A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE: FROM THE BANKS OF THE RIO GRANDE TO THE HALLS OF U MICHIGAN, THE HARVARD OF THE MIDWEST

(Ed.'s Note: After I told the following story to local attorney and buddy Rick Zayas, he asked that I write it so people could get a kick out of the unlikely turn of events that saw me attend the University of Michigan after I transferred from Texas Southmost College. Here it is Rick.)

By Juan Montoya

It was late summer in 1975 and I had been attending Texas Southmost College on the GI Bill since the previous summer after I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marines in 1974.

I got on a fast track and had some 43 hours over that time, including summer, fall and spring semesters. I looked around for a school to transfer and set my aim on Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. Why Western?

I had read Ball Four, the tell-all best seller book written by knuckleball pitcher Jim Bouton that "tears the cover off the biggest names of baseball," and which recounted much of his baseball career, spent mainly with the New York Yankees. 

Bouton had written in collaboration with sports writer Leonard Schecter and described a side of baseball that was previously unseen by writing about the obscene jokes, drunken womanizing, and routine drug use among players, including by Bouton himself. It was a hugely entertaining book and caused a sensation when it was published in 1970.

He disclosed how rampant amphetamine or "greenies" usage was among players and revealed the heavy drinking of Yankee legend Mickey Mantle, which had previously been kept almost entirely out of the press and how others walked off the street and onto the field still drunk. 

Bouton described clashes with his coaches (usually about his role with the team, his opinion that he should use the knuckleball exclusively, and his desire to throw between outings) and his outspoken views on politics. I figured that if they could teach Bouton – a jock – how to write like that at Western, they could teach me, a journalism major, as well.

And besides, as a migrant farmworker, I had traveled up the Lake Michigan shoreline and had marveled at the beauty of the tulip-filled medians in Holland, the fruit belt surrounding Kalmazoo, and the stretches of pine, oak and black walnut stands toward Manistee – which we drove through in a dreamy mist under a full moon one summer – that just grew thicker as we headed to Northport off beautiful Grand Traverse Bay at the top of the Lower Peninsula to pick cherries. 

The cherry on top of the icing on the cake is that since I had worked as a migrant in Michigan, I also qualified for in-state tuition.

I told TSC Journalism instructor John McAllsiter about it and he became my de facto advisor. He allowed me to use the long distance line in his office if I needed to check on my application there. McAllister had worked for the Brownsville Herald and had many years of newspaper experience elsewhere.

It was coming to the end of the summer semester and I was getting nervous because I had not received admission to Western. I had applied through Western's United Migrants for Opportunity Inc. (UMOI) and the admissions officer to whom I had sent my application materials told me its director –  one Gil Montes – was embroiled in a controversy over missing funds. It was possible my application could fall through the cracks.

"Have you applied elsewhere?, she asked.

"No," I said, "I was set on attending Western because of Bouton's book," I told her.

"Well," she said, "Can I put your application on intra-university mail to see if any other schools are interested?"

With the end of the summer semester a scant two weeks away, I agreed, and crossed my fingers.

Less than a week later, one Sandra Applewhite (her last name was anglo, but she was Mexican-American) called McAllister's office and left a message for me to call her. I did and she said "Congratulations, you have been admitted to the University of Michigan."

"Where's that," I asked. 

"It's in Ann Arbor," she said. 

"And where is that?," I asked again.

"It's about 40 miles southeast of Detroit. Come on up. Your paperwork for registration will be ready when you get here. You'll like Ann Arbor."

(Incidentally, once there, I found out that Ann Arbor, like Austin, is known to have a streak of progressivism. The local city council had passed an ordinance that levied a $10 fine for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana while that much would have meant prison time in Texas. They also had a Hash Bash in front of the graduate library every April 1, April Fools' Day.)

And so a week later (on a Saturday) I arrived in beautiful Ann Arbor (where every tree has been numbered and protected and has an amazing, lush, arboretum) with my suitcase in hand. It was then that I discovered that I had traveled into another universe. Walking down State Street I stopped before a pretty, almond-skinned woman with thick black hair sitting on a bench and asked her for directions to the UM Student Union.

