Great Christmas Story About Oscar and his Family...

I apologize if this has already been posted, major kudos to the Feigenator...

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/bk/bkn/1186625

Maria Torres will likely never remember her first Christmas in the United States. She might never understand what it meant to her parents, how far they had come and why the gifts she opened brought more happiness to them than to her.

Someday, Oscar and Elizabeth Torres will tell their daughter about the Christmases in Venezuela. She will return with her parents as soon as her father's first NBA season is over, and will go back often. He will tell her of the Christmas mornings in which he was thrilled to receive a pair of shoes or clothes he would be the first to wear.

Elizabeth will tell her daughter about her first Christmas. She was an infant, less than 2 months old. Her father had never seen her and ached to be back with his family, but was in Montana, playing for the International Basketball Association's Billings RimRockers and hoping to make a career for himself and a better life for them.

Maria Torres will watch her mother cry again when she talks about the first Christmas without her own mother, Loida.

Eventually, Maria, now a 2-year-old toddler, will grow accustomed to her family's success and wealth her father's hard work and abundant athletic gifts will bring them.

She will know about their childhoods in Venezuela. She will know their large families (Oscar was one of seven children; Elizabeth one of six). But she might never fully share the feeling of realizing the American Dream.

In many ways, that is the idea, part of the dream. She might not be any happier on Christmas morning than he was with that new pair of shoes. But he will be.

"It makes me very happy to know, not just this Christmas, but every Christmas, she'll have the opportunities that I didn't have," Oscar Torres, 25 and a Rockets rookie, said through an interpreter. "The main thing we hoped for was to get normal things like shoes or clothes. When I was a kid, that's all I wanted. In those days, I couldn't wait for the morning to come so I could open my presents and get some new clothes.

"I didn't have the opportunity to enjoy things in my youth. My parents worked hard to give us what we needed. But I don't want her to go through the same things I had to go through. Some nights, there wouldn't be food. There were not toys to play with, or shoes, or clothes.

"I want her to have those things and a very good education."

Torres knows he can give more than he ever hoped to find under a tree. But as he discusses gifts his daughter will receive, Torres looks at her and smiles broadly as if he had never considered what NBA salaries could bring.

When he made the Rockets' roster as an unusual, undrafted find -- but not a surprise -- success was certain. But in many ways, his is a joy of generations of immigrants.

When he speaks of playing in the NBA, Torres sounds like many elite-level athletes. He wanted to compete against the best, he said, to play in the toughest league and develop his talents to their fullest. But when he speaks of the way his life would change and of dues he's paid, Torres looks at Elizabeth and Maria.

"For me, it was the way of life," Torres said, squeezing Elizabeth's hand. "Here in the United States is a much better way of life. It's not that it's not good in Venezuela. But here, athletes are paid very well. It's a higher standard of living. The biggest sacrifice was made to come here and give Maria what she'll need for the future."

Torres is not living a childhood dream. As a child, he never could have dreamed of an NBA lifestyle.

Torres was not one of the freakishly gifted talents that grew up with a basketball in his hands. He did not have an early notion that success and wealth would be his before he was through growing.

He was 14 years old when he held a basketball for the first time. A physical education teacher saw athletic potential and asked him to join a team.

"I liked it from the very first day," Torres said, "and never stopped practicing."

Within three years, he left his home in Caracas to play for a touring amateur team. He was just 18 and rarely playing when a tournament had taken him to Puerto La Cruz, Elizabeth's hometown.

"I was sitting, watching other teams play," Torres said. "There were other teams we would play at the tournament. The Pepsi vendor came by and gave me a Pepsi and said it was from the girl up there. She was there with three other friends. I asked, `Which one.'

"Her friend came by later, after the game, with her card. We found each other."

They have been together ever since.

After two more seasons, he moved on to the Venezuelan professional league and joined league champion Marinos De Oriente. It was not until his third season that he began getting regular playing time; in his fourth he became a starter and a league star.

