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Danny Villanueva:
From the NFL to the Foundations of Univision
AS AN NFL KICKER, HE EARNED A MODEST SALARY- HE THEN WENT ON TO CO-FOUND THE MOST POWERFUL SPANISH-LANGUAGE TELEVISION NETWORK IN THE UNITED STATES
›› BY: JOSÉ F. SANCHEZ | L. A.
Born in a cabin in New Mexico, son of Mexican missionaries, and died as one of the wealthiest and most influential Latino executives in the United States. The story of Danny Villanueva is the American Dream in its most unlikely and most authentic form is the story of a man who entered profes-
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sional football when Latinos were a rarity in NFL locker rooms, and who, when he hung up his cleats, went from appearing on television screens on Sundays to building a Spanish-language TV empire. What no one imagined— not even he himself— was how far he would go.
Villanueva began his career as a kicker for the Los Angeles Rams in 1960, at a time when it was extraordinarily rare to see a Latino player
PUBLISHED BY on a professional team. In 1962 he was the only Mexican American on the roster, and he knew it. He turned it into a banner rather than a burden. But Villanueva could not live on football alone. His salary with the Rams was so modest that he took a side job as a sports broadcaster at KMEX— a small,
nearly unknown Spanishlanguage television station in Los Angeles. Years later, he would recall with his famous sense of humor that the team had asked him not to publicly disclose his salary.“ I’ m glad,” he replied.“ Because it embarrasses me as much as it embarrasses you.”
When he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys, Villanueva continued flying to Los Angeles to work at KMEX. He played in the legendary Ice Bowl of 1967— the NFL championship played at minus-48 degrees wind chill in Green Bay, which Dallas lost to the Packers in the fi- nal seconds. That game, he said, inspired him to retire. He was 30 years old, with a second life waiting.