Bewerbungen » waiting over a century for their mom

MONTERREY, Mexico -- The University of Alabama, with 16 national championships, is a logical place to start when talking about college football dominance. But theres a team much farther south -- one with 21 national titles, 17 in the past 30 years -- that shouldnt be left out of the conversation.Tecnológico de Monterrey -- or Monterrey Tech, as its known colloquially in English -- is a private educational institution at the heart of a nationwide network of high schools and universities. Its main campus boasts some of Mexicos leading academic facilities.And in a city thats a hotbed for American football, an ambitious coach with NFL connections and aspirations built Monterrey Tech built into a national powerhouse.Approximately 140 miles from Laredo, Texas, Monterreys location as well as its strong middle class have long made the city a hub for so-called American sports. In 1996, it hosted the first MLB regular-season games played outside the U.S. and Canada. That same year, a sellout crowd at the citys Estadio Universitario saw the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Dallas Cowboys in an NFL preseason game.Today, football is among the most popular sports in Mexico, ranking second only to soccer in parts of the country. And while Monday nights NFL game between the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders will be played in Mexico City, the sports biggest success at the college level can be found 600 miles to the north at Monterrey Tech.Across the street from the campus eastern limit is the Estadio Tecnológico, a six-decade-old, 36,000-seater that hosts Monterrey Techs football team, the Borregos Salvajes (Wild Rams). On campus, there are constant reminders of the teams prowess. Mascot logos are prominent on merchandise, apparel, in-house promos and, of course, posters for upcoming games and pep rallies. The practice fields and stadium are branded with the teams colors and logo and motivational slogans in both Spanish and English.The facilities -- and the program itself -- are modeled as closely as possible to NCAA and NFL standards, an initiative spearheaded by former coach Francisco Frank Gonzalez, a Mexican native who grew up in the United States and first came to Monterrey Tech in 1975 after gaining a scholarship while playing high school football in Texas.I was inspired by John F. Kennedy and his pursuit of doing something great for the American people, said Gonzalez, who became Monterrey Techs head coach in 1986. He came up with putting a man on the moon, and my version of that was to get one of my players into the NFL.Gonzalezs clubs won 16 national championships in his 26 years at the helm. His recruiting tactics were so effective that the university developed satellite football programs in more than a dozen campuses across Mexico to accommodate all the players who wished to play for Monterrey Tech.There are so many things across the program that still bear his mark, said Carlos Altamirano, the teams current head coach and a Gonzalez recruit who quarterbacked Monterrey Tech in the late 1990s.Taking cues from the northOne of Monterrey Techs advantages comes from its network of prep schools. Prepa Tec, the high school-level team, recruits and generates scholarships for players hopeful to move on to the programs next level. Prepa Tecs relative proximity to the U.S. border makes it possible to schedule annual games against top Texas teams.One year, we played Woodlands, and after the game, I had their coach come up to me asking if I wanted to study and compete for them, said Adrian Lamothe, a former Prepa Tec punter who in 2013 walked on at the University of Alabama as the first Mexican-born player to be recruited by the Crimson Tide.It wasnt just the high school team that gained experience and exposure by venturing up north. Gonzalez often made trips to observe top college programs -- and eventually NFL teams -- in the States.Frank changed scouting, coaching and player training in Mexico with the things he learned in the NFL, said Tony Salazar, a friend and colleague of Gonzalez who now calls games for crosstown rival?Auténticos Tigres.One thing Gonzalez quickly learned was how much room there was for improvement at Monterrey Tech. I saw that my players were more or less playing at a high school level, he said.Throughout the late 1980s and early 90s, Monterrey Tech would reach out to college campuses across the United States, starting nearby in Texas and ending up at powerhouses in the Northeast. Gonzalez would bring knowledge back across the border and indoctrinate his staff and squad until he was confident they were ready to push on to the next level.After years of mostly successful visits, Gonzalez hit a roadblock at Penn State in 1998, where Joe Paternos staff afforded him only a few game tapes that didnt reveal much. Undeterred, Gonzalez cold-called Juan Castillo, a former Monterrey Tech teammate who had become Andy Reids offensive line coach with the Philadelphia Eagles.He remembered me, Gonzalez said. I told him what had happened at Penn State, and Juan asked me if I would be interested in visiting the Eagles and learning something.That led to an internship with the Eagles, providing Gonzalez with the opportunity to assess NFL talent up close and compare it to his own. I saw their players and told Juan that I had a couple of players who werent too far from this level, he said. Castillo recommended that Gonzalez contact scouts at NFL Europe, the now-defunct developmental league.One expert who took notice of Monterrey Techs talent was Jim Tomsula, an NFL Europe scout at the time