Angel In The Sky

Noemi Perez was a true volleyball and life rags to riches story. Her recent loss has devastated a central California community.

By Jim Wojciechowski

The small central California city of Arvin is billed as “The garden in the sun.” Lush agricultural fields and vineyards blanket the vast landscape with the rolling terrain of Bear Mountain serving as a backdrop.

The splendor of the scenery is offset by the sobering reality that Arvin is a place with serious problems. It is one of the poorest cities in a wealthy state, resides in the county with the fourth-highest teen pregnancy rate in California, and in 2007 was identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as the U.S. city with the highest smog levels.

Arvin’s population of approximately 16,200 is nearly 90 percent Hispanic, mostly Spanish-speaking agricultural laborers. Less than  five percent of the city’s residents 25 or older have a college degree, according to the Web site city-data.com.

“Usually if you’re born here you stay here,” said Rikki Grigsby, 19, an Arvin native and a coach with the Bakersfield Starlings club. “It’s really hard to get out of. It’s really low-income and it’s a struggle.”

The Arvin area, located 15 miles southeast of Bakersfield and about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles in the San Joaquin Valley, is the setting for John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, published in 1939, is a well-known story of farmers from America’s heartland lured to California by the promise of a better life only to have their dreams dashed by the rich and powerful.

“It hasn’t changed much except for the color of the migrants’ skin,” said Jim Greer, director of the Central Valley Starlings in Bakersfield. “Instead of all the Okies and Arkies coming out it’s been the Spanish. There are a lot of grapes grown in the area so they’ve nestled in.

“It’s almost third-world in a way because it’s a lot of haves and have-nots. In the outlying areas you’ve got the land owners and in the cities it’s the land workers.”

Noemi Perez came from a family of laborers. She was the youngest of eight children and everyone in the family worked in the fields. But Noemi (pronounced No-Amy) was determined to break free from a hard life in which you harvest crops and stack sacks for eight hours a day, six days a week, no matter the weather, and take home less than $300.

She was careful to avoid becoming a teen pregnancy statistic because she was a “good girl,” as she told her club volleyball coach, Johnnita Hodge-Smith of the Bakersfield Starlings.

“She saw her family and she thought, I want to better myself. I want to better my family,” said Nancy Rodriguez, 19, a friend of Noemi’s from Arvin and now a sophomore setter at Feather River College in Quincy, Calif.

Like Rodriguez, Noemi had made it to college, as a freshman sprinter at California State University Bakersfield, and aspired to become a high school teacher.

“Noemi was very bright and she was just going to be a success,” said Cal State Bakersfield assistant track coach Robert Boyles.

Tragically, Noemi’s promising life ended at 18 in a fatal three-car accident Feb. 8. The other driver, Francisco Nestor Santo, has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and DUI, among three felony counts and a misdemeanor, according to Superior Court of California records.

Santo was driving eastbound in a westbound lane on Highway 223 in Arvin about 7 p.m. when he struck one car and then collided with Noemi’s 2000 Hyundai, according to the California Highway Patrol. Starlings equipment was found in Noemi’s wrecked car. She was coaching a 14-and-under team for the Bakersfield club.

“She was one of our poster children, who finally makes it out and then she’s taken out,” Greer said with frustration in his voice.

Noemi, nicknamed Nemo, was one of the original Bakersfield Starlings when the club was formed by Greer five years ago. The Starlings is the largest juniors club in the U.S. with 2,500 girls and 38 clubs. It was founded in 1996 by Byron Shewman with girls like Noemi in mind—to provide girls 10-18 an opportunity to play club ball regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Noemi spoke little English when she joined the Starlings but that didn’t prevent her from making an immediate and lasting impact.

“She really stood out from the rest of them for being continually cheerful and happy,” Greer said.

“She was really optimistic about everything,” Rodriguez said.

“I don’t even remember her ever having a bad day,” Hodge-Smith said.

Perez (left) is shown with teammate Katie Lopes at Starling Nationals. This was the tournament where she came up with the “Are you a Starling?” phrase.
Photo courtesy Byron Shewman.

Perez (first row, third from right) is shown with her Starlings teammates. A special Nemo memorial T-shirt has already raised several thousand dollars with reorder requests still coming in.
Photo courtesy Byron Shewman.

“I think of Noemi as someone that just embraced life and enjoyed everything it had to offer and made the most of it, even from her humble origins here,” said Ralph Gonzales, director of athletics at Arvin High School. “… She was always a girl that had a smile on her face and was constantly doing something.”

Rodriguez said intangibles made Noemi a “great player,” first as a setter, then a libero.

“She didn’t have as much talent as a lot of the other players but she had the biggest heart,” Rodriguez said, “and to me that’s probably more important than skill.”

Noemi was honored as the outstanding female athlete as a senior at Arvin High School. She participated in volleyball, basketball, track and softball at AHS and was named the team’s most inspirational athlete in every sport except track. Noemi’s basketball jersey (number 10) was retired after her death.

Noemi overcame torn knee ligaments—anterior cruciate and medial collateral—sustained during the basketball season of her junior year to continue her athletic career. She had reconstructive surgery in Mexico because it was cheaper and her family didn’t have insurance.

Noemi was also a good student, earning a 3.9 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale while taking advanced placement courses in high school.

“Her influence was tremendous on all of the students here,” Gonzales said. “Even the (different) classes here on campus were just devastated. She was a big part of everybody’s lives. I think it was more than just her being an athlete all year long and having that influence. I think it was really more the person that she was—very easy to like.”

The Starlings will remember the girl who appreciated everything the club stood for but would never accept a discount.

The girl with a strong faith who worshipped everything she had despite living in a house with boarded-up windows and no heat.

The girl who sold boxes of candy to pay her fees with pockets full of change.
The girl whose mom made homemade tortillas with all the fixings to share with the team.

The girl whose nickname was “Hot Sauce” because she liked her food spicy.

The girl who would bring her nieces and nephews to practice because she had to baby sit.

The girl who agreed to coach as long as a Starlings club was formed for kids like her in Arvin.

The girl who was pleasantly surprised to learn she was getting paid to coach.

The girl who made dozens of friends at a national tournament by posing the question, “Are you a Starling?”

The Arvin/Bakersfield community and the local Starlings family responded to the needs of Noemi’s family by raising and donating more than $5,000. An additional $5,000, including proceeds of a memorial T-shirt sale sponsored by the Starlings national office, also benefited the Perez family.

Noemi is buried at Arvin Cemetery, about a half-mile from the accident site. Hodge-Smith estimated 1,500 attended the burial, including scores of laborers in trucks. Much of the crowd remained long after the service had ended.

“She wanted to achieve so many things in life,” Rodriguez said. “And for her to get her life cut short, I just couldn’t believe it.”

It’s a sentiment felt throughout Central Valley, where hope and joy can be fleeting. In Hodge-Smith’s mind, Noemi’s loss is catastrophic.

“The next day after the funeral I just thought there should be snow or there should be rain—something major should happen … like a tsunami,” Hodge-Smith said emotionally. “I felt like Nemo should not leave without something big happening. Something big should happen when you lose an angel like that.”