 Mark
Travis John Sanchez (born November 11, 1986) is an American football quarterback
for the New York Jets of the National Football League. He was drafted in
the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft as the second quarterback and the
fifth overall selection by the New York Jets. He played college football
at the University of Southern California. Sanchez is only the fourth rookie
quarterback in NFL history to win his first playoff game and the second
to win two playoff games in his rookie season.
Sanchez was born in
Long Beach, California and is of Mexican American descent. As a high school
quarterback at Mission Viejo High School, he was named football player of
the year by several major college recruiting services and was considered
the top quarterback in the nation coming out of high school in 2005.
He chose to attend USC, where he rose to starting quarterback his redshirt
junior season. Because of his heritage, Sanchez found himself thrust into
the spotlight as a symbol of Mexican-American identity and a role model
for children. In his single season as the starting quarterback, Sanchez
led the Trojans to a 12-1 season and No. 2 ranking in the Coaches Poll and
No. 3 in the AP Poll, while capturing the 2009 Rose Bowl Offensive Most
Valuable Player award. After initially showing interest in staying for his
final season of eligibility, he became the first USC quarterback since Todd
Marinovich after the 1990 season to leave school with remaining eligibility
to enter to the NFL Draft, although because of his redshirt season he had
accumulated sufficient credits to graduate and left the USC campus with
a bachelor's degree in Communications.
When Sanchez was elevated
to prominence at USC, he found himself a symbol of Mexican-American identity
and a role model for children. Being at USC put him in the center of the
spotlight in Los Angeles, a metropolitan area populated with more than 4.6
million Hispanics, three-quarters of whom are Mexican. He began getting
attention from the media in Mexico. While there had been previous, successful
Mexican-American quarterbacks such as Jim Plunkett, Joe Kapp, Jeff Garcia,
Tony Romo, and Marc Bulger, unlike his predecessors, Sanchez was a third-generation,
full-blooded Mexican-American. USC fans began playing up Sanchez' ethnicity
by wearing items such as sarapes, lucha libre masks and homemade "Viva
Sanchez!" T-shirts. His rise to fame within the Mexican-American community
was compared to that of boxer Oscar De La Hoya and baseball pitcher Fernando
Valenzuela. During his first two games as a starter in 2007, Sanchez wore
a custom-made mouthpiece that featured the colors of the Mexican flag in
honor of his heritage. Although little noticed during his first game
against Arizona, it became a prominent issue after his nationally-televised
game against Notre Dame.
An item that Sanchez wore because he thought
it was "cool" became a symbol for two opposing viewpoints: for
Mexican-Americans, it was a symbol of solidarity-Sanchez publicly accepting
his roots; for detractors, the gesture symbolized radical activism.
Sanchez, who was born and raised in the U.S., reportedly received letters
urging him to go back to Mexico. Sanchez himself stated, "It's not
a Mexican power thing or anything like that. It's just a little bit of pride
in our heritage. Hopefully, it inspires somebody and it's all for the best."
Surprised by all the attention and shying away from politics, Sanchez stopped
wearing the mouthpiece, but began participating in other efforts to benefit
the Hispanic community. Sanchez, who knew how to speak some Spanish
but was not bilingual going into his junior season at USC, began taking
Spanish lessons so he could do interviews with the Spanish-language media
without a translator. He began speaking to high school kids from predominantly
Hispanic Santa Ana and East Los Angeles. The USC band began to play "El
Matador", a 1993 song by the Argentine band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs,
when Sanchez would take the field. He participated in programs
which provides school supplies to first-graders in heavily Hispanic areas
of Long Beach and the South Bay, and joined L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
in distributing holiday gifts to needy families.
By the end
of his USC career, he had been hailed as a significant role model for Hispanic
youth in America. Sanchez serves as the official Ambassador to the
Inner-City Games Los Angeles, an after-school program that provides at-risk
youth with positive alternatives. Sanchez was most recently seen throwing
out a first pitch at a Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim game on behalf of the
organization. |
