English 1



McFarland, USA Movie NotesJim White= coach of the cross country teamThomas Valles= fastest runner on the teamDanny Diaz= slowest runner on the teamDamacio Diaz- runnerDavid Diaz= runnerJohnny Sameniego= first member to join the teamVictor Puentes= runnerJose Cardenas= runnerJavi= Victor’s uncleLupe= Javi’s girlfriendJulie= Coach white’s oldest daughterJamie= Coach white’s youngest daughter.Cheryl= Coach White’s wifeSammy= friend who runs the marketAll of these individual face challenges, but, you need to focus in on just a few. Use this chart to take notes. Record anything you notice about the challenges they face, how they work to overcome them, and how they change over the course of the film. If you need more room use additional paper. The more thoroughly you take your notes, the easier the paper will be to write Coach Jim WhiteThomas VallesThe Diaz brothersDanny DaizChoose between Julie and Cheryl WhiteChoose between Victor Puentes and Jose CardenasMcFarland, USA quotationsDirections: Choose the three characters you will focus on for your essay from this list. Highlight each of your three characters in a different color. Character listJim White= coach of the cross country teamThomas Valles= fastest runner on the teamDanny Diaz= slowest runner on the teamDamacio Diaz- runnerDavid Diaz= runnerJohnny Sameniego= first member to join the teamVictor Puentes= runnerJose Cardenas= runnerJavi= Victor’s uncleLupe= Javi’s girlfriendJulie= Coach white’s oldest daughterJamie= Coach white’s youngest daughter.Cheryl= Coach White’s wifeSammy= friend who runs the marketNow read through the quotations and use the colors you’ve chosen for each character to highlight any portions of any quotations that reveal something about your characters. Please note that some quotations reveal things about multiple characters. Similarly, sometimes only part of a quotation will be relevant. The more thoughtfully you highlight, the easier it will be to write your paper!Dad, please tell me that you took the wrong exit. (Julie to her dad)Alright everybody, just stay with me. (Coach to his family outside taqueria)I don’t remember there being a whole lot more options… we cannot afford Bakersfield…you said it yourself; this was the only job you could get” (Wife to coach)It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, coach. It’s the size of the fight in the dog. (Johnny to coach)I’m thinking she offered you a chicken, and since you’re in here buying feed instead of barbeque sauce, I’m thinking you kept it. Smart move, hombre. Shows you’ve got manners. (Sammy, the store owner, to coach)Since 5 am. AM means morning, ese, not the radio. (Boys to coach when he asks how long they’ve been working)Coach Jenks tells me that you and he had an altercation at the game… he’s asking you to step down. (Principal to the coach)Seriously? You got fired from football in your first week? Congratulations White, they’re treating you like a picker. (Johnny and Victor to coach)David, Damacio, Danny. Wake up—it’s late. Your father’s waiting in the truck. Don’t be lazy. The world doesn’t wait for you. (Diaz mom to her boys… spoken in Spanish)You live in McFarland right? You ever taken a look out there. This is one of the poorest towns in America. These kids are invisible. They’re expendable. They come from the fields and they go back to the fields unless the prisons get them first…Mr. White, it’s pretty clear you don’t want to be here. But for these kids, these are the best years of their lives, and if we’re going to reach them, now is the time. But I guess that’s not your kind of thing. (Teacher to Coach White)Cross country? That’s a private school sport. They breathe different air than we do. (Principal to coach)Top ten in the state and he doesn’t own a pair of decent running shoes. (Coach to principal, talking about Thomas)I want to ask you a question? Do you think the guys in my class would be into cross-country? (Coach to Johnny when asking for his help to get a team together)Nobody wins around here, White. (Victor to coach)Jose, did you get me my change? My change got stuck in the machine. I asked Jose to get it out for me. (Coach White to football coach)Do me a favor, Valles, act a little happier. The coach just negotiated you out of a suspension. (Principal to Thomas)Ha? Danny Diaz? ... Yah, seven runners, not six runners and Danny Diaz!...And he’ll drag our ass down (Victor to team when he sees that Danny is on the team)I mean it. You’re my anchor Danny, and not because you’re fat. And you are a little fat, so you better lose some weight. You’re going to hold this team steady. I lose you, I lose your brothers. You’re important Diaz. Let’s go. (Coach to Danny)You think we play golf? We don’t got a country club. We don’t even got a Kmart. (Thomas to coach)My score don’t count? Why am I even here? (Danny to