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By Janis Mork
August 17, 2013 (El Cajon)- Born missing three limbs due to a rare birth defect, Alex Montoya has triumphed over adversity. Now manager of Latino affairs for the San Diego Padres, he met representatives from Cuyamaca College after speaking at the Hall of Champions in Balboa Park and was invited to deliver the commencement speech.
Montoya moved here from Columbia when he was 4 years old. “It was absolutely a new world. It was at times scary and at times daunting, but really it was refreshing and exhilarating,” he told ECM. “I realized that there were boundless opportunities.”
He learned English by watching baseball. Montoya is most passionate about baseball because “it’s a very fair and very beautiful sport..I quickly saw that it was America’s past time… [It] was something that really stayed with me my entire life.”
He received his Bachelor’s in Communications at the University of Notre Dame and his Master’s in Sports Management at the University of San Francisco’s satellite campus in Orange County.
He notes that it’s not easy being successful in a world geared toward the able-bodied. It’s hard opening doorknobs, and he has to ask for a straw for a drink when he is eating out. “You have to educate people about you needs,” he reflected, adding that he also has to cope with “just the natural element of people staring.”
When asked about his greatest inspiration, he cited two. “First off, my faith is my cornerstone. Also… my favorite Scripture [is] Matthew 19:36- ‘With God, all things are possible’.” Second, Montoya says he has learned that “no matter what difficulties there are, there is great freedom, great opportunity, and a great chance for people to flourish, and to dream large and achieve large within this country.”
He first joined the Padres in 1999, three years after graduating from college, as an usher part-time. Having that job really helped him because “it got me in the system. It got my foot in the door,” he said. “I was able to do that for seven years.” He wanted to work for the Padres because he liked how the team worked on the field and around the community. Then, he got promoted to the front office.
The Padres staff and team “have been phenomenally supportive,” Montoya told ECM. “They’re extremely understanding and extremely accommodating. They will treat you with dignity and with respect. I’ve seen that from staff and players.”
His success has inspired others, whether they themselves have a disability or if they know someone who is disabled. He says that people have told him that they have used his story to tell a loved one that “anything’s possible.. and that you focus on what you have.”
For the future, he wants to “be the best baseball player, to expand my writing and speaking in the community and really just continue to show people that no matter what the difficulties, there are always ways around them.”
View text of his commencement speech.
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