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Meet the best football team in Santa Fe you've never heard of.
Aaron Cajero is on a mission. The fate of the Santa Fe Indian School football team rests on his sturdy shoulders. He must deflect the cyclone of nervous anticipation swirling in this sweltering locker room before it destroys them all. The dark, windowless bunker is crammed with lockers, chairs and teenage boys jostling for position as they quietly cinch crimson belts, lace black cleats and wait for Cajero to provide salvation from the tension.
The senior tailback crouches on the floor of the small, suffocating room. His face is rigid with purpose and determination as he stares intently at the small portable stereo before him. A sparkle of recognition dances into his calm eyes. He leans forward and presses the play button.
I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop and you don't stop…
The room erupts with the throbbing beat of "Rapper's Delight," transforming the stoic war room into a riotous house party. Cajero cracks a smile and swaggers back to his locker. Sophomore lineman Robert Trujillo raises his arms and gives the air a comically vigorous spanking. Senior quarterback Miguel Rodriguez snaps his fingers and lets out a manic howl before busting a few dance moves capable of leaving would-be tacklers, if not teenage girls, reeling.
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There is reason to celebrate. The Braves are undefeated and off to their best start since Jesus was slobbering in the manger. A win today will give the team its first winning season in nearly as long. And this game against Dulce is a big 'un. Today is Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005. Homecoming.
It's a pivotal moment for a historically abysmal football program that plummeted to such depths that the school it represents hadn't bothered to host a homecoming game for years, until last season. Three years ago, the Braves had all of a dozen players on their varsity squad. SFIS still doesn't have enough players to field a junior varsity team, and it's rare their games get so much as a mention in the local sports pages. They nonetheless own the best record-if not the best team-in the city.
The winds of change have been whistling through campus ever since head coach Ernie Rodriguez took over the team six years ago. Now all the toil involved in taking the program off a respirator has manifested itself in this group of young men who hail from pueblos all across New Mexico and, in fact, the country. Many were complete strangers before the season started but, as a team, they have a chance to match the win total of the past three seasons combined if they finish the season unbeaten.
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There is, of course, a catch.
SFIS won't win a state championship. They won't even make the state playoffs. Undefeated or not. That's because no matter how well the Braves do this season, the team is barred by the New Mexico Activities Association from competing in the class AAA postseason because it plays an independent schedule. No matter that-as of the Sept. 30 standings-at least one AAA team with absolutely no wins thus far is guaranteed to make the state playoffs while the Braves, the only undefeated team in AAA, would stay home.
It's a cruel twist of fate, but at the moment the team is more concerned with the weather. Outside it's blue skies and scorching rays, but inside the locker room a thunderstorm is brewing. The Sugarhill Gang has abdicated to AC/DC. The steady drumbeat of "Thunderstruck" begins to dictate the collective heartbeat in the room. A frenetic guitar introduction escalates the pulse. Then lightning strikes.
Nah-nah-nah-nah-nahhh, Thun-der!
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh yeeeaaaah!!" Miguel Rodriguez bellows.
Nah-nah-nah-nah-nahhh, Thun-der!
Ernie Rodriguez-Miguel's father-sticks his head in the door and shouts,
"Five minutes."
Nah-nah-nah-nah-nahhh, Thun-der!
The players finish wrapping ankles and
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situating hip pads. The mood takes a serious turn. The players complete their transformation from names-denoted in black marker on strips of athletic tape fastened to their lockers: "A. Cajero," "J. Vigil," "R. Begay," "M. Rodriguez…"-into numbers by pulling on their jersey-shrouded shoulder pads in quick succession.
Number 22, Miguel Rodriguez, paces the room spinning a football in his hands. Number 31, Cajero, sits down and aims his eyes skyward, channeling his adrenaline into the ceiling tiles. Number 14, Royale Begay, sits perfectly still, staring a hole into his locker. Number 33, Corey Twiss, closes his eyes and bobs his head absently with each
Thun-der!
He inhales and exhales long draughts of the musty air. His legs shake with anticipation.
Coach Rodriguez sticks his head in again, "Alright, let's go."
It's game time.
Royale Begay has something on his mind.
