Giants’ wide receiver Victor Cruz made it big against long odds

Nice story this morning in the NY Times about Cruz, who is from Paterson, NJ.

Cruz was actually kicked out of UMass (twice) before getting his act together.

Catching On After a Last Chance

In desperation, Cruz scheduled a meeting with Marsh-Williams. His mother, Blanca Cruz, who had raised him in a single-parent home, made the drive to central Massachusetts from the family home in Paterson, N.J.

“Victor’s mother was distraught and overwhelmed emotionally because she said there was nothing waiting for Victor back home,” Marsh-Williams said Friday, looking back on the 2007 conversation in her office. “UMass was supposed to be his gateway out of a tough neighborhood, and she feared for what would happen if he went back. She worried he would never get out.

“I understood, but I explained that we had standards and he could not stay. If I had been betting right then, I would have bet that I would never see him again.”

Three years later, Marsh-Williams had her living room television tuned to a preseason football game, although she was not really watching it. She heard a familiar name, looked up at the replay of a spectacular touchdown catch, but nothing unusual registered. After another touchdown reception, she heard the announcers mention UMass. She looked closer at the television screen.

“And I recognized Victor,” Marsh-Williams said of Cruz, who had three touchdown catches in the game for the Giants. “I was blown away — just completely stunned. Who would have thought that? I couldn’t believe it was the same person.”

The improbable ascent of Victor Cruz has been a popular story line approaching this year’s Super Bowl — a narrative that parallels the late-season resurrection of the Giants. And much of the focus has been on Cruz’s misjudged athletic credentials, casting him as the ultimate disregarded football underdog.

But long before he was an undrafted free agent in search of an N.F.L. team, Cruz was on his way to being just another talented player who flunks out of college unprepared and untrained to do much of anything.