coach)Where the hell’s McFarland? I heard they can’t run without a cop behind them. Or a Taco Bell in front of them. (Another team at the Palo Alto invitational)Good, Danny, you never stopped. You never stopped. (Coach)What happened out there today was not your fault. It was my fault. I should have checked the course. That final hill, I should’ve known about that. Thomas would’ve eaten that kid’s lunch. What happened out there it’s on me, understood? (Coach to team after Palo Alto loss)It’s hard? I’ll tell you what’s hard is watching someone pass you on that last hill. What’s hard is losing when you know you haven’t done enough. Were going to get to the point when we see a hill we smile. The higher the better. Alright? Now we know what we didn’t know. (Coach to team)How many more do you want? Ten? twenty? A hundred? You think you’re tough, White? Well, we’re tough. We’re no runners, we’re pickers. And we’re always going to be pickers and everyday were going to get up and do the same thing over and over again just like this. So you can make us do it a hundred times, a thousand times, because guess what? It’s never going to change. You know what these are, White? You know what’s under here? Almond hulls. You eat almonds? Huh? You like them? They come out the packet real nice, right? Well somebody picked those, White, so you can use them for hill training, right? Suspend me if you want man, I’m done. (Thomas to coach)Julie is fifteen years old and you couldn’t even remember her cake… she’s your daughter and if you think any one of those fathers out there would miss their daughter’s birthday then you ought to go out and see what kind of cakes they get them. (Wife to coach)No one. Alright, my dad, but it wasn’t his fault…yah, well you don’t know about a lot of things, okay, White. You haven’t got a clue…look he’s a picker, he’s not a foreman like senior Diaz. He doesn’t run a crew. He just tries to get whatever work he can find. Arizona, Texas, wherever. And he got back yesterday, and his baby girl was pregnant. So he just started hitting the wall, alright. I was trying to get him to stop, and I just got in the way. Look, if he hurts his hands, he can’t work. Do you get that? (Thomas to coach)If you go off this bridge tonight, and there’s every chance you might, you’ll probably live. It’s not that high. But I promise you, Thomas, there’s no chance you’ll ever run again. None. Now I’m guessing running’s the best thing you got. Feels as if it might be the only thing you got. (Coach to Thomas)Don’t even think about it (Jamie to coach when he wants to repaint inside of house)Why you riding a Barbie bike?... What are you, Blanco Barbie? (Johnny to coach)Can they even understand you? Probably just point, huh? Go that way amigo! (Clovis coach to Coach White)Take home to the family. My husband always working, but every day he sitting at the table with his family. He is talking. He is listening. How are you going to be family if you no eating together? Huh? (Diaz mom to Coach)We don’t ask for help around here. You want to help me wash my buckets, you want to be a helpful person that’s okay, but I know why you’re here. You want my sons to run a race. Mr. White, your sport is like TV. It’s not essential. Each hour my boys train with you, that’s one hour they do not work with me. That’s food off our table. I don’t expect a man like you to understand. (Diaz dad to Coach)Okay listen guys I get it, your father needs you. So this is what we do. On days that you have to pick late, we’ll practice later. On the days we have meets, you pick extra early. And you’ll still make your dad’s quota. I’ll pick with you if I have to (coach to Diaz boys after picking lettuce with them)Coach? You sure about that? Not Blanco? Nor white? Not homes? (Coach to Diaz boys)My boys are running for you they need uniforms. And better shoes….You are a good man, and so I helping you. (Diaz mom to coach)You know, Javi, I think I owe you an apology. That first night we were here. That Friday night and we saw you and your cars, I thought you were… (Coach to Victor’s uncle, Javier)We fly like blackbirds through the orange groves, floating on a warm wind. When we run, we own the earth. The land is ours. We speak the bird’s language. Not immigrants no more. Not stupid Mexicans. When we run our spirits fly we speak to the gods. When we run we are the gods. (Jose’s paper that the teacher reads to the coach)I don’t know if you know, but if we keep going the way we’re going, you guys have a chance to qualify for state…I don’t have to be the one to tell you that the odds are stacked against you, but if you believe in yourselves and more importantly find a way to believe in each other, in your teammates, it won’t matter what anyone else thinks. (Coach to team)You don’t eat the produce. First rule of picking, you eat it you’re