who went on to become head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Tomsula signed off on the first wave of Monterrey Tech players who entered the NFLs pipeline in Europe: Rolando Cantú, Eduardo Casta?eda and Ramiro Pruneda.It was through the NFL Europe connection that Gonzalez landed his man on the moon, albeit for a short visit. It would be Cantú, an offensive lineman who played for the Berlin Thunder before being signed to the Arizona Cardinals practice squad in 2004. He made history as the first player from a Mexican college to appear in a regular-season NFL game when he played in the Cardinals 2005 season finale. Cantú, whose career was cut short by a knee injury in 2006, now works in Arizonas front office.While other Monterrey Tech products have made it as far as training camps and practice squads, Cantú is still the only one to have hit NFL pay dirt. Former Monterrey Tech kicker Diego Gonzalez, who received a scholarship from the University of Colorado and was the Buffaloes starter in 2016, might be the next best hope. But he suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in the Buffaloes third game.Scouts are starting to look at Mexican players, Salazar said. Guys down here are getting bigger, faster and stronger. They just need to continue to have a stage to be noticed.Diego Gonzalez had to sit out a year after transferring from Monterrey Tech to Colorado in 2013. That highlights another barrier that separates Mexico from big-time U.S. college football and beyond: the tangled web of eligibility rules. Theres a serious lack of information, Lamothe said. Parents, coaches, the players themselves -- none of them know what it takes to become eligible for the NCAA. Its very rigorous.A league of their ownMonterrey Tech has done more than just dominate Mexican college football on the field; it completely changed the landscape of the game off it. By 2008, there were rumblings that most of the public universities, discouraged by their inability to competitively recruit against private schools such as Monterrey Tech, wanted to defect from ONEFA, which had been the countrys primary college league, the closest thing in Mexico to the NCAA.After the 2008 season -- and another title for the Borregos -- Monterrey Techs main hub and satellite campuses beat the public schools to the punch by leaving ONEFA and forming a new league for private schools, CONADEIP, which debuted in 2010. The split remains today, although local rivals often organize interconference games to keep old flames alive. Were looking to reunite. I know thats something Ive wanted and asked for since [coaching in ONEFA], Altamirano said.Monterrey Techs armor hasnt been quite as impenetrable since Frank Gonzalez retired after the teams 2012 championship. The Borregos lost in the 2013 championship game and failed to reach the 2014 final, but they rebounded to win the CONADEIP title last year.This season, however, Monterrey Tech has encountered woes both on and off the field. When Altamirano took over midseason, he became the teams third head coach in the post-Gonzalez era. The Borregos won their final two games to finish the regular season at 6-4, third in their division. They open the playoffs Saturday.We know the fans arent accustomed to [a subpar season], but we have to give credit to our competition, too, said Altamirano. There are some very good teams in this league.And that, perhaps, is the bigger challenge for the future. Monterrey Techs blueprint is being successfully replicated across the country. That means the next players to make the jump from Mexico to the NCAA or NFL might come from another program.Its clear that teams in the United States will be looking elsewhere, Salazar warns.Despite potential twists in the tale that could spell the end of its lengthy dominance, Monterrey Tech will always be known as the cradle of college football in Mexico, and the schools impact on the sport is likely among the ?reasons the NFL is returning to the country more than a decade after its last visit. Nike Air Max 720 Solde . Now, with Game 6 set for Fenway Park and an 8:07 p.m. ET first pitch, the Detroit Tigers face the unenviable task of having to beat the Boston Red Sox twice, on the road, to advance to the World Series. Grossiste Air Max 720 . No. 13-seeded John Isner and No. 21 Philipp Kohlschreiber were among six players who dropped out of the tournament on Tuesday, joining No. 12 seed Tommy Haas and two other players who withdrew on Monday. http://www.pascherairmax720.fr/ . -- Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Farmar will be out for roughly four weeks after tearing his left hamstring. Air Max 720 a Vendre . -- The boos poured down on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at the end of a horrible first half. Air Max 720 Pas Cher . Traditional contenders Brazil, Greece and Turkey drew the other three spots to complete the 24-team field for this summers tournament in Spain, basketball governing body FIBA announced Saturday at its meeting in Barcelona. Wait. What just happened here? I had the craziest dream. I dreamed we just saw a trade deadline where the Cubs and Indians went for it -- and meanwhile, the biggest sellers in baseball were ... hold on, this cant be right .... the Yankees?Yeah, it feels like a dream. But Im pretty sure it just happened. And if it did, you know what that means? It means the world has officially turned upside down. And its going to take a little while to digest that.The Chicago Cubs made a series of deals that sent a clear message: This is the year. The Cleveland Indians made a trade for Andrew Miller that sent the same message: Our time is now. And the New York Yankees unloaded at the deadline instead of loading up -- for the first time in almost 30 years. Wow. Did I just write that paragraph?No one has ever said those words, said one incredulous scout Monday, as the deadline dust was settling. No one has ever typed those sentences. Its amazing.Said those words? Typed those sentences? Heck, no one has ever lived on that planet.But every season, the earth keeps spinning. And now it has spun us into this unfamiliar place -- where the Cubs and Indians look like your official World Series favorites ... and the Yankees are saying, Wait til next year. Or, Wait til whenever we can finish clearing about $7 billion in ugly contracts off our payroll.Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and the Cubs attacked the deadline like Michael Jordan once attacked the rim. Saw they needed to build a bullpen that could protect a one-run lead in October -- and bam, reeled in Aroldis Chapman, Joe Smith and Mike Montgomery.Thats why Theo is a Hall of Famer, said one rival executive afterward. He recognized it. And he did it.A few hundred miles to the east, the Indians of Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff were following the same script. They paid a huge price (and took on big dollars) to go get Andrew Miller. But it isnt just their bullpen that isnt the same because of it. Its their clubhouse -- and their whole city. Which was already buzzing with LeBron Fever.Now theyre like that high school football team that goes running through the hoop before the kickoff, said the same exec. They just busted through that hoop and theyre going for it.Meanwhile, the Yankees of Brian Cashman had to make a totally different decision, but one just as momentous. It was their time, all right -- their time to move on, move veterans and move forward. Once they were through dealing away Chapman, Miller and Carlos Beltran, they suddenly had a system with six of Keith Laws top 50 prospects in baseball. And if it hurts YES ratings for a couple of months, whatever. Now, at least, they can see the future.As difficult as it was for Brian Cashman to do what he did, said another longtime executive, he did the right thing. Theyve played over 100 games. They were a .500 team. The game tells you who you are. And thats what they were -- a .500 team.But prospects give the Yankees something else, too -- a reminder that in baseball, not all the currency can be measured in dollar bills.They still have money, said a third exec. So this winter, if they want to spend money to sign a closer -- say, Kenley Jansen -- theylll always be able to do that.dddddddddddd But now they also have prospects as currency. And I fully expect theyll take that currency and use it this winter to make deals, at a time when there isnt much in free agency.But we can reflect more on the details of what just happened and where its leading some other time. Right now, its more important to reflect on the bigger picture here.To the people who run these teams, the trade deadline isnt some giant rumor fest, the way it is for you and me. Its an important moment in time. Its a moment when the best GMs in the business dont just weigh who theyre trading and what theyre giving up. They need to have a special feel for the meaning of this moment. And that feel leads to the most powerful decisions they can make.The biggest thing we talk about, said one of the execs quoted above, is that you truly never know. You dont know whats going to happen next year. So I think its important to know when its time to make those decisions. The worst thing you can do sometimes is worry about the future. When your team is good enough, the only thing you can really worry about is now. And sometimes that means you have to just go for it.Knowing when that time has arrived isnt a skill these guys can learn in some sports management school. Its more like a sixth sense, a voice only they can hear that points them toward doing things they might not ordinarily do. But they have to be listening to hear it.It comes to you in a quiet moment, said another of the veteran execs quoted above, where you figure out, This is what I have to do. But you owe it to your organization to do what you did. You owe it to your players. You owe it to your fans. And you owe it to yourself. But if youre honest with yourself, you do know it. People know what needs to be done.Its what Dayton Moore did in Kansas City last July. We know how that worked out. Its what Alex Anthopoulos did in Toronto last July. We know how that worked out. Its what Sandy Alderson did in New York. We know how that worked out.Those men didnt simply make baseball deals. They made This Is Our Moment deals. And this July, it was the Cubs and Indians turn to make those moves.The Cubs have been waiting over a century for their moment to arrive. The Indians have been waiting more than half a century. So its a message that had to be delivered loudly and emphatically enough for everyone to hear -- and understand what they just heard.So I cant say this loudly enough: The tuned-in people who run the Cubs and Indians just told the world: Our time is now. And it wasnt a dream. It happened. In real life. With real earth-rattling deals involving real people.Its the Cubs year? Its the Indians year? And those things are happening in the same year? Holy Rocky Colavito. The planet we live on just spun in a way no living human has ever witnessed before. So we might have to call this the coolest trade deadline ever -- just as soon as we process what happened.Yeah, think how crazy that is, said one of the execs. And think about special it is. ' ' '