The senior running back isn't stressed about homework. He's not homesick for the Navajo community back in Gallup. He isn't even worried about the grotesquely swollen leg hobbling senior fullback Antonio Lucero, the battering ram responsible for opening holes a Cadillac-let alone Begay and Cajero-could run through. None of that bothers him. But that damn hill…
"It's been bugging me all week," Begay says. "It just gives our opponents that much more motivation. Every team we play the rest of the season wants to be the team that knocks off that zero."
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He's referring to the hill that stands between the football field and the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater on the SFIS campus. Some intrepid artisan has spelled out "06 Braves: 4-0" with white rocks on the hill's flank. It's meant to be a tribute to the Braves. It's something else entirely to the Dulce Hawks.
"It's pretty much an insult to the other team," Miguel Rodriguez says. "It's an insult to have that '4-0' up there. It's an insult for us to schedule them as our homecoming game. We were their homecoming game last year and we beat them in overtime so they have plenty of motivation."
If you believe what anyone wearing shoulder pads at SFIS tells you, a spotless record is not what motivates the Braves.
"It's not about being undefeated," Miguel Rodriguez says. "It's not about what our record is. It's about how hard we play each game. The wins are nice-they're better than losses-but we're more concerned about playing hard and having fun."
The team's unblemished record isn't
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diminishing the merriment of the pregame festivities. An armada of SUVs and minivans circles the field. Barbecue smoke wafts over a small battalion of fans wrapping up their second hour of tailgating before the game even starts.
It's a good day for football. Clear skies, warm weather, sizzling burgers and frosty watermelon slices. But all that is secondary to the fact that these fans finally have something to cheer about. The windows of their vehicles are painted with slogans like "Go Braves," "Braves #1" and "4-0."
"It's great, it's nice, but 4-0 doesn't really mean anything," junior Edwin Alonzo says. "We treat it the same as if we were 0-4. We just try to focus on winning the next game."
Alonzo-a native of Laguna Pueblo-is focused on this game in particular. The bulky defensive end spent his freshman year at Dulce before transferring to SFIS and is eager to get reacquainted with old friends. Perhaps beginning the pleasantries by leveling the quarterback with a vicious blindside hit?
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"Nah, straight up," Alonzo smiles deviously. "I want him to see me coming."
It's hard not to see the Dulce players coming as they sprint onto the field in their yellow and white uniforms. The visitors temporarily halt their charge to huddle-conveniently within earshot of the Braves-and begin doing what Hawks do. Namely, bark like dogs. They begin woofing and howling like a pack of feral pit bulls until a voice inside the scrum screams, "What are we gonna do?!"
Win!!
"How are we gonna hit?!"
Hard!
"How we gonna hit?!"
Hard!
The Braves are unfazed. Not surprising, considering their quarterback wrote the PowerPoint presentation-if not the book-on being cool under pressure. During homecoming festivities earlier in the week, Miguel Rodriguez proselytized "How To Be Cool" (the main tenet being "not to try too hard") for a school talent show. When the other homecoming court candidates paraded before a student assembly in tribal attire, Miguel-the only Brave who isn't Native American-made the walk sporting a crimson and gold sombrero.
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"We have our share of jokers," Ernie Rodriguez says with a smile. "Every team needs that one or two guys that keep things light. Fortunately, they try to keep the joking away from me. I don't think they think I'm humored too easily."
Miguel's teammates are a different story. On a team full of clowns, he's the prince, keeping the locker room atmosphere breezy when he isn't cracking jokes in the huddle.
"Miguel is always making people laugh," Begay says. "But when it comes to serious work he can roll up his sleeves and get the job done. We all joke around and have fun but when it comes time for practice and games, we leave it all on the field."
Three of the team's eight seniors have been on the field together since the eighth grade, a welcome dose of stability for a program that has grappled for years with an emaciated roster.
"In the past we were never sure who we were going to have week-to-week," Coach Rodriguez says. "There have been times where we were shuffling people and setting positions on the way to a game. Fortunately this year we have a solid core of players we can depend on."
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The seniors were expected to carry a
bulk of the workload heading into the season, but an inexperienced offensive line was reason for concern. The Braves returned only one starter, junior Leander Loretto, and enlisted freshman center Kelly Lucero-Antonio's younger brother-to handle the snaps. But the Braves have won all their battles thus far primarily because of the guys in the trenches.
