Marlen Esparza Going The Distance By Victor Cruz Analysis

Introduction Millions of people across the United States play sports and train everyday. Although sports are a glorious thing to watch, the people who play in them put in hours and hours of work to become that good, and sometimes the road to get there is not always easy. Two special stories of the path to greatness can be found in the Norton Field Guide. Marlen Esparza and Victor Cruz have very different stories, play different sports and have different backgrounds, but both ultimately go through hardships to become role models and achieve greatness.
Summary
The first story Marlen Esparza: Going the Distance tells the story of a young eleven year old girl who approaches Rudy Silva, the boxing coach of Houston's boxing gym, and asks for him
The first obviously both being astounding athletes and hard workers. Both grew up loving the sports and were the underdogs from the start. In Marlen’s story it says she asks to be trained by an elite coach from Houston’s Boxing Gym. The coach, Rudy Silva, denies her saying “he doesn’t waste his time with beginers.” He also went even further in saying “I don’t train females.” (Rich 848) Cruz had a similar experience being an underdog growing up in a rough neighborhood and playing football for an inner city school. The biggest setback for him was his height and weight. Victor stood at 5 feet 9 inches and weighed only 165 pounds which is exceptionally small for a high school senior let alone a college football player. The thing that sets both of these 2 athletes apart from the rest was their hard work and dedication to becoming the best they can be. The first thing Silva told Marlen when he agreed to train her was “I’m not going to train you like a girl. I’m going to train you like a man.” ( Rich 849) When training in high school Marlen’s father and coach pushed her to join the cross country, swim and debate team where she practiced and worked day and night along with going to school. Like Marlen, Victor participated in many sports from baseball, basketball and football to karate, he did anything that would improve him as a football player. He believed that he could use skills and elements from other
Firstly obviously they played 2 different sports in two different parts of the country. Esparza grew up a boxer in Pasadena, Texas in a predominantly Hispanic area. As for Cruz, he was brought up a football player in Paterson, New Jersey, a predominantly African American city. Also, though both had a hard time in school that was the one thing holding Cruz back. He failed out of college even as he grew older, whereas Esparza matured as she got older and graduated high school as the class president and maintained an excellent 4.6 GPA. There differing grades and education also lead them on different paths after high school. As stated before Victor attended Umass, a college in Maine. As for Marlen, she was accepted to Rice University and The University of Texas, but did not attend because her coach asked her to reconsider not going to school. He said that people will start to notice her if she continued to win. As expected with the 2 playing different sports they would have different achievements. According to the Norton Field Guide, Marlen Esparza “...is now 69-2 in her career, which gives her a 97 percent winning percentage.” She also has been ranked number 1 in her weight class since she was 16 years old. She was also the first 16 year old to make the U.S.A. Olympic boxing team. Esparza intends to attend college to be an anesthesiologist if no big offers to fight come about. (Rich 849, 855)