seven years (since 1980). The head coach complains to Principal Camillo and has Jim removed from his post as assistant coach. Jim retired in 2002 after 23 years of coaching and continued to serve as a volunteer coach occasionally. She eventually concluded that it was good for them as long as they still worked. As the race begins, something goes wrong right away. This movie is based on the remarkable McFarland High School Cross-Country Team which, until it was recently forced to compete against much larger schools, dominated its division in the sport state-wide for more than 20 years. Thank you for sharing your appreciation! The director, Niki Caro, chose to do this because she wanted to feature more family in the story. Eventually sophomore Danny Diaz crossed in 91st (68th) to close out the scoring. The film opens with Jim White coaching a high school football game in Boise, Idaho. Try to see differently. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . He also coaches the McFarland Youth Track Club as an assistant to Thomas Valles, who is the head coach. He was an inspiration and a father figure to the boys, Cardenas says. Despite winning their first race against local powerhouse Clovis, the father of the Diaz brothers pulls them from the team to pick in the fields. He took my place, and McFarland miraculously still won. . David Diaz. Hey, and I would love to show the film to a certain Donald T. so he could learn from Mexican American Power and warmth and character, tenacity and team spirit. Cardenas was a member of the California state championship cross-country team whose story is portrayed in the new movie McFarland, USA, which was released by Disney in February. Jose, who was one of the top four runners for the team and a key scorer, really did start the race too fast, a very unusual move for a runner who had just recently ran the same course perfectly. I google searched Jose Cardenas after watching McFarland, USA out of curiosity, because as you may see, my last name is also Cardenas. This may be in the form of affiliate post, sponsored giveaways, sponsored post and other forms of advertising. In fact quite the opposite it was an inspiring, a wonderful example of perseverance and what it means to work as a team. Photographs taken from the album of Sylvia Diaz (one of the girls who died in 1986) are some of the last pictures that those two girls took with their teammates. Their oldest daughter, Tami, is not depicted in the film. "Actually, lettuce didn't grow there, but that's a minor thing. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. I can understand your disappointment at your personal performance and I cannot take away those feelings but I what I can share is how I felt and that was a profound sense of pride and admiration toward fellow Mexican-American. Short captions for each of them at the end of the movie say they became college graduates, teachers, cops and mentors to kids in town. Im a german journalist, living in Paraguay with my adopted son and two other paraguayan foster children. Your personal disappointment gave another teammate (who, according to the movie, had nothing to offer the team butkeeping his faster brothers on the team) his first chance to make adifference. The town is a known resort and a destination for tourist since it is situated on the shores of a large natural lake, the Lac du Bourget, which is a home to a few SPA resorts and excellent places to relax. "People forget that the Army has boats, too, and this has fulfilled my greatest chances to sail all over the world - the Caribbean and now off Dubai.". Thank you laura for your take on my essay. The success of the team is documented in the 2015 Walt Disney Pictures film McFarland, USA starring Kevin Costner as James White, a . Finally, it eventually became something the whole town was involved in. All he had to do was run as he had all season - not necessarily finish first, just well enough to earn points for a team victory. . Later, Jim shows that he genuinely cares about the students when he prevents the ambitious football teams head coach from putting an injured player, Johnny Sameniego (Hector Duran), back into the game despite Johnnys importance to the team. The McFarland team continued to run races in North America, Europe, and Asia. His alumni now coach the cross-country programs for the elementary, junior high, high school, as well as McFarlands Parks and Rec teams. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. Well, they certainly cant afford cars. Get our L.A. Cardenas says he was deported to somewhere near the U.S.-Texas border, far from his birthplace in southern Mexico town of Tecomn in the state of Colima. Which is why, when Mr. White was trying to persuade me to switch to cross-country for my junior year, he jokingly told me that they would win the inaugural state championship with or without you.. Then computers.". "Jose Cardenas had had a bad race," Valles recalled recently about his teammate who was the team's seventh runner that day, finishing 148th. Convincing the young men he wants for the team to join is an uphill battle. The company also supplied soft drinks for a gift basket for the speaker, which also includes goodies from Catawba College and the Y. ), Aging beloved YA author Judy Blumes inevitable foil isnt so bad after all, Review: The entertaining Peter Pan & Wendy charts a familiar course to Neverland, Rihanna has Smurfs on the brain for her next movie: Hope this gives me cool points, Review: In Guardians 3, ultra-weird superhero fun doesnt have to be Rocket science, The new Tom Cruise just might be a London office worker with a taste for risk. No stupid Mexicans. See agents for this cast & crew on IMDbPro Directed by . Yes.after i watched the movie im curious about what happen to JOSE CARDENASso truethere are times that we would like to give our best but then somehow it was still not enoughbut you know MR JOSE CARDENASyou played a very big role from the beginning ..the first MCFARLAND had won until the state championshipyou are an inspiration to us allyour hardwork in how to balance your life and do rigorous trainings , so did the rest of the team and the dedication of the coach were so amazing. However, his come-from-behind clutch running performance in the 1987 championship that secured the title for McFarland really did happen. "McFarland, USA" tells a heartwarming story about . Jose wrote an essay for the Los Angeles Times in March 2015 describing his experience with the McFarland team. Damacio Diaz went to college, then became a police officer and a 17-year veteran of the Bakersfield Police Department as a detective. He would often buy shoes and food for his runners. Pop. We do not guarantee the accuracy of the given coordinates of the places in our database. The inspirational movie, which