Adan Morales is an 18-year-old senior who stopped two penalty kicks, which ultimately led to the team’s win.

“It’s great feeling, but during the game I got knocked out, so I was bit dizzy,” says the goalkeeper and captain of the team who has plans to study to be a computer engineer after graduating high school.

He says what makes their team special is that not only do they train together, they do everything together.

“We are together inside and outside the field,” says Morales, who is of Mexican background. “We have everybody’s back.”

Center mid-fielder and captain Jorge Segura, 18, scored one of the goals and agrees the win was extraordinary, but more so, that they are like a family.

“We practice two or three hours, seven days a week, but we also go to church together and go out to eat together,” he says.

Principal Donny Jones, as well as the entire town, is elated because the school hasn’t won a state championship in 38 years.

“I’ve been at Collinsville for 22 years and in education for 30 years,” says Jones, who grew up in Collinsville and witnessed the creation of the area’s first soccer team, which only came into existence about a decade ago. “Soccer became popular because of the Hispanic students that started coming to our school.”

He says Hispanic students started attending Collinsville High School, which includes grades K through 12, in 1990. According to Jones, Cagile’s chicken processing plant, which employs more than 1,000 people, as well as a healthcare company in town, brought in a lot of Latino families. Today, the school teaches 870 kids, approximately 42 percent of whom are Hispanic — an increase of nearly 400 students in since 1990.

“Once we had enough interest for a soccer team, we got a coach from our staff,” says Jones, who four years ago hired a new female soccer coach, Julie Littles.

Littles, 34, is the coach who led the boys to their championship, but she credits their first championship win to the boys — many of whom have played under her tutelage since they were freshmen.

“It was their hard work, focus, and determination, but also their sense of family,” she says.

Little, who coaches one of the smallest schools in the state, explains they are a small public school competing against larger private schools.

“It’s a special team, and they have overcome a lot of obstacles to win the state championship,” says Little. “It also opened lots of people’s eyes to small towns and small teams and what they’re capable of.”

She says most of the boys are very poor and don’t even have money to buy fast food at away games, let alone buy socks. Yet, they took it upon themselves to set up fundraisers to be able to afford equipment and uniforms to play their beloved sport.

David Hernandez, 17-year-old defender/midfielder says he’s been on the team since the 8th grade.

“Words can’t explain how great it is,” says the senior, whose family also comes from Mexico. “I love the fact that we were so unique. We had something different that other teams didn’t have. We had love, and we wanted to make a difference — to make our community happy and make history.”

He’s undecided on which college he will attend, but he’s sure he will go to college and interpret for the deaf, and maybe become a missionary.

“I kept the promise to myself that I wouldn’t leave without winning a state championship, so it felt great,” says Luis Segura, 18-year-old sweeper (defense) who got a four-year academic scholarship to study computer engineering or medicine at Jacksonville State University. “I’ve always loved soccer. It’s my passion. It’s a team sport. Ever since I was born, all of my family watches it and plays on local leagues. I’ve always been around it.”

He says most of the team is Mexican, and there are a couple of players from El Salvador and Guatemala, but the whole town now cheers them on.

“There has been a huge response from the town,” says their coach. “I think we’ve had more support the last few years than the 10 years it’s been in existence. “We do have a large Hispanic population, but a lot of the town didn’t know about soccer. They have grown more supportive of the team and the boys.”

Almost every bone in McCabe’s face was broken, his skull fractured in several places and his nose nowhere close to where it belonged. As he lay on the ground in Rochester, N.Y., the semi-pro player who assaulted him stood over him yelling, “Take that. Take that. This is what I’m all about.”

“I have said since this happened to me that it’s going to happen again,” McCabe said, “and someone is going to get killed.”

Four years later, someone was.

McCabe was sickened when he heard the news that Ricardo Portillo had died Saturday, a week after the youth soccer referee in Utah had been punched in the head by a 17-year-old player angry over a yellow card. Just as Portillo’s family is now pleading for athletes to control their tempers, McCabe has spent the last four years preaching the importance of sportsmanship in and around Rochester.

