Community Comes Together to Make a State Champion by AARON BODUS It Out,’ and Sure Enough, That First Day, Sports Editor He Was Hooked
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Imperial Valley Press n Friday, May 31, 2019 n B1 ATHLETE OF THE WEEK Make your nomination by calling (760) 337- 3434 or by email at [email protected] by noon Mondays. Make sure to leave the athletes’ contact information and his or her Sports accomplishment. QUESTIONS? Contact Sports Editor Aaron Bodus at [email protected] or (760) 337-3434. Community comes together to make a state champion BY AARON BODUS it out,’ and sure enough, that first day, Sports Editor he was hooked. Just hanging out with the boys and throwing shot,” said Van- RAWLEY — Juan Rodriguez is diver. California’s finest. It’s indisput- Rodriguez is willing to concede that B able. He’s got the gold medals to the decision to compete, “worked out prove it. pretty good,” noting that he wound up Rodriguez, a junior attending Braw- “liking it more than any kind of sport I ley Union High is the rarest of Valley ever tried before.” birds — a state champion. One of the reasons it worked out so At the CIF track and field finals in well was a heaping helping of institu- Clovis last Saturday he emerged as the tional support. fourth-ever champion in the 100-meter Once Rodriguez gave his assent, it and 200-meter wheelchair-division wasn’t long before Brawley was on the races, while taking silver in the shot horn looking for help in giving him the put. best experience possible. And when he won, he didn’t just win, One of their earliest calls was to he demolished the competition, run- Richard Robert, the Chair of the USA ning up a 6-second margin in the 100 Track and Field National Para Athlete (21.56 to 27.79) and a 16-second cush- Committee. ion in the longer race (42.24 to 58.51). Robert, who just so happens to live in It was something of a novel experi- Orange County and has been involved ence for the 17-year-old, who’s had his in para athletics for 20-plus years, in- mobility impaired since infancy due to cluding the past 16 as the Para Athlet- a case spina bifida — though not the Brawley’s Juan Rodriguez flashes some hardware in the Brawley Union main ics Committee Chair for the Southern winning part so much as actually hav- gym on Thursday afternoon. PHOTO AARON BODUS California Association of USATF, was ing somebody to race against. Rodriguez spent most of the season around” in his day-to-day comings and track, but he really didn’t wanna do it.” more than happy to help, if a little sur- rolling down the track solo, with noth- goings, and knew that he “had to see if Rodriguez, who began participating prised at the call and even more by the ing but a set of cold numbers and a we could get him out [for track].” in the Special Olympics at age 12, cred- Wildcats’ follow-through. stopwatch to judge his progress. Ray Vandiver, a para educator at the its his hesitancy to wanting to keep a “I was actually shocked,” said Robert, Still it didn’t take long for those school and assistant coach in charge of balanced workload, noting that he has “Since CIF created a para athletics divi- numbers to start telling a story, and the throws remembers trying to get Rodri- “a lot of difficulties in school and every- sion in 2016 … I’ve been advising par- story was: This guy’s pretty good. guez out on the oval way back in 2016, thing.” ents and coaches, and unfortunately it’s He was hitting CIF para-athlete but there was initially some resistance But this year when Tagaban and been really marred with problems. The qualifying times from his first meet on, to the idea. Vandiver came back around, he was coaches don’t know what to do. The and the numbers only got better once “When he came in as a freshman I more receptive. parents don’t know what to do. They he got some equipment suited to the was assigned to him as a one-on-one “Marcial went to [a CIF-SDS] meet- don’t have equipment. They don’t have task. para educator, so I was with him in the ing (prior to the season) and we found training, and when a disabled student Rodriguez has always had some burst beginning, and getting to know him he out that, hey, they’re trying to push athlete wants to join the track team … to him. told me about the Special Olympics he [wheelchair competition] … so I ap- it becomes a very serious challenge [for Marcial Tagaban the Wildcats’ head did. He did swimming; he