Alejandro "Junior" Cruz Ortiz (January 6, 1938March 17, 1993) was a Puerto Rican political leader, teacher, and coach of Puerto Rico's National Women Softball team. He was mayor of the city of Guaynabo during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Biography
Alejandro Cruz made his mark in sports as well as politics in Puerto Rico. He served as mayor of the City of Guaynabo for three 4-year terms from 1980 to 1993. In addition to being a mayor, he was president of the Municipal Federation of Mayors, second vice-president of the New Progressive Party, vice president of the local Republican party chapter, and president of Puerto Rico Softball Federation.
Cruz was born in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. His father was Alejandro Cruz Perez and his mother was Marta Ortiz. At the age of one, his family moved to the Barrio Santa Rosa III in Guaynabo. In 1955, he enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico. He was undecided between a degree as a physical education teacher or a law career. but his love for sports won him over. After graduation in 1958, he started his teaching career in the town of Corozal. In the 1960s, he transferred to the town of Guaynabo and began teaching at Margarita Janer Palacios High School. He taught until 1973. During this time, he also coached the baseball teams of the towns of Fajardo, Humacao, Rio Piedras, and Guaynabo. In 1967, he was elected state president of the Association of Physical Education and Health teachers.
During an interview, Cruz told El Nuevo Dia reporter Pepo Garcia in 1983, "It was a hard job. Physical education teachers always have been subestimated. Tearing down walls was hard and going to the legislature looking for change did not accomplish anything. Teachers' status continues to be the same..."
Since childhood, Cruz was passionate about sports, particularly athletism, volleyball, baseball and softball. His leader mentality moved him to favor coaching, instead of playing. In 1967, while still a teacher, he was elected President of the State Association of Physical Education Teachers. Later, he became one of Puerto Rico's most famous women's softball coaches. A year after putting together his first female softball team in 1973, he won a silver medal at the Central American Games in the Dominican Republic. Throughout his career as a coach, his softball team won five silver medals and one gold medal in international competitions, including the Panamerican Games, Central American Games. Cruz is the author of Softbol de Alto Nivel, a book about the fundamentals of strategy, exercises, and rules of the game of softball. He became president of the Puerto Rican Softball Federation during much of his period as mayor of Guaynabo. But, Cruz's love for sports touched more than buildings and parks. He was, perhaps, best known for his devotion to the game and its athletes. From cockfighting to volleyball, Cruz was a tireless promoter of Puerto Rican sports.
An achievement filled-life combined his love for sports with his desire to impulse Puerto Rico, and in particular, his town of Guaynabo, to economic development. It was not by choice, but to make a point, that Cruz decided to join the New Progressive Party (Partido Nuevo Progresista, in Spanish). In 1972, Cruz, then a physical education teacher, went to the Guaynabo City Hall to ask the town's mayor for a donation to buy running shoes for his track and field students who were competing in a regional event. The mayor denied the request and told him to let the students "continue to run barefoot". That disappointment led him to join politics as a way to make a change in sports. Cruz was often heard saying, "it was sports that led me to politics so I could help sports from a different platform."