To limited success.

“There’s no respect for officials now,” McCabe said Monday. “Go look at any game, and they’re yelling at the official. Pick a high school event, and go watch a couple of games. I guarantee you, you’ll see a coach get out of control on the sideline. Or a parent. Or a kid. It’s so rampant.

“What happened in Utah, I knew it was going to happen. It was just a matter of time,” he added. “Whether it was New York state, Massachusetts, Florida, it was going to happen somewhere in this country.”

But the problem isn’t limited to this country.

Several Dutch teens are awaiting trial in the beating death late last year of a volunteer linesman who was working his son’s youth soccer game. In Brazil last month, a referee was kicked in the chest after the final whistle of a third-division match of the Sao Paulo state championship. A referee in Kenya has filed a lawsuit against the national soccer federation, contending he is impotent after a coach grabbed his testicles in protest over a call. A Spanish soccer player was banned for three months last year after throwing a plastic water bottle at a referee. Also last year, a soccer player in New Zealand was banned indefinitely after he punched a referee and broke his jaw.

And at hockey’s Under-18 World Championships in Estonia last month, a Lithuanian player hurled his stick at a referee, hitting him in the upper body.

“Part of this isn’t a sport problem, part of it is a societal problem,” said Dan Gould, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State. “You watch TV, and the trash talking that’s accepted. If you’re famous, you’re almost supposed to get into trouble. Why is everyone infatuated with Lindsay Lohan when she seems like a spoiled brat?”

Added Barry Mano, the founder and president of the National Association of Sports Officials, “We’ve become so loud and so brash. It’s about me and about being in the spotlight. All of those things play out in the games we play.”

Part of the beauty of sports — and youth sports in particular — has always been its power to educate and transform. To instill in athletes skills and values they can use for the rest of their lives, in arenas that don’t have hardwood floors or boundaries outlined in chalk. Talk to any CEO or other successful person, and odds are he or she can trace the lessons they learned about teamwork, fair play, leadership and overcoming challenges back to Little League, Pee-Wee football or some other youth sport.

But just like passing, dribbling and hitting, those skills don’t come with the uniform and the practice schedule. They have to be taught and reinforced by league administrators, coaches and, of course, the parents who signed their kids up for a team in the first place.

“Most Americans really want their kids to learn values through sports. And research has found we can teach kids to be good sports and enhance their moral development through sports if it’s done correctly,” Gould said. “But the big myth is it just happens.”

Even referees and officials can do a better job, Mano said.

Watch any college basketball game, and odds are you’ll see a coach not only stalking the sideline but coming onto the floor to protest a call. That’s a violation, Mano said, yet it’s almost never called.

“We’ve softened too much by letting bad behavior go escaped [sic],” he said.

It may not seem like much. But add up all the little transgressions that have been overlooked or excused, and sports now has a big problem.

“I really believe in the power of sport for changing people,” Gould said. “But it’s not going to happen if we just hope it happens. We need to train coaches, and the leagues need to be organized and have pretty defined rules of what’s tolerable and what’s not tolerable.

“You also need to recognize good sporting behavior,” he added. “It’s not just about fixing the problem.”

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has developed a “True Sport” campaign to help parents, coaches and administrators return the emphasis in sports to the life lessons that don’t show up in the win-loss column. The program includes educational materials, codes of conduct and good behavior pledges, and the approach is individually tailored for athletes in elementary school, middle school and high school. In the Netherlands, the Dutch FA responded to Richard Nieuwenhuizen’s death with a “Respect” campaign targeted at players of all levels.

And at i9 Sports, sportsmanship is valued so highly there are weekly rewards for it.

The recreational youth league, which has programs in 280 communities in 28 states, designates a specific value of sportsmanship — being a good buddy, humility, leadership — for coaches to emphasize each week. At the end of the week, the player on each team who best exemplified that value gets recognized.

Parents also have to pledge to display good sportsmanship, and not use negative or derogatory language with officials, coaches, other parents or kids. They also pledge to keep fun as the main emphasis of the league.

