Miami Columbus’ Cuban-American quarterback finds a role model in Texas A&M star
Miami Columbus quarterback Fernando Mendoza V, the grandson of Cuban immigrants, took note of Texas A&M’s monster 41-38 upset win over top-ranked Alabama on Oct. 9.
Texas A&M quarterback Zach Calzada — also the grandson of Cuban immigrants — helped his Aggies snap Alabama’s 19-game win streak. Alabama had won 100 consecutive games against unranked teams until Calzada completed 21 of 31 passes for 285 yards, three touchdowns and just one interception.
“I’m a huge fan of college football,” Mendoza said. “When I saw Calzada play, I told my dad, ’He’s really good!’
“But when I found out that his nickname was the ‘Cuban Missile’, I was in disbelief. I was thinking, ‘There’s another one like me out there’.”
Indeed, Calzada and Mendoza are both pro-style quarterbacks with almost identical size at about 6-4 and 210 pounds.
But Mendoza, a senior, is headed to the Ivy League instead of the SEC. He committed to Yale University in August.
Meanwhile, the Aggies — who were 18-point underdogs on Oct. 9 — trailed 38-31 with just more three minutes left. But that’s when Calzada – who played his high school ball at Lanier in Georgia — showed perfect touch with a 25-yard touchdown pass while taking a crushing hit to his legs.
“It was like a ‘Rocky’ story,” Mendoza said. “He got knocked down but came back. It shows that Cuban toughness.”
Calzada, whose grandparents had their money and the three pharmacies they owned seized by the Castro dictatorship 60 years ago, somehow returned to the field to lead his team to the winning field goal.
“I had no words,” reacted Mendoza, who has a 4.7 grade-point average and plans to study Economics at Yale.
While Cuban-American quarterbacks at a big-time level are not new — they are an unusual phenomenon.
Cuban baseball players are much more the norm. The list of Cuban-American quarterbacks includes George Mira, who played at the University of Miami and was the 15th pick in the 1964 NFL Draft; and Pete Gonzalez, who moved from Miami’s Coral Park High to the University of Pittsburgh.
Gonzalez then went undrafted by the NFL in 1998, but he was picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he served as a backup for two years, completing his only pass.
“I was the last Steelers quarterback to wear No. 7 before Ben Roethlisberger,” Gonzalez told the Herald from his home in the Pittsburgh area.
In his youth, Gonzalez said Cuban-American parents tried to dissuade their sons from playing football because of the inherent danger.
“My dad wasn’t happy when I started playing football,” said Gonzalez, who also played center field at Coral Park, the alma mater of ex-MLB star Jose Canseco. “He thought football was for idiots.
“But I was destroying teams. I was a Cuban guy from the suburbs when football was mostly an inner-city African-American game.”
Gonzalez began his youth-league career with the Miami Falcons, where he was the backup quarterback. The staring QB was another Cuban-American, Wilkie Perez, who played at Miami High and was good enough to earn a scholarship to West Virginia.
But Perez, who was highly athletic but only 6-foot tall and not the prototypical quarterback of his era, was converted into a punt returner by the Mountaineers.
Rather than give up on his dream to play quarterback, Perez transferred to a Division II school in West Virginia, Glenville State.
“Football was a different game back then,” Perez told the Herald. “Now, the read/pass option is more suited to the player I was then.
“Back then, college coaches wanted to know a quarterback’s height. Now they want to know if he can run.”
Perez, 46, is now the offensive coordinator at Hialeah’s Champagnat Catholic.
He also trains dozens of local quarterbacks through his company, QB1PREP. Among the quarterbacks Perez has trained are Mendoza, 18, and his 16-year-old brother Alberto, who is a Columbus sophomore at 6-2 and 175 pounds.
Perez, who was a three-year starter at Miami High and was 110-0 as an incredible youth-league quarterback, also watched Calzada’s heroics.
“I took a lot of pride in what he accomplished,” said Perez, whose grandparents were born in Cuba. “It was joyful knowing he has had a similar background.”
Mendoza, who visited Cuba two years ago with his brother and maternal grandparents — “It was shocking to see how the people constantly have to struggle,” he said — believes he will make an Calzada-type impact at Yale.
After transferring from Belen Jesuit, Mendoza went 3-0 as a Columbus starter in his sophomore year and 6-0 last season. This year, there have been some struggles, but …
“I’m confident in my ability,” Mendoza said. “I can play at any level. I’m a competitor.
“From my first day at Yale, I’m going for that [starter’s] job.”