"The line is where it's at," Miguel Rodriguez says. "It's been a big surprise. I must have been sacked at least four times a
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game last year. These younger guys are psyched to play, they're amped for every
game and every practice, every time they get on the field."
That wasn't always the case. It used to be tough to get any players-amped or not-out for football. But even though SFIS has 37 players suiting up for varsity this season-three years ago there were 30 on the varsity and junior high teams combined-without a junior varsity program, the Braves' depth chart is greener than that forgotten hunk of pepper jack in the back of the fridge.
"We get a lot of pure rookies, kids that have never put a football uniform on," Rodriguez says. "It's always a Catch-22. You want to get kids in the game but it takes a while to prepare them to the point where they can get out there and not be at risk of being seriously hurt."
But it's been the Braves who have put a hurting on their opponents, if not prematurely aging their coach in the process. The team began the season with a 22-16 victory at Española Valley before a pair of dramatic last-minute wins against Pojoaque and McCurdy.
The team survived a 32-30 nail-biter against Pojoaque thanks to two touchdown passes from Miguel Rodriguez and a pair of scores by Cajero, including the game-winner with a minute remaining. Against McCurdy, the Braves rallied back from a 27-0 third quarter deficit to win behind Cajero's 233 rushing yards and four touchdowns. The senior tailback-who was injured most of last season-has become the team's primary weapon, even though his coach insists there is no "i" in "Cajero."
"Aaron has certainly run the ball well, but there's a lot of support there," Rodriguez says. "It's difficult to say that one guy is out there shining above everyone else when everyone else is responsible for that one guy shining."
SFIS matched its win total from all of last season in its first three games. They were close wins-the team's average
margin of victory was less than three points-but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And the team exploded in its fourth game, a 44-16 annihilation of Navajo Prep in which the Braves' starters didn't even play in the second half.
Dulce is a different story and SFIS knows it. But this is their house. This is their homecoming. This is their chance to remain unbeaten. To secure their first winning season in nearly 20 years. And they want Dulce to know it. As the national anthem-sung in Tewa-nears its completion, the SFIS players and fans shout the last few words in English:
…and the home of the…BRAVES!!!
Antonio Lucero has lost his head.
On most plays, the fullback is busy demolishing anyone foolish enough to tread in the path of Cajero, Rodriguez and Begay. This time it's Lucero carrying the ball and smashing into a Dulce defender so hard that their face masks have wedged together. The two players have to remove their helmets before a referee is able to wrench them free.
"You don't want to see Antonio coming at you," Miguel Rodriguez laughs. "He's
tough
. You just can't knock the kid down."
When a defender-or three-is forced to wrestle the wrecking ball to the ground, it's enough to cause the defense some momentary trepidation. Sure enough, the Braves score on the play after
Close Encounters of the Lucero Kind
when Cajero scampers into the end zone for the game's first score.
Lucero could barely walk after he took a wicked helmet shot to the knee against Navajo Prep. His right leg
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subsequently turned ghastly shades of purple and swelled to twice its normal size. He is gamely hobbling along with a black knee brace and a right leg mummified in athletic wrap. His playing status against Dulce was considered questionable to everybody but Lucero.
"He's basically running on one leg," says team trainer Greg Maroney. "He's probably only about 50 percent right now. But you gotta know Antonio. He's a stubborn kid. If he can walk, he wants to play."
Lucero can barely do the former, but that isn't
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having much effect on the latter. It's the kind of determination that was virtually extinct from the program just a few years ago. Coach Rodriguez is the architect whose demanding style has helped players like Lucero lay a foundation for Braves to come, even if the coach never intended-or wanted, for that matter-to be the savior of SFIS football.
Ernie Rodriguez was bred to be a basketball coach. His father coached hoops for more than 20 years at area schools like St. Michael's, Santa Fe High, Pojoaque and Española. Rodriguez himself was a standout player in high school and college before the Santa Fe native and father of five began his coaching career in 1984 as an assistant basketball, football and track coach at Santa Fe High. Stints as head basketball coach at Mesa Vista, Mora and Pojoaque set the table for a call from SFIS six years ago.
That's when Rodriguez was hired as the Braves' varsity basketball coach, a position he still holds. At the time, SFIS also had hired a new football coach desperate for assistants. Rodriguez reluctantly agreed to join the football staff but, after the head coach resigned four games into the season, Rodriguez was asked to take over the program. He accepted.
