It is 90 degrees in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the humidity is holding at a balmy 79 percent. There is not an air conditioner in sight, and any relief from the tropical Western Hemisphere comes only when westerly winds decide to approach upon the island nation's 310 miles of green coastline.
For two children, Bibiana and Jorge Rodriguez, Ball State University was a long distance into the north shore's horizon.
Their grade school in Puerto Rico is not much different from an education that someone might have received in the United States.
Except for their requirement to learn both Spanish and English simultaneously and daily Puerto Rican life among the seasonal tourists in search of golden tans, the Rodriguezes' childhood was paralleled through their involvement with the sport of gymnastics.
Two-a-day practices, both four hours each, tested the psyche. Exterior temperatures were intensified in a large, co-ed gymnasium whose only circulation was tethered to the oscillation of a fan through opened windows and doors.
Fortuity and free will, however, would overcame the elements, and a common bond would soon be created between the two siblings -¡-¡- one that would be shared for the rest of their lives.
JORGE
Early in Jorge Rodriguez's life, participating in sports was the building of an onset of a life to come. After experimenting with gymnastics, as a 10 year old he made the transition to tennis with a little help from his father, a retired pediatrician who played in the United States Tennis Association tournaments.
"My dad has been playing forever," Jorge Rodriguez said. "He used to take me to the courts when I was little to feed me balls."
Quickly after his discovery of the sport, Jorge Rodriguez began taking private lessons every day of the week from instructor Pedro Gonzalez at San Juan's Valdrich Tennis Club.
Gonzalez, who returned home to Puerto Rico to coach after playing at The Ohio State University, had indelible effects on Jorge Rodriguez's developing tennis game, as he provided his student with knowledge.
"He was such a big influence on me," Jorge Rodriguez said. "He would teach me everything from technique to strategy. We spent so much time on the court together that we became really great friends."
With Gonzalez's counsel, Jorge Rodriguez began following in his father's footsteps by competing in USTA-affiliated competitions for Puerto Rico. Through tournament play, the top players from the Caribbean would then qualify to compete against the highest ranked junior players in the United States.
Throughout his high school career, Jorge Rodriguez was constantly ranked in the top five.
"That's when I decided that I wanted to play tennis in college," he said.
Jorge Rodriguez soon began to weigh his collegiate tennis options in the fall of 2004. His choice was to attend Villanova University in Philadelphia.
"My mom went there and got an accounting degree, so I wanted to go there, too," Jorge Rodriguez said. "But when I got there, the team wasn't very good and they didn't have any scholarships."
The fact that his best friend Danny Vidal was a member of Ball State's tennis team at the time eased Jorge's Rodriguez's situation.
"[Danny] was here, and we talked a little bit, and one thing led to another," Jorge Rodriguez said. "After that, I came here on an unofficial visit, went to a practice and I liked it a lot."
The visit prompted Jorge Rodriguez to make the 603-mile move to Muncie in the fall of 2005.
Although coach Bill Richards didn't recruit him out of high school, the Hall of Fame coach said he soon learned how much of a complementary asset Jorge Rodriguez would become to his already ethnically diverse team.
"We've had players on the team from Puerto Rico since 1990," Richards said. "He's been a great team guy who brings a good attitude, good work ethic and great competitiveness every day. There's really no downside to him."
Reputing his transient positioning on the court has earned Jorge Rodriguez the opportunity to play with fellow senior, Jose Perdomo, on the No. 1 doubles team.
The tandem is coming off of a 2008 season when they had an 11-7 (4-1 Mid-American Conference) record before losing to Western Michigan University in the MAC Championships.
"No matter what happens, he will have had a good, solid career here," Richards said. "If we can end up with a conference championship and go the NCAA tournament, that would make Jorge's mark even more."
BIBIANA
In 1994, six-year-old Bibiana Rodriguez said she took interest in the sport of gymnastics after a heavy influence from her older brother, who was also a gymnast as a youth.
She said she found herself acting in ways any ordinary girl her age would: slightly hyper, extremely active, tumbling and flipping around everywhere. Nothing out of the ordinary - almost.
"When I was little, I was bow-legged, and I had really big glasses. It was really hard for me to see the [gymnastics] events," Bibiana Rodriguez said. "I think gymnastics was the way for my parents to control my energy, and it really worked."
Things soon started to work as her gymnastics career began to take shape. As a child, she competed for the club gymnastics team, Club Metropolitano de Gimnasia, under head coach Bogomil Ivanov.