“We believe there’s great value in competition, healthy competition,” said Frank Fiume, founder and CEO of i9 Sports. “But learning how to win with grace and lose with dignity is key.”

That’s a lesson that’s been ignored for too long, McCabe said, with devastating consequences.

Four years after he was assaulted, McCabe still gets migraine-like headaches every day, has limited hearing in his left ear and has lost his sense of taste and smell. Yet he continues to referee — “I just love doing it so much” — hoping he can instill lessons of sportsmanship with the coaches and players he encounters.

But he wonders if it has any impact. Though his assault was big news in Rochester when it happened and again when his attacker was sentenced to 10 years in prison, McCabe sees the same poisonous behavior everywhere he goes. At a state championship football game he worked recently, one of the coaches complained constantly and threw his clipboard. At a boys lacrosse game, McCabe heard a coach tell one of his players to “bury” an opponent.

“Every time I try to talk to somebody I hit a brick wall,” McCabe said.

“Unless something’s done in this country, it’s going to happen again,” he said. “Until we teach kids how to play and respect officials, it’s going to happen again.”

—

AP Sports Writers Tales Azzoni and Ricardo Zuniga and Associated Press Writer Mike Corder contributed to this report.

They say 46-year-old Ricardo Portillo of Salt Lake City died late Saturday night.

Unified police spokesman Justin Hoyal says Portillo passed away at the hospital, where he was being treated following an assault during a soccer game last weekend.

Police say a 17-year-old player in a recreational soccer league punched Portillo after the man called a foul on him and issued him a yellow card.

The teen has been booked into juvenile detention on suspicion of aggravated assault.

Hoyal says authorities will consider additional charges since Portillo has died.

Anthony Sanchez, 18, is a senior at Sinton High School; the track athlete says this is one of the biggest hurdles he’s overcome.

“This is it, then I opened it up and then there it was the letter saying that I got accepted,” Sanchez said.

Back in January, Sanchez applied for the Gates Millennium Scholarship, along with 54,000 other students nationwide. He says 4 long months passed by before he got the news.

He says he was overwhelmed and had to make a call to the first person that came to mind.

“I called coach Whitehead from Trinity University telling him I got the scholarship, he was really excited,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez says it’s been his dream to continue his education while staying out on the track, and he had one college in mind for first choice.

“Trinity is a very expensive school and basically my parents said if I want to go I have to make it happen,” he added.

He says because Trinity University is a private school the tuition is costly, but with this scholarship Sanchez or his parents likely won’t need to pay a dime out of pocket.

“They are relieved they don’t have to pay for tuition,” Sanchez laughed.

He says his “X” factor that helped him shine brighter than every other applicant was his interest in overall education.

“There’s a term and it’s called Renaissance man and it’s the ability to do anything and to learn anything and want to do everything, I just like to do everything, recently I picked up welding, I do track and field, football, basketball, sometimes mess around with debate, I’m in band, mariachi band, jazz band, I just wanted to do everything,” Sanchez said.

He will move to San Antonio and enroll in school this fall and plans to study History and International Business.

Sanchez was one of three students in the region to receive this scholarship. His best friend from Odem High School in Texas was also awarded the scholarship and will attend the Universty of Texas.

Cruz will be honored by Big Brothers Big Sisters, one of the oldest and largest youth mentoring organizations in the United States, for his community service. Wendy DeMarco, Chief Marketing Officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters New York City, said that Cruz was selected to receive the Sports Award.

“Since joining the NFL, he has shined on and off the field, taking parts in service events in New York City and in New Jersey,”  DeMarco says. “He’s been active with the NFL’s Play 60 initiative designed to encourage kids to get active for 60 minutes a day and that goes along with our mantra of being physically active.”

RELATED: [VIDEO] What will Victor Cruz be up to this Super Bowl? 

In addition to the Play 60 campaign, the star football player has served lunch to the hungry at food pantries in partnership with Campbell’s Soup. Cruz will be presented with the award at Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City’s 32nd annual Sidewalks of New York Gala.