"It's no fun to be halfway in the swimming pool," Rodriguez chuckles. "So I jumped in knowing full well that the situation we were getting into had a definite history of failure."
When Coach Rodriguez took over as head coach, he inherited an 0-4 team with a long history of disappointment. The team finished that first season 1-7. In order to rebuild the program, Rodriguez decided he had to level it.
"We had some good kids but we didn't feel like the commitment was full," Rodriguez says. "We had to become more demanding. Consequently we had lower numbers. But we got right down to the core, down to people that really wanted to play and develop pride in the product they were putting on the field."
SFIS isn't a stranger to athletic success. Dozens of banners hang from the rafters inside the Francis L Abeyta Gymnasium. District championships. Regional championships. State championships. Virtually every sport boasts multiple banners abbreviated to contain the litany of championship seasons, i.e. "Basketball District Champions: '81, 83, 84, 85, 86…" and so on.
Every sport except football.
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There is one lonely football banner which reads simply, "District Champions: 1987." A huge photo of that team sits proudly on the wall in an adjoining hallway. The 1987 team finished with a pedestrian 5-3 overall record.
A win against Dulce would allow this year's team to match that victory total with four games still remaining. The team's progress has been slow but significant since Rodriguez started coaching. Last year, the Braves finished 3-4 but had to cancel its first game of the season because extensive renovations on campus delayed the start of the school year until the dormitories were ready.
It was another wrinkle in the day-to-day life of coaching at SFIS where all students admitted to the school are required to present a Certificate of Indian Blood, the exception being the children of staff members. That posed another challenge for Rodriguez. He had to convince his own son to attend a school where he would be by definition an outsider.
"I was broken up about it," Miguel Rodriguez says. "It was rough the first few years, kids used to tease me because I'm not Indian, but I don't think they look at me differently anymore. I'm proud of who I am and where I'm from and they respect that."
Tribal affiliation is as much a social consideration among SFIS students as ethnicity. While every high school has its own cliquish factions, Ernie Rodriguez-who also teaches US history and physical education at the school-says SFIS students tend to travel in circles centered on individual pueblos.
"When you have a lot of kids coming from the same pueblo they tend to hang out with each other," Rodriguez says. "The good thing is that when they get out here on the football field it doesn't matter where they come from. They share their suffering and they share their rewards. That's what the camaraderie is built upon."
Rodriguez imagines for many dorm students the boarding school life requires some acclimation. Students can only roam outside the school's walls on weekends and Tuesday afternoons. On-campus social life is primarily centered around athletic events and hanging out in the campus recreation center.
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"At first it was tough," Cajero, a native of Jemez Pueblo, says. "But after four or five years, you get used to it."
It was harder for some football players to adapt to the school's rigorous academic standards. To ensure his players made the grade, Coach Rodriguez established an athletic study hall-which caused still more players to flee the program. Nevertheless, the roster slowly expanded. Winning a game was no longer considered a freak accident. Changing the mentality of a program accustomed to losing was harder.
"Our players have always had pride in what they were attempting to accomplish," Rodriguez says. "But we had to clear that hurdle of getting to the point where we believed that we could win. There were a few years there that walking down the hallway for our players was social suicide."
A winning record has gone a long way toward throwing away those social straight razors, but Rodriguez is wary about equating fan turnout with success.
"A lot of it has had to do with people's perceptions," Rodriguez says. "You put a few wins together and people want to come out. But we teach the guys that they're not playing for anybody in the stands. It's all about what's going on between the lines."
Ernie Rodriguez is pleased.
Then again, he could be livid. Or perplexed. Or bemused. Or about to do a song-and-dance routine inspired by
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
. It's difficult to tell. The man's poker face has a poker face. But he has reason to be pleased. Despite some porous pass defense and enough missed tackles to suggest Dulce is sponsored by Crisco, the Braves are throttling the Hawks 30-12 at halftime.
The rout-in-progress is a direct result of the
cogs in the team's offensive machine. Begay and Cajero are racking up enough mileage to qualify for frequent flyer rewards. Cajero has scored
two touchdowns and a two-point conversion. Miguel Rodriguez
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has flipped two touchdown passes, a 23-yard strike to sophomore Jonathan Vigil and a nine-yard score to Lucero. The one-legged Lucero has also kicked two point-after tries and turned a bobbled third attempt into a two-point conversion pass to Miguel.
