Quality Time with Dad Leads to Passion for Industry

Photo and Story by Mary Peters

SYRACUSE, N.Y. --  Jose Cuevas has a love for boxing, professional wrestling, and soccer and hopes to be able to cover them on any platform. 

"To be able to call the World Cup would be amazing," he says. "To be able to do it in Spanish would be amazing too."

His love for these sports stems from the times that he spent with his father, as well as his Mexican heritage.

"It was the way we connected," he says. 

When Cuevas was young, he would go to halls in Compton, California with his dad to watch some boxing greats.  Most of the boxing athletes came from less privileged backgrounds and were of Mexican heritage, both of which Cuevas related to.  Through these experiences, Cuevas says he was inspired to try the sport.  He worked on putting on some weight and did boxfor a while, but was plagued by injuries.

Cuevas decided that reporting on these sports is something that he would like to do instead.  That's why he is a graduate student in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, studying Broadcast and Digital Journalism with a Sports Communications Emphasis. 

He says he likes pro wrestling because of the spectacle and the storytelling involved.  Soccer is important to him because he spent a lot of time watching the Mexican national team.  He felt a strong emotional connection with his father when they would celebrate or drown their sorrows in the outcome of a game or fight.  

A transcription of my conversation with Jose can be found below, but if you would like to listen to the audio, you can listen to it here.  

Q:  What is your dream job?

A: It would be to…  There’s layers to that.  It would be…In the moment, right now, in my youth, like until I’m forty depending or whatever happens too.  It would be to be a boxing reporter.  I would like to be the Max Kellerman or Jim Lampley does on HBO, which is analysis of the fight, play by play of the fight, interviews leading up to the fight, doing the press conference and stuff like that.  Doing the same for MMA, doing the same for soccer too.  To be able to call the World Cup would be amazing.  To be able to do it in Spanish would be amazing too.  To be able to use my second language as a tool would be great.  I also am an avid pro wrestling fan.  Not as much as I used to because I feel like it’s not as good as it used to be but uh, I grew up watching pro wrestling.  Those were the first two sports that I watched with my dad, that and soccer.  Then he would take me to a local, I don’t know what you call it in English, but like a salon, like a hall.  And they would have a Lucha Libre from Mexico there and we would go watch it.

Q:  So are you originally from Mexico?  Is that where you grew up?

A:  No, I’m of Mexican heritage.  I grew up in Compton, California, which has a heavy Latino and specifically Mexican population, also a heavy black population.  But of Mexican heritage, both of my parents are from Mexico.

Q:  You said that you started getting interested in boxing when you first watched it with your dad and he would take you to halls to go watch them.  Were you able to participate yourself at all? 

A:  When I was a…boxing I started watching it later.  My dad would take me later, probably when I was around 12 or 13. He would take me to watch Oscar De La Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez’s fights.  Pro wrestling was first though.  With pro wrestling, it was when I was way younger. And I wanted to do that as a career path when I was younger but ya know, I didn’t have the body frame for it. I’m not six two or 280 pounds or anything like that.  I did try it for a while.  The sweatshirt that I’m wearing now, and I wear a lot of his stuff, is a pro wrestler…his name is CM Punk, Not the biggest guy, not the tallest guy.  Just like six feet, 210 pounds.  He became really big and that kind of inspired me to pursue it and I tried it, but I’ve had consistent shoulder issues.  I’ve dislocated my left shoulder about three times, four times probably. And I actually bulked up, started lifting weight, started eating insane amounts of calories.  I actually tried the Rock’s diet where he ate, I think it was, forty pounds of cod a week.  I tried that for about four or five months and I got pretty big, but it just didn’t feel natural.  I was walking around like a penguin.  It’s not my frame.  And then the injury issues just continued to plague me.  So I chose not to pursue it, but I still love that sport and given any of the sports that I mentioned, it would be a privilege to be able to work in any capacity with them.

Q:  You said that you love all of those sports.  What do you love about each sport?

A:  Pro wrestling is the spectacle.  It’s the fact that, ya know, what we are learning right now in broadcast, it’s storytelling.  Storytelling is like the crux of everything.  Pro wrestling, even though people might say that it’s fake or that it’s staged, the fact that it’s staged tells you what it is…it’s a spectacle.  It’s something…it’s a show that you put on and you try to tell a story, but you tell the story with your body.  You could have a small guy going in there against a big guy and the big guy will destroy him in five minutes, you’re telling that story.  Or you could have an underdog who is the same small guy and he beats the big guy up.  And that’s the story that you’re telling right there.  You know, the underdog…David beating Goliath.  With boxing, it’s the fact that it’s literal, you know.  It’s two guys beating each other up.  There’s no symbolism in it, it’s just two guys…like Max Kellerman gave this really good response to when people say what’s your favorite sport.  He says that everybody’s favorite sport is boxing, they just don’t know it.  He gives this example…if you see two guys playing basketball that you don’t know like okay, you might stop and watch for a little bit, right?  If you have about fourteen people playing a game of pick up football on the street, you might stop and watch.  But if you see two dudes fighting, you’re going to stop and watch and you’re going to hang out there and you’re going to be interested…regardless of the names.  You’re going to stop and watch, so that’s what I love the most about boxing.  And then also the fact that a majority of boxers don’t come from privileged backgrounds.  They’re people that I can relate to because I didn’t grow up in a privileged background, so it’s awesome seeing those stories materialize and then those people, you know…there’s a lot of Mexicans that box.  And it’s awesome to feel that pride and to feel like you can identify with somebody.  With soccer, my dad owned a liquor store for a very long time and he was working all the time.  The few times that I could spend time with him, it was watching soccer and it was watching the Mexican National team play and to this day, nothing excites me more than when the World Cup comes around and Mexico is playing.  I am always disappointed because they don’t advance past the first round of 16, but there’s an emotional connection there, specifically with my father.

Q:  And you talk about your dad a lot.  Did he grow up with these sports as well or how did he pass these on to you?

A:  It was the way we connected.  I feel, this might be getting deeper, but I feel with especially amongst men, we have a really hard time bonding with each other.  I feel like because the codes of masculinity are don’t show emotion, don’t do that.  So sometimes that’s the way that we connect.  And that’s the way that me and him connected was through sports.  It was the times that, you know, I love my dad, we hug each other all the time now.  We are really cool.  We’ve always been really cool, but those were those moments where you just get up and hug each other when they score or when your favorite boxer, De la Hoya or Canelo, would knock somebody out, it would just be a spontaneous reflex to just get up and hug each other like you know…you give each other a high five and stuff like that.  So, you know, it’s like an automatic response that happens, so that’s why I feel such attachment and that’s why my dad continues to come up with these things.

Q:  Thank you!

A:  No problem.