the first week of school.
The Cobras started off hot that season, winning our first four gamesand becoming one of the top-ranked teams in Florida. But it fell apart after that. In our first game, I tried to tackle the tight end, and just bounced off him while he ran for another thirty yards. That was the end of my career as a starter. We lost a bunch of games and were knocked out of play-off contention. We missed the guys who had graduated. And we had issues in the locker room that affected our play.
African Americans were about 25 percent of the student body at South Miami High; the rest were mostly Hispanic kids. I had been the only non–African American starter on the Cobra’s defense, and one of only three white starters on the team. I’ve always considered sports to be a nearly perfect meritocracy, and I believed our coaches made personnel decisions based strictly on which players would give us the best chance to win. But some of my Hispanic teammates felt differently. They thought Coach Miller, who was African American, unfairly favored the black players. A few Hispanic players and students tried to stoke the racial-preference grievance as the reason I had been benched. That was nonsense.
I had been replaced by a bigger, stronger and faster kid who made more plays than I did. That’s all there was to it. Our defense required the free safety to do some pretty difficult things. The system was designed for Division I prospects like Dakari Lester. I was better suited to playing a traditional free safety, who roamed the deep middle of the field, read the QB and made a play on the ball. I wasn’t benched because I was Hispanic. I was benched because I wasn’t strong enough to do consistently all the things our defensive system asked of me.
There was some racial tension at South Miami. A few years earlier, the football program and the school were rocked by a racial split after a losing game that turned violent and made it into the newspapers.
When I rejected claims that my status on the team had something to do with racism and remained friends with my black teammates, I became an object of scorn to some of my fellow Cuban students.
Despite my encounter with racial turmoil and my disappointing football season, my senior year proved to be the time of my life. I dated several girls. I spent my free time, which I had plenty of in the absence of football and a serious commitment to academic achievement, with friends at the beach, wandering around Coconut Grove and at house parties. In addition to the friends I had already, I became friends with many kids in Veronica’s social circle.
I put my popularity to the test when I competed in our school’s annual male talent contest, King Cobra. I had a decent singing voice. Many of the contestants lip-synched their songs. I actually sang mine, Lionel Richie’s “Still.” For laughs, I adopted an obnoxious braggadocio personality. I strutted around the stage, smirked, threw my microphone and stalked offstage after I finished the song. My friends got the joke. The judges did not—they voted me second to last. They thought I had behaved like a jerk. I had. Were I to judge a contest like that today, and some kid behaved as I had behaved, I’d vote him last.
I was a frequent disruptive force in the classroom. One teacher wanted me out of his class so badly, he promised to give me a C minus if I didn’t come to class, and threatened to give me an F if I showed up again. I finished my senior year with a 2.1 grade point average. I hadn’t applied myself, but I hadn’t failed, either. I was allowed to participate in the commencement ceremony with my class, but I had to complete a social studies class in summer school before I officially graduated.
Despite the fun I had and my occasional obnoxious behavior, I still kept an eye on the future. I wanted to go to college, get out of Miami and play football. I did just enough not to ruin my chances. My grandfather and parents had
The Cobras started off hot that season, winning our first four gamesand becoming one of the top-ranked teams in Florida. But it fell apart after that. In our first game, I tried to tackle the tight end, and just bounced off him while he ran for another thirty yards. That was the end of my career as a starter. We lost a bunch of games and were knocked out of play-off contention. We missed the guys who had graduated. And we had issues in the locker room that affected our play.
African Americans were about 25 percent of the student body at South Miami High; the rest were mostly Hispanic kids. I had been the only non–African American starter on the Cobra’s defense, and one of only three white starters on the team. I’ve always considered sports to be a nearly perfect meritocracy, and I believed our coaches made personnel decisions based strictly on which players would give us the best chance to win. But some of my Hispanic teammates felt differently. They thought Coach Miller, who was African American, unfairly favored the black players. A few Hispanic players and students tried to stoke the racial-preference grievance as the reason I had been benched. That was nonsense.
I had been replaced by a bigger, stronger and faster kid who made more plays than I did. That’s all there was to it. Our defense required the free safety to do some pretty difficult things. The system was designed for Division I prospects like Dakari Lester. I was better suited to playing a traditional free safety, who roamed the deep middle of the field, read the QB and made a play on the ball. I wasn’t benched because I was Hispanic. I was benched because I wasn’t strong enough to do consistently all the things our defensive system asked of me.
There was some racial tension at South Miami. A few years earlier, the football program and the school were rocked by a racial split after a losing game that turned violent and made it into the newspapers.
When I rejected claims that my status on the team had something to do with racism and remained friends with my black teammates, I became an object of scorn to some of my fellow Cuban students.
Despite my encounter with racial turmoil and my disappointing football season, my senior year proved to be the time of my life. I dated several girls. I spent my free time, which I had plenty of in the absence of football and a serious commitment to academic achievement, with friends at the beach, wandering around Coconut Grove and at house parties. In addition to the friends I had already, I became friends with many kids in Veronica’s social circle.
I put my popularity to the test when I competed in our school’s annual male talent contest, King Cobra. I had a decent singing voice. Many of the contestants lip-synched their songs. I actually sang mine, Lionel Richie’s “Still.” For laughs, I adopted an obnoxious braggadocio personality. I strutted around the stage, smirked, threw my microphone and stalked offstage after I finished the song. My friends got the joke. The judges did not—they voted me second to last. They thought I had behaved like a jerk. I had. Were I to judge a contest like that today, and some kid behaved as I had behaved, I’d vote him last.
I was a frequent disruptive force in the classroom. One teacher wanted me out of his class so badly, he promised to give me a C minus if I didn’t come to class, and threatened to give me an F if I showed up again. I finished my senior year with a 2.1 grade point average. I hadn’t applied myself, but I hadn’t failed, either. I was allowed to participate in the commencement ceremony with my class, but I had to complete a social studies class in summer school before I officially graduated.
Despite the fun I had and my occasional obnoxious behavior, I still kept an eye on the future. I wanted to go to college, get out of Miami and play football. I did just enough not to ruin my chances. My grandfather and parents had
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