did bowling; proached (Juan) again and I was like, all parties]. That’s what I’m used to: track coach recalls, “seeing Juan going he did all these sports. So we asked him ‘Hey you wanna come out for track? problems.” up and down the school, just flying [last] year if he wanted to come out for I’m gonna be your coach. Come check SEE RODRIGUEZ | B2 Raptors take NBA Finals opener, beat Warriors 118-109 TORONTO (AP) — Pascal Siakam few fans who weren’t wearing Raptors red scored a playoff career-high 32 points sticking to their original purple uniform and the Toronto Raptors won the first with the dinosaur logo. NBA Finals game played outside the U.S., Rapper and Raptors global ambassador beating the Golden State Warriors 118- Drake sat in his courtside seat wearing a 109 on Thursday night. Curry No. 30 jersey. That’s Dell Curry, The Raptors hardly looked like new- Stephen’s father who finished his career comers to the NBA’s biggest stage, con- with the Raptors. trolling the action most of the way against The Raptors introduced Dell Curry and a Golden State team beginning its fifth some of their other former players after straight NBA Finals appearance. the first quarter, a group that included Kawhi Leonard added 23 points and Marc Gasol had 20 for the Raptors, fu- perennial All-Stars such as Tracy Mc- eled by a crowd that couldn’t wait for a Grady and Chris Bosh. party 24 years in the making. But it wasn’t until they went out and “I think they were into it and that’s the got Leonard in a trade with San Antonio way it should be, man,” Raptors coach that Toronto was finally good enough to Nick Nurse said. “That’s what home court get to the NBA Finals. is, and our fans deserve a bunch of credit He wasn’t the dominant force he was in for being a big part of that.” the first three rounds, when he averaged Stephen Curry scored 34 points and 31.2 points. But he had eight rebounds Klay Thompson had 21 for the Warriors, and five assists in his first NBA Finals who had won all four Game 1s in the last game since winning MVP of the 2014 four years. All those had come at home, championship with the Spurs. Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam (43) blocks a shot by Golden State War- but this time Golden State doesn’t have DeMarcus Cousins made it back from riors forward Draymond Green (23) during the second half of Game 1 of basket- home-court — or home country — ad- a torn left quadriceps to come off the ball’s NBA Finals, on Thursday in Toronto. Nathan DENETTE/THE CANADIAN Press VIA AP vantage. bench in his first NBA Finals game, but Game 2 is Sunday night in Toronto, their lead around double digits for much 50.6 percent from the field and the War- the Warriors remained without Kevin which is hosting an NBA Finals game for of the final quarter, countering every at- riors never found an answer for Siakam, Durant, the MVP of the last two NBA the first time after the Raptors entered tempt the Warriors made to catch up. the finalist for Most Improved Player Finals. He traveled to Toronto but it’s the league as an expansion team in 1995. “I thought we made a good effort in the who has a nice start for an NBA Finals unclear if he’ll play before the series re- The Raptors were perhaps a little jit- second half, got back in the game. Our MVP resume. tery at the start, with Kyle Lowry firing guys did some good things, but made The player nicknamed Spicy P was red turns to the Bay Area, with Kerr saying he a pass well out of bounds on their first too many mistakes to actually go ahead hot, shooting 14 for 17 from the field — would have to go through a practice first. possession. and win the game,” Warriors coach Steve and he tipped in his own shot on the last The Warriors had won every game But they quickly settled in afterward, Kerr said. of those misses with 54 seconds to play. since he got hurt in the second round building a 10-point lead by halftime. All four of the Warriors’ previous fi- Fans began arriving at Jurassic Park but sure missed him against the Raptors, Siakam then went 6 for 6 in the third nals were against LeBron James and the outside the arena in the morning. There who are on a roll after falling behind 2-0 quarter to keep Golden State from gain- Cleveland Cavaliers, and they struggled to were lengthy lines at the arena entrances to Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference ing much ground, and the Raptors kept figure out a new opponent.