"Sabes donde esta la student union?," I asked her. 

"Oh, I'm sorry. I am not Spanish," she replied.

These were the days before political correctness and I asked: "What are you, then?"

"I am from Tehran, Iran," she replied, and pointed to the building down the street that looked like a castle.

I thanked her and walked down the sidewalk mulling over the fact that I had just spoken to a UM student from across the planet. What other surprises awaited me, I wondered.

I walked through the portals where a plaque informed those entering that John F. Kennedy had announced the creation of the Job Corps in 1960 while he was still a senator, into a corridor paneled with black walnut on a marble hallway worn by student use since 1837,

one year after Texas declared independence, and a student billiard hall where the tables had no pockets. Being Saturday, all the offices were closed.

Where would I stay until classes started in the coming week? 

There was a tall, brown-skinned man walking down the corridor toward me wearing a beret and carrying a large leather briefcase  bulging with books and paperwork who I thought looked Mexican, but my experience with the Iranian woman had me doubting. I looked at him and he looked at me and gave me the universal Mexican greeting – he tilted his had back as if asking "Que onda?"

I did the same and he asked me if I had just come in and said I had.

"De donde eres?," he asked.

"Del Valle, de Brownsville," I replied.

It turned out he was Rudy Rosales, an assistant professor who was also  adviser for the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Atzlan (MEChA) student campus Chicano group.

"Tienes donde quedarte?," he asked, and when I told him I didn't he hooked me up at a student's house who had not yet  returned to campus but had allowed MEChA to house Chicano students who, like me, arrived early and had no place to stay. We were from Texas, New Mexico, Califas, and throughout the Southwest.

I would also meet Rudy's wife, Rosa, who would later go on to be the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) national president from 2006 to 2010 and kept in touch with the couple when I worked at the San Antonio Light in the early 1980s.

The next three years introduced me to the Harvard of the Midwest, a place that had alumni such as President Gerald Ford, Monkey Trial lawyer Clarence Darrow, actors James Earl Jones and Gilda Radner, 10 Nobel Laureates, astronauts, doctors, artists, and groundbreakers in almost every field of study like astronomers, chemists, writers, etc. Cameron County District Judge Arturo Nelson-Cisneros is a graduate of the UM Law School as was Dr. Jaime Chahin, who was TSC President Albert Besteiro's assistant after he graduated, in Administration.

I also got to see fifth-ranked Wolverines coach "Bo" Schembechler pacing the sidelines in the 104,000-capacity "Grey Old Lady" Michigan Stadium while his counterpart Woody Hayes coached the fourth-ranked UM's arch rival Ohio State Buckeyes across the field, battling for a trip to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl in the fall of 1977. Michigan won 14-6 only to lose to the USC Trojans in the Rose Bowl in January. It was like a small city.

(The UM-Ohio State rivalry was legendary. What do you call a useless nut? A buckeye)

Before I left for UM, I was playing on a  fast-pitch softball in the Brownsville city league sponsored by the local Jones-Blair franchise and when my teammates heard I was going to Michigan, they told me to expect something different than TSC.

"It's going to be a lot harder there," said a medical professional who played catcher for us.

It was, but it was also an introduction to a world far removed from the community college literally on the banks of the Rio Grande. My GPA when I graduated from Michigan in December 1977? A 3.4, the same as the GPA I had earned at TSC. 

What were the odds of all these things converging: that I read Ball Four and wanted to go to Kalamazoo, that Western wasn't available, that Rudy just happened to be at the Union, on a Saturday even, and that I ran into another South Mexicano at that particular place, and at that particular time? 

A twist of fate? Who knows? Regardless, I feel truly fortunate for those chance encounters and occurrences and am eternally grateful to both schools.

Sting 'em Scorps! Let's go Maize and Blue (Amazing Blue)!