Alexander Olivas is an ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism student covering Cesar Chavez High School for AzPreps365.com

No matter the circumstances and limited resources, there’s always a way possible.

The Cesar Chavez baseball program has been finding ways to give its players the opportunity to look stylish on the field with new uniforms and trip experiences that they’ll never forget.

Despite being from an area where not a lot of opportunity and income is presented compared to other areas, the Cesar Chavez baseball program has been consistent in giving its players within the program the best baseball opportunities possible. Head coach Sergio Acosta has first hand experience of growing up from an area with very limited opportunities and uses that as a goal into always being able to give back to the kids in the program whether its new equipment, trip experiences, or new uniforms.  

“Well coming from my own personal background I grew up from a small town where a lot of the opportunities were very limited and so I’ve always felt somebody gave to me, so I felt I should give back to our kids,” said Acosta. “The reason why we fundraise is to provide opportunities that we might not have or our kids have, a lot of times people don’t realize how expensive baseball can be.”

Fundraising helped the Champions baseball team in acquiring two new uniform jerseys (a purple and gray) for approximately above $2,000 in 2022. One fundraiser in particular that greatly impacted the team in the past year, according to Acosta, was through its cookie dough sales which generated over $9,000 in funding for the program. 

“We’ve been doing cookie dough for about 15 years and we usually average anywhere between $4,000-$5,000 a year, last year was our biggest year as we profited over $9,000 from our cookie dough sales,” Acosta said. “With our Diamondback partnership, we were also able to raise some money through the tournament, this year our tournament was another huge fundraiser for us.”

The Arizona Diamondbacks have been very impactful to the program, even helping the team to fund a tournament now called the Chase Your Dreams Tournament. Assistant coach Armando Tellez, who’s coached since 2018, explains the significance that the Dbacks have brought to the team and even explains how the organization is on board to help improve future events for Chavez baseball.

“The Diamondbacks gave us $10,000 to pay for all the umpires, to pay for all the baseballs, anything else that was necessary for us to have the tournament the Diamondbacks paid that bill and we’ve worked so hard to run this tournament and now that they’re sponsoring it we feel blessed,” Tellez said. “They’re now asking us what they can do to help make the tournament better for next year so they’re all on board, we’ve even had Alek Thomas that came out for our skills challenge and the Dbacks were fully represented out here.” 

Even the parents have gotten involved in the program in helping on giving the players opportunities, one parent also funded new uniforms for the team this season. Bobby Sahuaqui, a parent whose son plays on the team, explains the help that all the parents including him have contributed to the program and how much it means to them.

“We care about our kids, we care about our presentation on how we look when other teams come out here that even though we don’t have the funding or opportunities they have that we care enough to represent ourselves as Cesar Chavez not just as a team but as a community,” Sahuaqui said. “A couple of weeks ago we came out here and donated our own time, we were able to clean up the field, paint the walls, paint the dugout, just doing all the hard labor that it takes to make the field look nice and that’s what we do.”   

Although the field is owned by the city of Phoenix, Chavez baseball still invests around $2,000-$3,000 a year alone in having the fields reseeded. But still experiences some issues and is in search of sponsors for help to improve the field for the future. So for any businesses looking for a team to sponsor in the future, the Cesar Chavez baseball program is one to be considered as they’re open to any local businesses who’s willing to sponsor them. 

“We’ve had some major issues with gophers so if anyone knows the magic to getting rid of gophers that would help tremendously in improving the field,” Acosta said. “It would be great if we can try to get a touch up on the field and a little uplift from any sponsors for our program.”