Latino Excellence podcast

Jesus Ortiz

Brought to you by Our Esquina, the Latino Excellence podcast will feature Latinos making a difference throughout the United States. Each episode features a different athlete or personality from our corner of the sports world. 

Episodes

  1. 09/25/2025

    Painter/muralist Liz Flores leaves her mark on Chicago

    In many ways, the basement of muralist Liz Flores’ childhood home in the Chicago suburbs was devoted to the Chicago White Sox, Marvel and DC Comics and Star Trek.  There will surely be a Cubs addition soon, though.Like a great majority of Mexican Americans living on the south side of Chicago or the suburbs south of the Windy City, Flores’ father Jaime Flores is a diehard White Sox fan. He has the mementoes to prove it. Liz Flores inherited her father’s White Sox fandom, but she knows enough about the iconic Chicago Cubs brand to have been receptive when the Cubs commissioned her to design the organization’s Hispanic Heritage Night jersey. “I’m excited,” she said. “It’s been really fun to work on it. It’s been it seems like such a long process.”Liz Flores’ murals can be found in Chicago. Her paintings are also in galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Italy. Although she’s clearly versatile, a great percentage of Flores’ work are figurative portraits. Most of those portraits feature women.According to the 2020 census, Latinos account for almost 29.7 percent of the Chicago population. Whites represent 31.4 percent of Chicago’s population, and African Americans account for 28.7. Flores is the daughter of a Mexican American father and a Cuban mother. Her mother Lizet arrived in the United States from Cuba at 12 years old. Flores’ Latina pride oozes in her work. She counts the iconic Frida Kahlo, the late Mexican muralist, among her inspirations. She’s also a fan of Mexican artists Hilda Palafox and Ana Leovy. “I’m very much inspired by like Latinad,” she says. “Being a Latina, just being a woman and womanhood and doing a lot of just storytelling through my paintings.  “And so, you know, I always hope that people can see themselves in the paintings or feel some sort of connection to the story I’m trying to tell through the painting or what I’m trying to say through the painting. And yeah, I would say that’s kind of who I am in a nutshell.”

    23 min
  2. 04/29/2025

    Latino Excellence podcast with Mya Perez

    Texas A&M sophomore Mya Perez is one of the top sluggers in the Southeastern Conference. The left-handed slugger carries the fifth best batting average (.433) and slugging percentage (.827) in the SEC. She’s also fifth in the SEC with a team-leading 59 RBIs, 49 of them in conference play. Mya also leads Texas A&M with 13 home runs. The first baseman from Corona, Calif., rarely has family in the stands. So she cherished the opportunity to play in front of her grandfather for the first time during the three-game series against Arkansas.“It means a lot to me,” Mya says of her grandfather’s visit. “He’s always helped me since I was younger to grow into the athlete I am. I’m very happy that he’s here watching me.” Mya would look into Section 108 at Davis Diamond to make eye contact with her father and grandfather each time she got to first base. Her dad loved how Aggie fans reacted to her walk-up song, “Volver, Volver.” The gritos and buzz through the crowd gave Raymond Jr. a sense that his daughter has connected with her fellow Aggies and A&M fans. Mya Perez is a third-generation Mexican American from California’s Riverside County. Her paternal great grandmother Petra came over from Jalostitlan, Jalisco, Mexico. In the latest episode of the Latino Excellence podcast, Mya Perez discussed her career, her pride in her Latino culture, her early homesickness at Texas A&M, her family in Corona, Calif., and much more.

    16 min
  3. 04/03/2025

    Latino Excellence chat with Texas associate head coach Elena Lovato

    University of Texas women's basketball associate head coach Elena Lovato is the top Latino coach at the 2025 Final Four, men's or women's.   Her Longhorns will face South Carolina on Friday night Tampa, Fla., in a national semifinal game. Lovato is in her third season as the associate head coach on Vic Schaefer’s staff. She also served one season as Texas’ assistant coach/recruiting coordinator for Schaefer, helping the Longhorns land the No. 4 ranked class in the country in 2021.  Before that, she spent four seasons over two stints at Mississippi State under Schaefer. She also served as the head coach of Arkansas-Fort Smith from 2016-2018. “Coaching basketball to me is about the love, the passion and the service that we get to display and help others and be blessed with these opportunities with the game,” Elena Lovato says. “So my journey starts with who I was raised by and who they molded me to be.  They gave me a big heart, and I work really hard.” Lovato’s parents, Frances and Ernesto, were a constant presence at her games, whether she was playing at West Texas A&M, coaching high school, junior college and Division II and Division I college.  “She’s my world,” Ernesto Lovato said from his hospital room Thursday. “We used to go everywhere ever since she was recruited out of high school to the college in West Texas in Canyon.” Frances Lovato died on Aug. 5, 2019, at 62 years old. Elena is still mourning her mother. She holds onto the memories and now serves as somewhat of an aunt-grandmother to her two brothers’ kids. Frances Lovato was somewhat of a team mom to Elena’s players at Trinity Valley Community College, Grayson Community, Fort Smith and Mississippi State. Winning and Elena’s parents were constants at Trinity Valley, where she won consecutive NJCAA Division I national titles in 2013 and 2014. She was the NJCAA Division I Coach of the Year after leading the 2013-14 Trinity Valley team to a 36-1 record. “My teams loved her,” Elena Lovato says of her mother. “She would cook enchiladas and sopapillas for them.” After her two national titles in her second stint at Trinity Valley, Elena joined Schaefer’s staff at Mississippi State before the start of the 2014-2015 season. She served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. She helped Schaefer guide the Bulldogs to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and their first Sweet 16 appearance in five years. Her recruiting classes helped Mississippi State reach two national championship games.

    24 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Brought to you by Our Esquina, the Latino Excellence podcast will feature Latinos making a difference throughout the United States. Each episode features a different athlete or personality from our corner of the sports world.