Port Chester's Calero brothers surviving, thriving

Port Chester's Calero brothers surviving, thriving

Some kids just seem to have no chance. The odds gang up on them due to circumstances in their families and they just fall by society's wayside. When they fail in school or in athletics or in life, we nod, because the excuses are so obvious and underlined.

And then there are those who rise out of unfathomable situations, somehow to not only survive but thrive.

Port Chester High's Jaime, Alex and J.P. Calero are three who defied the odds. They seemed to have no chance, and they are making it, to their credit and to the credit of those who surround them.

The Calero brothers - Jaime, a senior, and Alex and J.P., 11th-grade twins - will all wrestle in the divisional meet at Clarkstown South this weekend with hopes of making it to the sectionals and beyond. But those hopes are minor compared to others they harbor.

"I think they work hard because I think they want to have what they didn't have," said their aunt, Blanca Bayona. "They're good boys. They have great plans and goals for their lives, and I hope they can make it. They want to go to college and study and they want to have their own house and their own family. That's wonderful."

The whole story is wonderful because when the boys were ages 10 and 9, their mother, Carmen, passed away after a two-year battle with cancer. Their dad has been in and out of their lives, mostly out.

"All I remember was, she was hiding it from us," Jaime recalled while crying. "The first time I knew something was wrong was when she had to shave her head."

"I loved her a lot and I wish she was here," Alex said a few days ago, tears running down his cheeks.

Blanca, Carmen's sister, who had a successful career as a banker in Bogota, Colombia, for more than 20 years, picked up her entire life and came to America to help during Carmen's illness. When it became apparent that Carmen wasn't going to get better, Blanca promised to stay and care for the boys.

That was a massive commitment. Dennis Colangelo, who ran the Port Chester Council for the Arts - where the boys were active in elementary school programs - got Blanca a job and helped her obtain a work visa. Others stepped forward, too, notably Drew Cicoria, then a phys ed teacher at the Kennedy elementary school in Port Chester and eventually the football coach at the high school, who became like a father to the three kids and got them interested in sports, first as ballboys.

He'd take them to games, to camps, on vacations. If they needed cleats for football - all three play football, wrestle and are on the track and field team - or wrestling gear, that stuff would appear. The boys would tell Blanca they got them from school, but she had an idea they were coming from Cicoria, who had also made a promise to Carmen before she died.

"I used to do the arts," Jaime Calero said. "My mom got me involved in it, but I just stopped doing it because there was something that reminded me of her.

"I was a loser until I met sports. I used to be fat. I was a chubby kid. I played violin and I tap-danced. I respect the arts a lot. My brothers did the same thing. But we just found sports, and I was just, like, 'Yeah.' Something we fit in and we're good at; not great, but they accepted us."

Now they are leaders on their teams. Jaime, a linebacker/guard in football, last week earned honorable mention for the Golden Dozen athletic/academic team and was awarded the Bill Morton Scholarship. He has a 90.56 average in school and hopes to go to college at Richmond, Bentley or Northeastern. He's 26-7 as a wrestler in the 152-pound division.

J.P., an all-league lineman in football and the biggest of the three boys - he jokes that he got most of the food at home - is ranked No. 1 in the 189-pound weight class at 25-2.

And Alex (27-11 at 145), the smallest, is a tight end/defensive back in football, a distance runner in track and carries B-plus/A-minus grades in school.

"You can't find anybody who has a bad thing to say about any of them," Cicoria said. "They're top-of-the-line kids, and it goes back to the mother, and then the aunt who took over and is doing a great job in a tough situation for her."

All three kids cried when they spoke of their mother, when they spoke of their aunt, when they spoke of Cicoria and their wrestling coach Greg Domestico, and the sacrifices people have made for them.

Here is what they don't want, though: excuses, or anyone feeling sorry for them.

"I don't need anybody's pity," Jaime said. "I just do what I have to do. I have the same opportunity as everybody, and I have to take advantage. I definitely have to thank a lot of people."

They want to succeed for themselves, and as a way of thanking everybody.

"Yeah, because everybody's sacrificing so much," J.P. said. "So by winning and doing good, I'm just trying to make them happy."

"I think, like when I wrestle and work hard, when we win, you feel good," Alex said. "It's better than just hanging around with your friends and doing nothing after school. It's fun. You work hard and you have lots of responsibilities, and it's worth it."

Domestico said the three kids "inspire me."

"You see that determination, and I just wonder sometimes, do they have a little bit more in them because they've been through so much that something like an overtime wrestling match isn't that big a deal in their lives?" Domestico said. "It's almost more of a calming influence. They've been through adversity. This isn't adversity. They just go out there and wrestle.

"I don't know what it is, but they just have something extra about them. They're determined kids. They're just driven. They want to succeed. And they've taken the opportunities that have been given them, which other kids don't, and used them to their advantage. They haven't squandered them or taken them for granted. They say, 'You know what? Somebody's doing this for me, I'm going to give back. I'm going to go out and I'm going to perform and I'm going to use it and I'm going to be successful in what I do.' I just keep saying it, but they're awesome kids."

You couldn't say it enough.

Reach Rick Carpiniello at rcarpini@lohud.com and read his blog at www.lohud.com/blogs.