A documentary about former University of Florida receiver Carlos Alvarez, one of the first athletes at the school to combine play and events, will debut next week.
Produced through ESPN Films from its SEC Storied collection, “The All-American Cuban Comet” will premiere on October 27 at 8:30 p. m. And in the SEC network.
Alvarez, 70, burst into the scene in the 1969 season when he and fellow Super Soph John Reaves became the most damaging pass duo at the Southeast Conference. Tennessee at the Gator Bowl.
“Carlos Álvarez rocked school football. He’s just a bomb and, man, where did that come from?” Said Steve Spurrier, the former Gators coach who, 3 years before Álvarez burst onto the scene, won the Trophy. Heisman as a Florida quarterback.
But Alvarez more than a footballer. At a time when protests against the Vietnam War and racial problems ravaged school campuses, the Cuban immigrant and longtime lawyer participated in the protests on the Gainesville campus while studying in Florida, he actively supported the integration of the Florida football team and a founding member of one of the country’s first athletes’ unions.
“I think that’s the challenge with a lot of people today. They don’t get involved,” said the young Alvarez, which is shown in a black-and-white video of the documentary.
Alvarez, who in 2011 was the first foreign-born Hispanic to be in the College Football Hall of Fame, opened the film by walking through Florida Field.
“Being at Florida Field has taken the adrenaline out of me,” Alvarez said.
For three seasons, former North Miami Senior High School highlighted 172 receptions for 2,563 yards and 19 touchdowns. The guy known as the Cuban comet still holds reception records in a singles game (15), in a singles season (88) and race yards (2563).
Decorated filmmakers Gaspar González and Castor Fernández directed and produced the film with a focus on Alvarez’s playing career as much as on campus activism, highlighting the existing environment of sports personalities involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and noting that it was rare even in the turbulent 1960s. . .
“One of the things we were most passionate about in Carlos’ story was that the fights he fought 50 years ago are applicable for the time being,” Gonzalez said. “Carlos understood the link between civil rights and the rights of athletes. From this generation of the sixties, the athletes who merged the game with the social conscience, there is Carlos Alvarez, who for this reason deserves to be remembered, in addition to being one of the wonderful recipients of the history of school football.