fired. (Team joking with coach)When we qualify, you’re worlds going to start looking very different, so start thinking about what college you’re going to apply to (Coach to team, while passing out SAT books)You know what… take your face out of those books. They’re going to ruin your eyes. Nobody needs a book in the fields. (Thomas’s dad to Thomas.)Congratulations. Team to watch. And coach to watch. Palo Alto’s got its eye on you. Could be something coming up if you’re interested. (Palo Alto coach to Coach White at state qualifying race)This is going to come down to which runners can handle the pain. So I want you to look at them and look at each other and ask yourself, who’s tougher? (Coach to team)This ain’t golf (Thomas to the Stevens’ creek runner)First I’d like to thank the Rovaldo family who were so kind to help me put this together. And to everyone who have been so generous to us along the way, muchos gracias por todo. And muchos gracias for helping me to understand what a quinciniera means and why this night is so important because it means our daughter is turning from this young girl to a beautiful woman… I hope you know how much you mean to me and how being your dad... makes me prouder than you’ll ever know. (Coach’s speech)My god, Javi, why won’t they leave you in peace? (Lupe to Javi)Were you even going to tell us? Were you going to watch us compete at state and then run off into the sunset with those country club kids? Were you even going to say adios, Blanco?… I get it. We all get it. This is America, right? You got to go bigger. Find a nicer place, better pay, better everything. Everyone’s always going to go for the better everything. That’s why no one stays in McFarland unless they have to. There ain’t nothing American dream about this place. (Thomas to coach)It feels like everything we’ve ever wanted. You know everything we’ve ever talked about. Big house. Security. Great school for the kids. Nice neighborhood. Nice safe neighborhood. (Coach to wife)But do you know how she got hurt? Your team jumped in front of her. They pushed her out of the way. They protected her like she was their family. You think she’s going to find that in Palo Alto or anywhere else for that matter?… nowhere I’ve ever lived has ever felt this much like home. (Wife to coach)Every team that’s here deserves to be. But they haven’t got what you’ve got. They don’t get up at dawn and go to work in the fields. They don’t go to school all day and then go back to those same fields. That’s what you do and then you come out with me and you run eight miles. Ten miles. And you take on even more pain. These kids don’t do what you do. They can’t even imagine it. When I went out to the field that day with you Diaz kids, I’ll be honest with you, it was the worst day’s work I ever had to do in my life. And I said to myself, whatever kind of crappy job I end up in, it’ll never be as tough as that. You kids do it every day and your parents hope they can do it every day and they’ll do it for a lifetime if it means a better life for you…the kind of privilege that someone like me takes for granted. There’s nothing you can’t do with that kind of strength, with that kind of heart. You kids have the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen. (Coach to team at state championship)That’s not Danny Diaz! (Coach when Danny made up the extra points by being the number five runner on the team at the state championships)We can now announce that the first ever California state cross country championship team is McFarland! (Announcer)McFarland huh? (Wife when she realizes that the coach has decided not to take the Palo Alto job)No one in the 1987 team had a single relative that complete 9th grade. Al seven runners attended college. Thomas Valles ran for College of the Sequoias. He now coaches the middle school track club. Danny Diaz graduated from Fresno State University. He now works as a counselor and teacher at McFarland High School. Damacio Diaz ran for College of the Sequoias. He is now a police detective. David Diaz graduated from Fresno State University. He is currently chairman of the McFarland Recreation and Park District. All three Diaz brothers are land owners. Johnny Sameniego ran for Cal State Bakersfield. He now teaches at McFarland Middle School. Victor Puentes earned a scholarship to Cal Poly. He served a sentence in a state penitentiary and is now back working in McFarland. Jose Cardenas became a writer- for the Los Angeles Times. He is currently serving his country in the US Army. The runners from that 1987 team still come out to practice, supporting the runners of today. Jim White retired from coaching in 2003 after showing his runners the world in meets across America, Europe and Asia. He still lives in McFarland. (Epilogue) ................
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