But he’s not being presented with the award by just anyone: 11-year-old Little Brother Tamauri will get the chance of a lifetime to give the NFL receiver his award. Tamauri and his Big Brother, Eric DeLillo, will speak in front of a crowd of over 1,000 people at the Waldorf Astoria where the dinner is taking place.

RELATED: New York City Giants’ Victor Cruz visits of Newtown victim 

DeMarco says Cruz met Tamauri and Eric just last week when he got to spend time with the Giants player at NFL headquarters. The two talked about the mentors that Cruz had throughout his life and the things that he learned from them.

“Tamauri really looks up to him not just as a professional athlete but also for how he gives back to the community. What struck Tamauri was how Cruz said to work hard — even when the odds seem stacked against you,” DeMarco says.

Cruz will receive the award on April 22nd.

Después del partido, con el Camp Nou ya vacío, disfrutando de la clasificación con mi familía. twitter.com/3gerardpique/s…

— Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) March 13, 2013

Milan’s picture in soccer gear – with matching red socks – was taken on the famous FC Barcelona soccer field, known to fans as Camp Nou, following a match on Tuesday.

And it seems like Shakira has fully embraced the fact that her son may one day become a soccer star like his father.

“Just like his father, baby Milan became a member of FC Barcelona at birth,” the Colombian pop star said in a statement released after she gave birth on January 22.

It’s a good thing too, as baby Milan seems to quickly amassing a number of athletic-gear related items: he’s been photographed wearing tiny custom-made Nikes and Shakira has toted the newborn in a baby carrier embroidered with Piqué’s jersey number, 3.

His first official time going out, in Camp Nou and watches his daddy score! Shak twitter.com/shakira/status…

— Shakira (@shakira) February 10, 2013

While Shakira seems to be content to play the role of soccer mom, she’ll soon have to switch gears when she takes to the judge’s chair on the third season of “The Voice,” which premieres on March 25 on NBC.

Baird was a young scout — this was before he became general manager of the Kansas City Royals, long before he became vice president of player personnel for the Boston Red Sox. It was 20 years ago. He had been coaching baseball — “on the field,” as baseball people like to say. He grew used to locating players’ weaknesses and working on them.

With Alex Rodriguez … Baird could see no weaknesses. The kid was perfect.

This is what rattled Allard Baird. He kept going back, again and again, to Westminster Christian High School in Miami to see the kid play. He must have watched Rodriguez 25 or 30 times — at games, at practices, at special batting sessions for the scouts. Scouts generally measure five tools, of course: Speed, defense, arm strength, hitting and hitting for power. Rodriguez had them all. He could hit, of course — he hit .500 his senior year. At 17, the ball already leaped off his bat and stayed in the air for a second or two longer than you expected — and it was obvious he would only get stronger. He was so fast that high school catchers verifiably could not throw him out stealing (he was 35 for 35 in stolen bases his senior year). He played a beautiful shortstop, and his arm was the best Baird had ever seen at shortstop. Oh, that arm might have been the best part — Rodriguez would throw and the ball would just skim the air across the infield, like a stone skipping over water.

Nobody could miss the tools. Once Baird took a brand new scout, his friend Muzzy Jackson, to see Rodriguez play. They watched him for five minutes. “This scouting business is easy,” Jackson said. “This kid’s got everything.”

Well, OK, Rodriguez was a true five-tool player. They are rare, but they happen.

This wasn’t what unnerved Allard Baird. Rodriguez didn’t just have tools — he had skill too. He knew what he was doing. And he loved to play. His teammates liked him. He wanted to learn. On the rare occasions when he failed — like when he would bounce the ball back to the pitcher — he would run his heart out to first base.

“When he took infield practice, he would show you his arm strength,” Baird says. “When he hit in intrasquad games, he would run at 100 percent. He never took a play off, never, and you have to remember he was levels above everyone else. He enjoyed being on the field. He loved baseball. When you talked to him, he was pretty humble — he knew that he was talented but he didn’t take anything for granted.

