{"id":21,"date":"2019-04-09T06:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999945402"},"modified":"2019-04-09T06:00:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T13:00:20","slug":"island-life-a-challenge-for-avalon-highs-adalberto-beto-martinez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/island-life-a-challenge-for-avalon-highs-adalberto-beto-martinez","title":{"rendered":"Island life a challenge for Avalon High’s Adalberto ‘Beto’ Martinez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Though Adelberto “Beto” is a captain on Avalon High’s football, basketball and volleyball teams, he says football is his number one priority. Photo by The562.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Santa Catalina Island is less than 30 miles off the coast of Long Beach, and the 75-square-mile island, with a population of about 5,000, is geared for resort living. Although it may look like an\u00a0idyllic place to escape to, it can feel like Alcatraz for an ambitious high school student-athlete.<\/p>\n

Adalberto “Beto” Martinez is a captain on the football, basketball and volleyball teams at Avalon High\u2014 total enrollment, 400\u2014 and his dreams of studying math and playing football at the University of Southern California are a little harder to fulfill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard living on the island,\u201d says the Avalon sophomore. \u201cIt\u2019s not competitive here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenges facing Martinez are nothing new to Avalon High principal Cheryl Savio.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur kids are up against a lot of challenges because we don\u2019t have access to things you would expect if you were going to a school on the mainland,\u201d Savio said. \u201cWe have kids with the drive and desire, but living here is isolating for them. (Beto) is one of a kind with his drive and what he\u2019s trying to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without specialized coaching or participating in club showcases, Martinez is technically behind other mainland athletes his age. However, he also doesn\u2019t have to deal with the distractions of the talent development industry, and he\u2019s got an entire island supporting him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur facilities may be a little different because we\u2019re in a small town with limited space and funds, but an athlete is an athlete, and a dream is a dream,\u201d Avalon athletic trainer and coach Andrew Hobbs said. \u201cSome of the greatest names in the hall of fames have come from small towns, rural and humble settings where they practiced on a dirt basketball court. It\u2019s about how much you want it, and if you can put in the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez was born in Long Beach, but he\u2019s always lived on Catalina, and he has 75 direct family members in Avalon. His mom, Ana Belen Perez, knows that number off the top of her head because she\u2019s always organizing family gatherings. It seems silly to call them reunions since they happen so often.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a huge family, but this is a very small community, and if I\u2019m not watching you someone is going to tell me what you\u2019re doing,\u201d Perez said. \u201c(Beto) has a lot of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Adalberto “Beto” Martinez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following in his older cousins\u2019 footsteps, Martinez played a lot of sports growing up, but his first love was football. He started flag football when he was in third grade and a Pop Warner road game a few years later was his first experience on the mainland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cool,\u201d Martinez recalled. \u201cOnce we started playing, I realized that this is reality. It\u2019s harder over here, but we got used to it, and I wanted that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back on the Catalina Express passenger ferry heading home, Martinez also remembers dreading docking in Avalon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of depressing,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cI like the relationships on the island, but for sports, it\u2019s better over there. I knew then I didn\u2019t want to live on the island my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, for now, his home is on the island, with his younger sister, brother and mother, who says she had to be Beto’s “mom and dad at the same time\u00a0until his stepdad [Javier Jimenez] stepped in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with enrolling him in every sport she could find, Perez made sure to teach her son to enjoy the outdoor activities that island life had to offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids here get involved with alcohol and drugs,\u201d Perez said. \u201cI was afraid that could happen to my kids. But we keep them busy all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalina offers a wide range of activities for a young, athletic person; everything from running to snorkeling, hiking, biking, spearfishing and canoeing, to name a very few.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if that doesn\u2019t interest you, or you never had anyone show you how, you\u2019ll find yourself getting bored very fast in a resort community,” Hobbs said.<\/p>\n

There’s very little time for Martinez to be bored. During the spring semester, he gets out of school around 3 p.m. and immediately goes to the football field to run routes and work on his speed. Martinez goes back to volleyball practice until 7 p.m., and then he caps his day by lifting weights with his football teammates before getting home around 10 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe avoids stupid places,\u201d Hobbs said of Martinez. \u201cHe does have guys looking out for him, but he\u2019s chosen to hang out with those guys. We\u2019ve got kids all over town who do some really stupid things at his age. He\u2019s not perfect, and this stuff has developed more over the last two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stuff he\u2019s gone through has given him that mental strength,\u201d Avalon football coach Michael Forcella said. \u201cHe\u2019s someone that I see going places. He\u2019s got goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 6-foot, 175-pound Martinez made a name for himself as a wide receiver with Avalon Pop Warner, and came into his freshman year at Avalon High ready to contribute to the team that had won a CIF Southern Section 8-man championship the year before.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe begged me to play defensive back as well,\u201d Forcella said. \u201cAnd I told him he had to show it in practice. That\u2019s when I started to see his crazy work ethic. He won the position by week three.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge for Martinez was finding a leadership role as a freshman with his new squad full of experienced seniors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was rough at the start,\u201d said Hobbs, who is also an assistant coach. \u201cBeto learned how to speak to older guys with respect while showing what he has by performing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez scored eight touchdowns last season while the Lancers went 9-2 and reached the CIF 8-man Division 1 quarterfinals. Although he also plays basketball and volleyball at Avalon, Martinez said his number one priority is football.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere on the island, it\u2019s such a unique situation,\u201d Forcella said. \u201cAt a larger school, you have more dedicated players to one sport. One of the last things we want to do is [tell a player] to just focus on football. Beto is one of those kids who can handle a lot. You can put a lot on his plate and he handles it really well. That\u2019s rare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez fills his days on the island with sports, no matter what. He watches ESPN more than any other channel, his favorite movie is “Friday Night Lights” and his only recreational reading is online sports articles.<\/p>\n

\u201cSports are my life,\u201d Martinez said. Soon, that life will be able to flourish somewhere new.<\/p>\n

“When kids graduate here it\u2019s always scary,\u201d Perez said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to a new place to be with strangers. I think it\u2019s going to hurt when I see [Beto] leave. He wants to go somewhere to catch his dream, and I\u2019m going to support him no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard living on the island,\u201d says the Avalon High sophomore, a captain on the football, basketball and volleyball teams. \u201cIt\u2019s not competitive here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":16398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,7],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-instagram","tag-high-school-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}