opened last week, is building word-of-mouth momentum as a minor hit in the shadow of the current box office titan, "Fifty Shades of Grey.". Aix-les-Bains, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France is located at France country in the Towns place category with the gps coordinates of 45 41' 18.5964'' N and 5 54' 55.0800'' E. Coordinates of Aix-les-Bains, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France is given above in both decimal degrees and His arrest was a big shock to the community because he had been so well-loved and respected. Many other shots of the town and high school were also filmed on-location. By this point, the team and the sport have become the great pride and joy of the community. Shafter, California, a town that neighbors and competes with McFarland in sports, also had a remarkable cross-country team that excelled despite its small school size and limited resources. Im still active and I still run, said David in a recent interview. The film was co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mayhem Pictures. The scenes of the state race are the most prominent for Johnny Ortiz, the actor playing me. The team and his family learn about this new job possibility and become upset. Before the class ends, their mother forces the brothers to leave class to go work in the fields. You were born in a community where that was not true, but with the blessings of a great coach and other adults topoint the way to other paths, you made that your reality. The climb upward from despair for Coach White isnt easy. It is also true that most of the runners had never seen the ocean before. His journey from McFarland was pushed by his love for writing. It saddens me that he viewed the race as the biggest disappointment of his youth, but in the same sense I admire his vulnerability & honesty. Our coach, played by Kevin Costner, built a sports powerhouse largely with the children of farmworkers in a lackluster part of the state. Maria Marisol : [reading Jose Cardenas's paper] We fly like blackbirds through the orange groves, floating on a warm wind. The runners begin their training with doubt about their white coach, whom they nickname Blanco. For now, Cardenas says there is one other way deported veterans like him can eventually get back to the United States. Principal Camillo agrees, reluctantly, and Johnny is recruited as the teams first runner. And when Jose lost his steam and fell behind in the end of the race, the other runners really did pull off the unexpected, and they made up the difference, which included Dannys dramatic come-from-behind performance as we see in the film. Jim Price, a janitor at the high school, let me live with his family. As his addiction became worse in the 90s, he got in trouble with the law and served time in a penitentiary. At a cross-country race almost 30 years ago, the gun sounds and the seven boys from McFarland High burst across the starting line amid a stampede of runners from around the state. "McFarland, USA Quotes." Witnesses offer conflicting accounts, How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, Mars Voltas lead singer broke with Scientology and reunited with the band. The cornerstone facts are true, but the story itself is not necessarily very accurate. I saw the film as being about your tenacity, determination, loyalty, perseverance, athleticism, and strength. After high school, Cardenas went to a junior college "half-an-hour up Highway 99 and continued running, but on paper. I enjoyed your essay as well. Jose has done speaking engagements as well since the movies release. When gang members show up and harass them, a fight breaks out and Julie is pulled to safety just before getting injured. In California, Cardenas notes, the movie is a lot bigger deal. His former team members are making the rounds, speaking at schools and churches. We still enjoy the whole running thing. God Bless. Learn how your comment data is processed. "The life out there and the life in here is totally different," he says of living in Mexico. 1987 was the first year that the state cross-country championship race was offered to schools. When ourfire burns out, we need friends to help carry us for a while. Thomas is the head coach of the McFarland Track Club for kids and I help him with that. It took one of our usually slower runners to sprint mightily down the stretch. Mal Vincent has been a longtime culture writer for The Virginian-Pilot. The family quickly goes home. I will look for more pieces by you, as well. Latitude and longitude coordinates are: 45.688499, 5.915300. Cardenas grew up in a Hispanic community, and his team mostly competed against white teams. On the way home, Jim stops by the beach in Cayucos and lets the runners have an afternoon of fun there because theyve never seen the ocean before. Nonetheless, the real challenges White and his team face pull the viewer along for the ride. Then I transferred to Humboldt State. The state championships arrive, and the entire town of McFarland comes to support the team. A summer and winter resort with a beach on Bourget Lake (Frances largest lake) and an aerial cableway up fir-covered Mount Revard (5,125 feet [1,562 metres]), it is a fashionable Alpine spa maintaining the sedate luxury of the Victorian era. Dr. Barragan, I appreciate your comment and couldnt agree more. I loved the boys and their families. No stupid Mexicans. He competed in the 1,500-meter and 800-meter races and was a part of the team that won the conference in 1994. And by that measure, maybe I can let go for good the sour memory of the state race. However, Centennial High School was not formed until 1993. Jose Cardenas Carlos Pratts. Also, around 500 McFarland residents (4%) are the average age for high school seniors (18-19). Because his citizenship application never went through, Cardenas was deported to Mexico after serving 10 years in federal prison. To this day, I dont know why I went out uncharacteristically fast. He now works as a physical education teacher at McFarland Middle School. feeling awkward and labored. He then transferred to Cal State University of Bakersfield (CSUB) from 1993-1995. Aix-les-Bains, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France is located at France country in the Towns place category with the gps coordinates of 45 41' 18.5964'' N and 5 54' 55. . They knew he truly cared about them, and the guys would work extremely hard because of the respect they had for him. He joined the ROTC in high school in San Diego in hopes of following in the footsteps of his stepdad, an American citizen who sponsored him to become a permanent resident. dickson county building codes, commercial properties for rent neath port talbot, james pepper rutland net worth,

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