“Your job as an evaluator is to be positive. But it’s also to understand that the player will ultimately show you his deficiencies. With Alex, I just kept going back, and let’s just say it was pretty hard to dissect him.”

RELATED: In Puerto Rico, signs of a baseball revival

Baird says something else, something that might be worth remembering later on: He says that Rodriguez would do ANYTHING for scouts. Anything. They wanted him to stay after games to hit with a wooden bat? He would do that. They wanted him to talk about himself? He would talk about himself. They wanted to get him away from the field. He would do that. “He was out there every day doing whatever scouts wanted him to do,” Baird says. “He did it all with the joy of playing the game.”

Finally, Baird wrote his report. He graded Alex Rodriguez as a 70 player on the 20 to 80 scale. It was the highest grade Allard Baird would ever give a player, the highest grade he reasonably could give a player. “I ranked him a Hall of Famer,” Baird says. And you should understand that Baird wasn’t saying that A-Rod might develop into a Hall of Famer after some years of development and coaching. No, Baird was saying that at that very moment in time, at age 17, Alex Rodriguez could step into to the Major Leagues and have a Hall of Fame career.

Yes, Baird would say he literally shook as he sent the report in.

That is how good Alex Rodriguez was when he was young.

* * *

So, how did he get here? How did the most extraordinary young player of his generation (at the time, Red Sox GM Dan Duquette predicted, not facetiously, that Rodriguez might have a year where he hit .400 with 60 homers), a handsome young man who three times (three times!) was named one of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People, a phenom who was the best shortstop in the game more or less the day he showed up — how did that guy become this A-Rod?

The hated A-Rod.

The disgraced A-Rod.

The PED-abuser A-Rod.

The choking A-Rod.

The A-Rod that no team in baseball really wants.

How? Duquette is now Baltimore’s executive vice president of baseball operations, and it has been almost 20 years, but he still has this powerful memory of the first time he saw Rodriguez. He was GM of the Montreal Expos, and he remembers wandering around the minor league spring training fields in Lantana, Florida when he suddenly just stopped cold.

“Who,” he asked the guys with him, “Is that playing shortstop over there?”

He said this just seeing the young Alex Rodriguez field a ground ball. One ground ball. From two fields away.

“He had such great size and such fluid actions at shortstop,” Duquette says. “You just don’t see that combination … he was just an extraordinary talent. He was so supremely gifted that it really catches the eye. You didn’t even need a second glance to see it.”

At 18, the year after he was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, Rodriguez moved from Class A Appleton to Class AA Jacksonville to Class AAA Calgary to Seattle. He hit .312 with 21 homers and 20 stolen bases in the minors that first year. Seattle manager Lou Piniella talked the Mariners into calling up Rodriguez — not because of his soon-to-be-famous bat but because at 18 he was already better defensively than anyone on the Major League team. “He was awesome,” Rodriguez’s minor league teammate Raul Ibanez says plainly.

Rodriguez became a star almost instantly. In the 50 years leading up to 1996, only one 20-year-old shortstop — the Hall of Famer Robin Yount — had come to the plate 600 times in a season. It’s a rare thing to find a 20-year-old shortstop simply good enough to play every day in the big leagues. Yount, it should be said, was mostly overmatched – he hit .252 with two homers. Rodriguez at 20 hit .358 with 54 doubles and 36 homers and he finished second in the MVP balloting. There has never been a shortstop so good, so young.

He flashed all those tools and skills and traits that had amazed Allard Baird: Everyone talked about his joy for the game, his deference to teammates, his innocence. “On July 27,” Gerry Callahan wrote that year in a Sports Illustrated story called “The Fairest of Them All,” “Alex Rodriguez will turn 21, making him old enough to have a beer with his Seattle Mariners teammates. He says he’s not interested. ‘Can’t stand the taste,’ he says. Rodriguez has always felt more at home among milk drinkers.”

For the rest of this story, click here.

The two-time world champion is still involved in the sport he loves. His promotional company produces a series of bouts in North Texas, featuring local fighters.