Not too shabby. But Coach Rodriguez could care less about the last 24 minutes. It's the next 24 that he's concerned with. As the players catch their breath in the locker room, Rodriguez rattles off instructions and adjustments. The offensive line needs to compensate for the shifting Dulce defense. The defensive linemen need to keep their heads up.
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The defensive secondary needs to pull its head out.
"Fellas, you're going to have to shut down the passing game," Rodriguez says. "You have to come out sharp. You have to come out aggressive. You gotta put 'em away."
There are no dissenting opinions. Not that it would matter if there were.
"If you get in an argument with Coach Rod you're going to lose," senior Arbrey Vicenti says and laughs. "I really suggest you don't start one."
Vicenti is another example of why a team with no summer program and a scant two weeks to prepare before the season has done a 180. The gangly transplant from Sells, Ariz. (home of the Tohono O'odham Nation) hit the weight room hard in the off-season and returned "a remade player," according to Rodriguez. Now Vicenti is a starter on both sides of the ball. But he is also a senior and with the imminent departure of the Class of 2006, the naysayers are already predicting the team's precipitous fall back to mediocrity.
"As the New Mexican so deftly put it [in its season preview] we're losing our seniors and life won't be the same without them," Rodriguez says, sarcastically. "Well, we're doing our best to prepare our younger guys so that this isn't just a flash-in-the-pan season for us."
The issue of whether or not underclassmen like Loretto, Vigil, Twiss, Adrian Eckleberry and Nathan Carlisle can keep success simmering at SFIS has been put on the back burner for now. The players have more pressing concerns, like the fact that they can't compete for a state championship no matter how many wins they accumulate, thanks to the NMAA rule against independents participating in the playoffs.
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The dearth of light at the end of what has become an otherwise incandescent tunnel is a bittersweet pill for the players to swallow.
"That goes through my head all the time," Miguel Rodriguez says. "To break out this year and know we won't be able to go to the playoffs is frustrating. We've worked hard to get to this point. It's great if we go undefeated, but there's another team that can say they won a state championship. But…all we can do is think about the right here and now."
Right here and now, the Braves have one of the best records in the state. But players who have survived more losses than Nasdaq are also being confronted, for the first time, with the prospect of competing for a state title. Their coach is sympathetic, though he understands this team's success isn't tantamount to sustaining a viable program.
"I'm sure like anybody else they want to get to that state tournament," Rodriguez says. "But our decision-making process led us to the conclusion that we needed to build and to build we needed to have some flexibility in
our scheduling."
The plot has thickened since SFIS agreed to the terms of being an independent two years ago. The postseason format has expanded so that 16 of the 21 teams at the AAA level will qualify for the state playoffs. Under the current rules and given the current standings, that means several teams with losing records will advance to the postseason. The Braves will not.
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"I think the decision to not allow independents to compete for the championship ought to be revisited," Rodriguez says. "If those independents are better football teams than any of the 16 teams that qualify then they ought to be given some consideration. We certainly understand that the [NMAA] has its rules and we're going to abide by them, but we might ask them to revisit that particular rule."
Not likely. According to Mario Martinez, the NMAA assistant director of men's athletics, the Braves have a snowball's chance in Las Cruces of being granted a reprieve.
"I'm sure they're very happy with the way that their season is going," Martinez says. "But when they decided to play an independent schedule they understood that no matter how well they did, they would not advance to the postseason."
Even if NMAA lets the Braves in, there's little doubt other teams would criticize the weakness of their schedule. Only one SFIS opponent (McCurdy) currently has a winning record. And while the wins over AAAA Española Valley and AAA Pojoaque bolstered their case, no other SFIS opponent is higher than AA. It hardly matters that the Braves have been playing-and most times losing to-those same teams for years.
"I suppose some would say those teams are getting weaker," Rodriguez says. "Maybe that's the case. But when you come from where we've been, even if the other teams are weaker than they used to be, we're still a lot better than we used to be."
Where they are is off to the best start by a SFIS football team in the 42 years that Athletic Director Ron Porterfield has been with the school. But that didn't prevent Porterfield from recently signing off on spending the next two seasons in independent limbo.
