There are a lot of reasons Mendota High School in Mendota, Calif., shouldn't be good at football. Nestled 40 miles west of Fresno in California's Central Valley, the vast majority of Mendota's 11,000 residents are migrant workers. Mendota's economy centers around the nearby farms, where many Mendota players spend their summers. Players rise at 3:45 every morning, spend their mornings working the farms and then head to conditioning at 2:30 in the afternoon, under California's blazing summer sun.
There are a lot of reasons Mendota High School should not be good at football. None of them stop the Aztecs from winning.
Robert "Beto" Mejia is Mendota's head coach, a Mendota native and a graduate of nearby Fresno State. In (at the time) his two seasons as head coach, Mejia has led the program to two Central Section Division VI championships. "Just because we have it hard in this town does not mean we can't be successful," says Mejia.
"We have to work for everything we get," said one player quoted in the video below. "It sends out a statement to everything that has nothing."