| | |  Americas & Beyond | August 2008 
Cejudo Realizes American Dream
 Tim Sullivan - San Diego Union-Tribune
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| | Henry Cejudo celebrates his gold medal victory Tuesday night. (Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune) | | |
Beijing – The American Dream has a cauliflower ear. It wears a welt above its right eye and, until further notice, a gold medal around its stiff neck.
“I might just sleep with this,” Henry Cejudo said yesterday, clutching his prize for Olympic pre-eminence. “This is my dream, man. It's changed my life already.”
Cejudo's rise to the top of freestyle wrestling's 121-pound division is a tale as old as the Mayflower, but it never gets tired.
It is the story of an immigrant enduring heartache and hardships to make a better life for her children, and of the child who climbs above his grim circumstances to attain greatness.
It is the stuff of screenplays, and a formidable obstacle to Olympic cynicism.
“He's our guy,” USA Wrestling's Terry Brands said of his 21-year-old prodigy. “He's America's guy. He's a testament to the fighting spirit of America.”
Henry Cejudo is mainly a testament to his mother, Nelly Rico, who crossed the border at Tijuana when she was 14 or 15, and raised a family mainly on willpower.
Henry's late father, Jorge, was a frequent guest of the California penal system, and neither of Henry's Mexican parents would attain American citizenship. His mother moved her children from Los Angeles to New Mexico during one of Jorge's incarcerations, and later to Arizona, seldom settling in one place for more than a few months, typically sleeping four or more to a bed.
When asked how often his family had relocated, Henry Cejudo's estimate was 50. The family's three constants were faith, hope and Mom's intimidation.
“We called her 'The Terminator' back home,” Cejudo said. “She's so tough. She's been a father and a mother. She's such a tough lady. She's Supermom.”
Wherever they lived, Nelly Rico's house rule was that church was mandatory. Missing Sunday services came to mean a week without wrestling for Henry and his older brother, Angel. This proved to be a powerful threat.
Angel Cejudo won four Arizona state championships at Maryvale High School in suburban Phoenix, compiling a career record of 150-0 and attracting the interest of USA Wrestling's resident program in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Angel suggested a package deal that would include his kid brother, then 17. In retrospect, it was as if the player to be named later turned out to be Willie Mays.
“Being a gold medalist is great, but I think (Henry) wants to be the best,” said Kevin Jackson, Team USA's national freestyle coach. “And that's to put his name next to John Smith and Dan Gable and some of the other wrestling greats.
“He's the closest thing we've got who can get there.”
Henry Cejudo won the U.S. nationals as a high school student, the first wrestler to do so since USA Wrestling became the sport's governing body in 1983. Less than an hour after Cejudo had earned his gold medal with a 2-2, 3-0 decision over Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga, Jackson forecast a higher ceiling (albeit at a higher weight).
“He's not close to being as good as he can get,” Jackson said. “He didn't wrestle perfect matches, even though he won. . . . To set himself apart, he really needs to turn it up a notch.”
Effort is not an issue. If Henry Cejudo is unable to find faster transportation to wrestling practice, he runs. His mother taught him to treat poverty as a temporary condition rather than a lifelong limitation, and that desire can trump despair.
“I never played the victim,” he said. “My mom taught us to suck it up. Whatever you want to do, you can do, and that's what I did.”
Fearful of flying, and willing to baby-sit, Nelly Rico watched her son's gold-medal match on the Internet from Colorado Springs. Her sons Angel and Alonzo and daughter Gloria represented the family, and raucously, at the China Agricultural University Gymnasium.
More than once, Cejudo's cheering section was told to take its seats or face removal from the arena. More than once, that warning was ignored.
“We didn't want to get kicked out, man,” Alonzo Cejudo said, “but your little brother is going for gold. What are you going to do?”
What are you going to do when the child you call “Shorty” becomes the embodiment of the American Dream?
“She almost did a backflip when we were on the phone,” Henry Cejudo said of his mother. “She's so proud, so happy. She's probably going to have trouble sleeping tonight.”
Who could sleep with so much to savor? Who could realize the American Dream and fail to reflect on all of the sacrifice and strain that went into it?
“I did it for a reason,” Henry Cejudo said, “and that thing's around my neck right now.”
Tim Sullivan: tim.sullivan(at)uniontrib.com |
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