Where is American football played
in Mexico City?
We have stadiums and fields throughout the city. The National
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has an 80,000-seat Olympic
Stadium and a smaller field -- Estadio "Tapatio" Mendez, named
after a legendary Pumas coach. In the northern part of the city,
there is Estadio Wilfrido Massieu at the Zacatenco Campus of the
National Polytechnical Institute (IPN). Monterrey Tech (ITESM)
has two artificial turf fields at its Estado de Mexico and Ciudad
de Mexico campuses. There's another stadium "Joaquin Amaro" at
the Presidential Guard Corps military base and other smaller fields
all around town.
How popular is American football in Mexico?
American football is a 100 percent amateur sport in Mexico.
You can't compare it to other professional sports, such as soccer
or boxing. But among amateur sports, it's the only one able to
gather more than 60,000 people for a single event, such as the
UNAM-IPN "El Clasico" game. In terms of pro sports, Mexico now
holds the attendance record for a pre-season NFL game with more
than 105,000 people which occurred last August when Dallas played
the Patriots.
Also, there is a growing number of Mexican fans following the
NFL and college seasons on TV. Personally, I enjoy watching Notre
Dame's Fighting Irish or suffering the renewed misadventures of
the Oakland Raiders.
Is American-style football a new phenomenon in Mexico?
In fact, the history of American football can be traced back
to the early part of the century, when some Mexican families sent
their children to the United States during the Mexican revolution.
When the students returned, they brought their passion for this
sport with them. That's why many of the teams wear the colors
of U.S. college teams. For example, UNAM's Pumas wear the same
blue and gold combination as Notre Dame.
Which are the current trends in the sport?
Take a look at two of the more popular teams -- IPN's Aguilas
Blancas and UNAM's Pumas. Both institutions are the among the
largest public universities and have a long tradition playing
football -- UNAM since 1927 and IPN since 1936. For several decades
both universities sported several football teams each because
they were the only institutions interested in this sport. Now
with 21 institutions participating, UNAM is consolidating its
teams.
Also, UNAM and IPN were champions for many years, but this is
changing. Now private schools, such as Monterrey Tech (ITESM)
and Puebla's University of the Americas (UDLA), use scholarship
programs to attract the best football players.
There aren't that many exceptional players in Mexico, so scholarship
programs take away the cream of the crop, creating a dilemma for
the other schools.
Did you play football yourself?
Yes, I played seven years, at Juvenile and Intermedia levels,
with UNAM teams as a defensive back, but that was many years ago.
One of my sons used to play football too, playing corner back
for the Cherokees.
Do you have a favorite team?
Yes, UNAM's Pumas-Ciudad Universitaria. I will always have the
blue and gold inside my heart.
What should spectators look for at a Mexican football game
that they wouldn't see at a U.S. game?
For Mexican fans, here's your only option to see and feel real
football. It's very different from watching a game on television.
For U.S. fans, it's a different world from what's played in
your country. It's obvious that this is a game played from desire.
This is an amateur sport. Maybe the players are not as big as
Americans are, but the games are great fun and full of emotion.
Are Mexican newspapers giving local football more coverage?
They give wide coverage of the NFL, but there's not enough about
U.S. college teams or to the Mexican Major League (ONEFA). The
articles that do exist we link to from the website.
How did you develop the American Football website?
I've been always a great fan of this sport and I thought I could
put together the available information. Besides, I've been watching
or playing football for 30 years and thought I could say something
about that.
To build the page I joined Geocities (http://www.geocities.com)
and built the site for free. This was not easy, since it's an
independent effort, and I must use a great deal of my spare time
- nights and weekends - to work on the site. But the effort has
been worthwhile, and I'm very glad to see the kind of response
the site has received from visitors.
How would you rank the site's popularity?
Well, I have had 27,000 visitors in 16 months, and more than
26,000 of them in the last year. That's not too bad for a personal
page in Mexico! The Internet is relatively new here and besides
not every family has a PC at home.
What do you want to accomplish with this website?
I just wanted to share information about this sport with other
fans in the country. I wanted to create a virtual place where
you can find the current standings and scores, as well as history,
traditions, trivia, a message board, and links to teams and institutions
pages. The website provides a forum in which to contact old friends
and make new ones.
It's also a place to show foreign people what we have here in
Mexico. I did a search and found out that more than 20 countries
in the world play "American football." Mexico leads Latin America
in our interest in this sport, and this is something I wanted
to show off to people.
One of the features I like best on your website is the online
bulletin board which allows readers to give their input. But how
do you deal with upset readers who *flame* in this online section?
Well, a little display of passion once in a while is not bad.
I think in Mexico the football players and ex-players form a real
community, and there may be disagreements from time to time.
But sometimes other people just want to make some trouble, such
as some soccer fans who use to enter shouting their sport is the
most popular in the planet. Good for them. I do hope they enjoy
their weekly ties... er... games. My sport is American football.
Do you think the NFL could field a team in Mexico in the
next ten years?
The interest is here. And I believe a Mexico City NFL team --
with a mix of U.S. and Mexican players -- could consistently draw
at least 40,000 people.
So, if Mexico had its own pro team, would you buy season
tickets?
Definitely. |