Along the way, Torres was close to a deal with a Continental Basketball Association team. That fell through, forcing him to settle for his IBA season.

"The year (1999-2000 season) that I was in Montana was pretty rough," Torres said. "I came to the United States the night before my daughter was born. I didn't see here until four months after she was born (Nov. 3, 1999) because I was here in the United States.

"The biggest sacrifice I ever had to make was not being there for the birth of my first child. That's something I'll never forget. I'll never forget my first day in Montana, never. I think a lot when I'm by myself. I realize the sacrifices are going to pay off in the future."

Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson saw Torres play for a Venezuelan club team several years ago. Dawson told Torres he had the talent, but needed to develop his game. Last spring, he sent scout Brent Johnson to Venezuela to check out Torres.

That was enough to earn Torres an invitation to join the Rockets' summer league team, where his play in practices was enough to earn a training camp invite. In his final game in Los Angeles before returning to Venezuela and rejoining the national team, Torres had 26 points, including an 18-point third quarter.

There was little doubt then the 6-6, 210-pound guard would make the Rockets' roster. By the end of training camp, he was a lock. Preseason was enough to show he could force his way into the rotation.

"His potential is unlimited," Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "He has the size, the athletic ability and the range. If he keeps adding to his game, driving, post-ups, and things like that, he could be a really, really good player. I really think he has special skills."

Torres has averaged 8.8 points per game (most among undrafted rookies) and 14.3 in his seven starts. He leads rookies in free-throw percentage and is in the top 10 in field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage and scoring.

"I think he's going to be a very good player in this league for a long, long time," Dawson said.

"This is the reward for all the hard work that we've had to do as a couple to get to this level," Elizabeth said. "He has put in so much work at his end. And we've been there for him as a family."

In the Rockets' downward spiral of a season, they have repeatedly pointed to the development of rookies, forced by injuries to play, as the bright spot. Told the team plans to push Torres for the All-Star Saturday rookie game, Torres -- the first native Venezuelan in the NBA -- asked if there has ever been a Latin American NBA player.

There hasn't. If Torres makes it, he will not be the only Spanish-speaking player on the court. The Grizzlies' Spanish forward Pau Gasol is certain to make the team. But it was somewhat telling that Torres wanted to know about Spanish-speaking NBA players.

"I have to work very hard this year and in the future to be a role model to everyone in Venezuela," Torres said. "My goal is to not just talk well, but to be a good example for the youth."

Torres has been nearly as valuable a find for the Spanish-language media around the league as for the Rockets. He is interviewed in most cities. In Chicago, representatives from the Venezuelan Consulate met with him at the hotel and then attended the game. In Detroit, Torres saw a fan in the stands waiving a Venezuelan flag. In Houston, he is approached often by fans from Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

"I'm very grateful," Torres said. "I give thanks to God that everything is going so well here. It's great that so many of the Latin Americans are so interested my story. That pushes me every day to work even harder."

Torres said he has not had the time he expected to learn as much English as he planned.

"I'm very happy with the team, the coach ... all of us here are very united," Torres said. "My teammates ask me how I'm doing all the time and care about my welfare.

"When I first got here, Steve (Francis) and Cuttino (Mobley) immediately welcomed me. Cuttino even bought me some shoes and shorts and T-shirts. Ever since my arrival, I find myself talking to them quite a bit.

"I think my recent play, the fact that I'm seeing more time and the fact I'm able to help out a little more ... they are starting to gain more confidence in me and see me more as a member of the family."

While confident about where he is going, Torres said he never would forget from where he came.

It's not that he seems to consider those times so difficult he can't forget them. He talks of them matter-of-factly, with no distress in his voice. They were just part of him worth sharing.

But it's not what he wanted for Maria. He dreamed of more.

"But this is only part of the dream," he said. "My dream was always to be here. Right now, it's only partly a dream because my full dream is to be here for many, many years."