http://www.hispaniconline.com/magazine/2002/nov/Features/nfl.html
"“Things are changing slowly,” said Ron Rivera, (Hispanic player and coach (my added comment)) linebackers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles and a linebacker on the Chicago Bears team that won the 1985 Super Bowl. “Hispanic kids still gravitate toward the traditional Hispanic sports that were the national pastimes of their parents, and that’s baseball and soccer. But football is such a big part of American culture that it’s only a matter of time before more Hispanics excel at it.”
The 6-foot- 3, 302-pound González breaks the myth that Hispanics are too small for a game of giants. Green Bay’s Marco Rivera (6-4, 308), Jacksonville’s Colinet (6-6, 288) and Cincinnati’s Leyva (6-4, 315) are more examples of brawn uncurbed by their ethnicity."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/sports/football/03hispanics.html?pagewanted=print
"The N.F.L. might be more popular in Mexico than it is among Spanish-speaking people in the United States.
“I think it’s very possible,” said the former N.F.L. kicker Raul Allegre, who was born in Mexico and is now a well-known Spanish-language football broadcaster. “I think it’s a fact.”
Recent statistics support Mr. Allegre: In Spanish-speaking households in this country, which account for roughly 10 percent of the population, the N.F.L. is out of sight, out of mind, lagging far behind soccer, boxing, baseball, basketball and other sports in popularity, according to a study commissioned in December by ESPN Deportes, the Spanish-language arm of ESPN in the United States."
http://www.pressbox.co.uk/detailed/Sports/49ers_Garcia_pro
ud_to_represent_Latinos_in_NFL_76.html
"According to the NFL's media relations department, there are 20 Latinos dotting the league's rosters, only three of whom are kickers or punters. Ten years ago, there were only seven Latinos in the NFL, most of them kickers."