Ayala is also training athletes, including a special group of students. The champ teaches a free boxing class exclusively for Parkinson’s patients. Paulie has no ties to Parkinson’s. He runs this class out of the goodness of his own heart.

Even though the disease affects motor skills, Ayala pushes his students like they’re preparing for a prize fight. It’s the only way he knows how to train.

“I want them to personally get better because I know them, and they come and they’re trusting me to help them,” said Ayala.

“Before I started here, I was up to probably 13 pills a day, and most of last year I maintained at about four pills a day,” said Gary Schmitz who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2000.

“It almost becomes my new medication of choice, is to come in here and workout. And the harder you push, the more benefits [you get]. Its reconnecting your mind back with your body and your body parts that Parkinson’s wants to take away from you.”

Chunky avocado guacamole .

Guacamole

Creamy, savory guacamole is always a crowd pleaser, and alongside crispy tortilla chips, is an oh-so-yummy party ready finger food. Click here for the recipe.

Salsa de xoconostle/cactus fruit salsa

Cactus fruit salsa

This isn’t your supermarket jarred salsa: instead, this salsa makes use of cactus plant fruit, smoky garlic and chipotle peppers for a dip that’s complex and flavorful. Click here for the recipe.

Spinach and cheese-filled empanadas.

Spinach and cheese empanadas

Empanadas are a Latino party staple and our cheese-filled empanadas are actually healthy, thanks to a whole wheat crust and the addition of baby spinach. Click here for the recipe.

A toasty Cuban sandwich.

Cuban sandwiches

These Cuban sandwiches are hearty and filling, filled to overflowing with pork, ham, Swiss cheese and of course, crispy pickle slices. Click here for the recipe.

Tender pork tinga piled high on a crispy tostada.

Pork tinga tostadas

Here’s a tip: prepare your pork tinga ahead of time and heat up just before you plan to serve the meat, piled high on crispy corn tortillas with a plethora of yummy toppings like cotija cheese, romaine lettuce, radishes and Mexican crema. Click here for the recipe.

Creamy arroz con pollo.

Arroz con pollo

Easy to whip up by the pot, arroz con pollo – creamy rice with flavorful, tender chicken – is satisfying enough to serve as a main dish for a crowd. Click here for the recipe.

Savory chile on carne.

Chile on Carne

Chile con carne – the Latin version of meaty chili – is perfect for a Super Bowl spread. Make a large batch, and set out a toppings bar with avocado chunks, shredded cheese, warm tortillas, diced fresh tomatoes and chopped scallions for a fun game day meal. Click here for the recipe.

Margaritas

Rare is the person that doesn’t love margaritas and the version made popular by East Coast eatery Dos Caminos includes sweet passion fruit juice for a fun variation on a classic cocktail. Click here for the recipe.

Perfect red wine sangria, served up at The Barclay Bar in New York City.

Sangria

The secret to being a great party host is to make entertaining seem effortless. With that in mind, there’s no better cocktail for serving at a party than sangria, which is best made in advance and made in large quantities. Click here for the recipe.

The defending Class 2A State Champions have every intention of keeping their title. And if friends Luis Lopez and Reno Perez have anything to say about the competition, the rest of the state better start bracing for second place.

This past weekend, Perez squatted an incredible 725 pounds, while Lopez has managed 750 pounds multiple times himself.

“People think we are obsessed but we just love what we do,” said Perez.

The great part about this dynamic duo is that they do everything together, even joking that they’re brothers from another mother.

“He practically lives with me. I take care of him,” said Perez.

Their story began back in sixth grade when Lopez moved in from Oklahoma. Luis even joked that when they met, Reno was more into skateboarding than sports.

“That was then, but now I think he is the strongest one here and he is a good leader,” said Lopez.

As partners in the gym, they find strength in one another.

“Reno is my motivation he does so much. He is my brother and he is a big thing in my life right now,” said Lopez. He added, “You know we do this together and we are gonna lift more, when we run together we run faster, we just build on each other. It’s like motivation, he flexes I flex, he says his legs are bigger I say mine are bigger we just build up on each other.”

The State Meet isn’t until the second weekend of March.