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"There is going to be a number of people who will say that we did the wrong thing by staying independent," Porterfield says. "But they don't realize that our schedule would look a lot different if we were playing in a district. We made the decision so that we could get the program back on level ground. And I think that Coach Rodriguez has done a wonderful job of doing that by getting kids out and teaching them the game."
Fundamentals. That's the premise of Rodriguez's philosophy. Do the basics well, work hard and you can be proud of your effort, win or lose.
"We've never placed an emphasis on winning," Rodriguez says. "I've always been uncomfortable with situations where winning is paramount. Certainly it's a consideration, but when you start looking just at wins and losses you're missing all the good stuff in between."
Then again, almost nothing is sweeter than being undefeated-say it with me,
Un-de-feat-ed
-if the Braves do end up running the table. But all the conjecture is a moot point if the Braves lose a game, something Dulce is doing its best to make happen.
Presley Rivas is about to ruin the party.
The Dulce quarterback has already given the SFIS defense heat stroke with a blistering second half performance. The Braves have managed only one score in the half, a 37-yard gallop by Cajero in the third quarter. Now the team is limping. Its confidence is eroding. The defense is-
Olé!
- tackling like matadors. Begay and Cajero are running into a brick wall. Miguel Rodriguez completed a pass in the end zone-problem is, a Dulce defender caught it. Now the Braves cling to a 36-32 lead with 10, 9, 8, 7…seconds remaining. Dulce ball. One play left.
That zero on the hill is in peril. The spotless record, the faint postseason hopes, the perfect season are all in danger as Rivas trots to the line of scrimmage with 50 yards standing between him and the end zone. Fifty yards is a yawn for a guy who has already netted three touchdowns (two through the air, one on the ground) at that distance and beyond in this game.
The SFIS bleachers have come alive. Fans who were ready to line up for the post-game barbecue a few minutes ago are desperately stomping their feet and howling "
De-fense! De-fense! De-fense!
" Coach Rodriguez and his assistants are screaming instructions but the moment is too loud, too intense, for anything to register.
Dulce lines up in a shotgun formation. No surprise-Helen Keller could tell you the Hawks would go to the air-but the Braves have already proven themselves susceptible to the Dulce passing game.
Rivas takes the snap as the clock hits zero.
He's playing on borrowed time. His receivers streak toward the end zone. Rivas looks. He cocks his arm to throw and… nothing. The Braves' Michael Padilla barrels through the line with his tractor beam set on Rivas. The quarterback scrambles to the right. Looks to throw…still nothing. Defenders are on his receivers like white on dice.
Time to gamble.
Rivas tucks the ball under his arm and makes a run for it. He jukes past one Brave and slips away from another. He's at the 45, the 40, he cuts upfield at the 35 and…Presley Rivas, meet Antonio Lucero. Rivas tries to shake away from Lucero and freshman Isaiah Calabaza but he has a better chance of being carried into the end zone by a flock of pterodactyls. Lucero and Calabaza wrestle Rivas to the ground. Game over. And the fans go wild.
Braves on the field sprint toward the sideline. Braves on the sidelines swarm onto the field. They collide somewhere in between in one jubilantly chaotic embrace. The carcasses of devastated Dulce players are strewn all over the field. Lucero pushes himself off the ground and quietly walks over to the nearest one and pats him on the back before initiating the customary "good game" conga line.
Afterwards, the Braves assemble at midfield, pull off their helmets and take a knee. Coach Rodriguez stands before his team and waits for the excited chatter to die down. He isn't pleased.
"This one doesn't feel as good as the other four, does it?" he asks, rhetorically.
"No sir," the players reply in unison.
Rodriguez knows his team has dodged yet another bullet. They didn't play to their capabilities. They weren't aggressive enough. They made critical mistakes. It's another win, but that's the least of his concerns.
"I care so little about that record," Rodriguez says, pointing to the hill beside the field which after the team's 43-12 victory over Springer on Oct. 1 was scrapped. "Nobody is ever going to lay down for Santa Fe Indian School,
nobody
."
Rodriguez lets the statement linger. He pauses. His face softens. He damn near cracks a smile. Ugly or not, it
is
a win. But they all know nowadays that-and much more-is expected of them.
"We were good enough today," Rodriguez concludes, "but we can do better."
