Carlos Alvarez was a consensus All-American wide receiver for the University of Florida who set the school receiving record that still stands today. That is just one of the marks Alvarez left during his tenure in Gainesville as an honors graduate in political science, a campus activist, and the first Cuban American to strap it on for Gator football.
Alvarez’s life story—including growing up in exile from communist Cuba and his stellar football career—took center stage during a gathering of former Gator greats Wednesday night. The event at the J. Wayne Reitz Student Union featured a screening of the documentary, “The All-American Cuban Comet,” a chronicle of Alvarez’s rise from a little boy in Miami who couldn’t speak English, to a college football star and beyond.
Alvarez was joined by the film’s director, fellow Cuban American Gaspar Gonzalez.
In the documentary, Alvarez relates how he and his family ran four paper routes for the Miami Herald after fleeing the authoritarian reign of Fidel Castro. Delivering papers was among the few, mostly service jobs available to Cuban and Hispanic immigrants in South Florida where, in 1960, they were a tiny minority.
He recalls one afternoon as a child, standing on a front stoop in the town of North Miami, collecting from a customer on his paper route. Not yet having learned English, he used a hand-written note from his older brother to tell the lady of the house why he was there.
“Her face changed from all smiles, welcoming, to a look of just hate,” Alvarez, 73, said. “She said, ‘You’re just a [ethnic slur].’”
His voice cracked as he remembered that moment when he was 10 years old.
After the film’s screening, part of a sports media symposium hosted by the UF College of Journalism and Communications, Alvarez said there are parallels between “the pain” of his childhood experiences and the campaign rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, who has decried an “invasion” of the U.S. by immigrants.
“They are using fear for purposes of political gain,” Alvarez said when asked to comment on Trump’s assertion that, among other things, “immigrants are poisoning the blood of America.”
Alvarez said he set his sights on excelling at football in part because he believed performance could help him prevail over prejudice. He was a standout at North Miami High and was recruited by the University of Miami, LSU, Georgia, and other major programs, but chose UF, where his older brothers, Cesar and Arturo, were already enrolled.
In 1969, Alvarez lined up as wide receiver in his first varsity game as a Gator, the season opener. University of Houston players came into Florida Field, fully expecting to rout the unranked, unremarkable home team. On the third play, quarterback John Reaves found Alvarez streaking down the left sideline for a thrilling 70-yard touchdown that began a shellacking of the No. 1 ranked team in the nation.
“The Cuban Comet” as he came to be known was christened in a play that Alvarez says brought down barriers and changed his life.
Celebrity and conscience helped propel Alvarez to get involved in campus politics, the struggle for African American student rights, and a growing call for an end to the war in Vietnam.
In the question/answer session Wednesday night, he recounted that he took heat from head coach Doug Dickey and UF President Stephen C. O’Connell for being out of line from what was considered “an athlete’s place.”
Alvarez said he forged life-long bonds on the football field.
“The players became like my brothers,” he said, adding that Black players who did not join the varsity squad until 1970 also found welcome on the gridiron.
Alvarez lauded the courage of trailblazing Black teammates Willie Jackson Sr. and Leonard George, who was in attendance Wednesday. A scholarship program was created in their honor in 2020, the 50th anniversary of their breaking the UF football color barrier.
Bad knees would bench Alvarez’s hopes for a career in the NFL but didn’t cripple his commitment to “fully becoming an American.”
After graduating from UF, with honors, he went to law school at Duke University on an academic scholarship, then taught law at Southern Methodist University.
Alvarez was inducted into the UF Hall of Fame and in 2011 became the first Cuban-born American inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He thinks his immigrant history delayed the national honor that came 42 years after he won the hearts of Gator Nation.
Alvarez believes his success—through hard work and example—is a testament to the social and economic value immigrants have brought to America.
“Please,” he said. “Do not be persuaded by fear.”