Bibiana Rodriguez participated in the 2000 Junior Pan-American games as a 12-year old as her team finished in seventh place out of 15 teams.
"[Ivanov] was like my father in a way because he was the only coach I had in my career until I came to the United States," Bibiana Rodriguez said. "Everything I know about gymnastics and technique is because of him."
Ivanov, who was not fluent in English, communicated with his gymnasts in Spanish throughout their careers. Bibiana Rodriguez said despite the language barrier she encountered upon her arrival to the United States, the transition to a full English-speaking society definitely could have been worse.
"We never spoke English at home. It was all Spanish," she said. "You can know the language, but talking is a little different; I had a really bad accent when I got here."
While in club gymnastics, Rodriguez was also influenced and mentored by assistant coach Loana Cruz. When it came down to getting things accomplished, Cruz seldomly showed any mercy if a positive attitude wasn't present, Bibiana Rodriguez said.
"[Ivanov] was really nice with a soft personality," Bibiana Rodriguez said. "[Loana] was the strict one, she was like his right hand. She was the one who would put us in order and make sure that we were getting all of our stuff done."
Years later, Cruz said she still can recount her first recollection of the current Ball State junior.
"I can remember BB first coming to the gym as a four or five-year-old," Cruz said. "She was this ultra skinny girl, and her heels almost touched the back of her head when she would do handstands."
With practice, her styles in the gym soon became more fluent and orthodox. And before too long, her work quickly began to garner national and international attention.
In 2002, after years of short bus rides to and from intra-national club meets and after traveling to assortments of Central American countries for international competition, Bibiana Rodriguez and three teammates traveled to El Salvador. The team earned a third-place finish in the Central American Games as members of the Puerto Rican national gymnastics team.
Three years later in 2005, Bibiana Rodriguez competed in the Senior Pan American games, the Americas' version of the Olympic Games held every four years. She placed 26th out of 60 gymnasts with her all-around score -¡- the best from the Puerto Rican team.
Bibiana Rodriguez's success in the 2005 Pan Am Games traced a direct lineage to teammate and life-long friend Leysha Lopez, she said.
"It was a lot of fun being a part of the national team [with her]," Lopez said. "At the time, we were so small and didn't realize how big of a deal it was. But as time went on, we realized that it was really fun to compete, travel and to get to know so many people."
Bibiana Rodriguez traveled to the United States for the first time in her life in the fall of 2006. When she arrived at Ball State, she entered already knowing one student: her brother.
"I didn't know I was coming here until the beginning of July [2006], so I only had a month to get school-related things worked out," she said. "Freshman year, I was the only girl without a gymnast as a roommate."
As a freshman in 2007, Bibiana Rodriguez scored a career high of 9.80 on the uneven bars against Western Michigan University in the season's finale.
More recently, she has won and tied for first this season on the bars against Pennsylvania University and Northern Illinois University.
"I'm so proud of BB," coach Nadalie Walsh said. "She can watch a teammate fall, and she just gets up there and does her routine. She has become a big, big rock for us, so it's really great to see her do things she has done."
Years later, "BB," as her Cardinal teammates appoint her, has been able to reminisce about the Puerto Rican national team years. She also said she understands how much her philosophy and dedication toward gymnastics has changed.
"[Ball State] is college gymnastics, and it's supposed to be fun," she said. "But sometimes I look back at my meets and how my attitude was. Before a meet, I'll be joking around and being funny, but when it comes to the routine, I am serious because it's my way of focusing and concentrating."
TOGETHER
During the last decade, Division I sports have witnessed drastic changes in many demographical landscapes. More and more Hispanic-American student-athletes are paying compliment to ethnic diversity by bringing their talents from the Caribbean to the United States.
"Some of the best teams in the country always have a bunch of players from everywhere," Jorge Rodriguez said. "We're not the only ones with so much diversity; it's getting pretty common now."
So common, in fact, that although Jorge Rodriguez's tennis eligibility will be up at the end of the 2009 tennis season, Bibiana Rodriguez, a junior, might not be the only Rodriguez involved with Ball State athletics during the 2009-2010 school year.
"My sister [Irma Rodriguez] just got accepted to Ball State with a minority scholarship for academics," Bibiana said. "It would be pretty cool to have her here to compete with me at BSU."
Irma, coincidentally enough, is a talented tennis player.
A physician, an accountant, a tennis player, a gymnast and a tennis player - let's talk a little bit about diversity.
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