Although their families have struggled financially to provide the basics, the teens shared a common bond that has enabled them to go to college—a love of running and a coach whose commitment encompassed far more than their sports lives.

For Willow Glen High School teacher, track assistant coach and cross country head coach Victor Santamaria, seeing the two 18-year-olds he's mentored for four years become leaders and receive college scholarships is the true victory.

But the road to their success was never easy or sure.

Gilbert and his mother moved to Long Beach from Nayarit, Mexico, when he was 3 years old because she wanted to live near his aunt. When Gilbert was in fifth grade, he and his mother moved to San Jose, where they struggled to find affordable housing. They have moved 11 times during his high school years and have been on the verge of homelessness. His mother works mainly in housekeeping and janitorial services.

"It's hard to come here and not have an education," says Gilbert, adding that his mother and stepfather emphasized the importance of school. But the continual transferring to new schools made him frustrated because the grading systems and difficulty of classes kept changing, so he stopped trying, he says. With that attitude, he began ninth grade at Willow Glen High School and was failing many of his classes.

"The friends I was with, we never worried about homework," Gilbert says. "In class, I was disruptive. But I came to see that was affecting my grades."

During Gilbert's freshman year, Santamaria was substitute teaching in his P.E. class when he noticed the youth's smooth, efficient stride.

"That's a rare skill to have," Santamaria says. "As a coach, I was excited to see that talent. I didn't want to give up on him."

Santamaria began calling Gilbert the summer before his sophomore year to join the cross country team. Gilbert would tell him he would come to practice, but then he wouldn't show up, Santamaria says. Gilbert attests to his coach's persistence.

"All summer, he called me every day," Gilbert says. "He insisted so much I couldn't say I wouldn't try it."

And because affording running shoes was a hardship, Santamaria stepped in, Gilbert says.

"He said it was the least thing I should worry about," Gilbert says. "He made it easy for me to stop worrying about economical stuff."

When Santamaria found out that Gilbert's grades made him ineligible to compete for the first grading period, he encouraged him to keep training. Gilbert remembers that his friends pressured him to give up practicing because he wasn't racing, but Santamaria included him in all the team activities and even clocked him on the track after official races to motivate him to improve his grades.

"He wanted so badly to compete," Santamaria says. When Gilbert earned eligible grades toward the end of the cross country season, he began competing, which he says also increased his focus on school.

"I was getting faster, my behavior problems stopped, my grades went up and I did my homework more," Gilbert says. While his mother supported his progress, the running was a questionable use of time in her mind, he says.

"Part of my family was for it, but I wasn't seen as productive," Gilbert says. With the family struggling financially, his mother wanted him to work.

"At one point, I just wanted to drop out of school and help her," he says. "But Victor turned me around and focused me on school."

The 2000­01 school was 36-year-old Santamaria's first year as a full-time teacher, but he made it a priority to keep a close eye on Gilbert's academics and would even meet with him after practice occasionally to help him study for a test.

"He was lacking a father figure," Santamaria says. "In many ways, I took him on as a son."

Santamaria says there have been "heartaches" when Gilbert has failed to prepare for exams or turn in assignments.

"I wasn't pleased for him to be borderline eligible when I wanted him to do better," Santamaria says. "I had high standards for him and I let him know."

Gilbert also had to contend with a long commute, because he lived in Alum Rock. Having to take the bus every day to Willow Glen High School was time consuming, so it was tempting to switch to a school closer to home, Gilbert says.

"But I stayed because of cross country and because I was changing," he says. "This is the only school I've wanted to complete."

And to make sure his mother allowed him to run and that he didn't switch schools, Santamaria would often drive Gilbert home to Alum Rock after a late practice to ease his mother's concerns.

Santamaria says on those rides home the two bonded through conversations about Gilbert's future and the dedication he needed to go to college.

"The academic side was really important to me," Santamaria says. "I really wanted to see him go to college. But going to college didn't register for him until his senior year."

Gilbert says he's excited to be graduating from high school and that his feelings about the future are hard to put into words.

Gilbert plans to attend San José City College in the fall, study marketing and run competitively.

Ngoan also plans to attend the same school, study computer science and continue running. And like Gilbert, Ngoan's future didn't always look so hopeful.

Born in Hue, South Vietnam, he was the youngest of seven children.

While living under the communist regime, Ngoan's family suffered. His father, a storekeeper, was thrown into a Viet Cong prison camp for five years before Ngoan was born. And his 22-year-old brother was shot from a helicopter while working in the fields. Ngoan had only two years of elementary schooling—attending classes two miles from where he lived—before his family was forced to flee Hue and moved to a small village in the country when Ngoan was 7 years old. For the next five years, the entire family labored in potato and watermelon fields.

"We didn't have money," Ngoan said. "I worked every day."

Santamaria says that Ngoan told him he was "distraught that other children were going to school."

During the time his family was forced to labor in the fields to survive, Ngoan's mom had to stop working because she had cancer. But she survived.

When Ngoan was 13, an uncle living in San Jose sent the family money to come to the United States. Ngoan's parents brought him and one sister because the other children were married or decided not to go, Ngoan says.

"My parents forced me to come," he says. "I didn't want to. I was a misfit and cried a lot. In a couple years I felt better."

The challenges when he arrived at Steinbeck Middle School in the San Jose Unified School District were huge. He didn't know English and he had missed four years of elementary school. The only people he could communicate with were Vietnamese students and a teacher who spoke Vietnamese. On top of that, he was taunted with racial comments and children threw rocks at him, he says.

"I was scared," says Ngoan, adding that his parents told him to ignore the children taunting him, worried he would get into trouble.

Although he didn't speak much English when he arrived in middle school, Ngoan learned he loved to run, and running became his language. He was the fastest runner in his middle school and was elated to learn he could compete in high school.

After two years at the middle school, he'd worked hard enough to graduate and become a freshman at Willow Glen High School.

Santamaria remembers meeting Ngoan at the first cross country team recruiting meeting.

Although Ngoan's family was on welfare, he was so motivated to join the team that he rode the bus to complete his sports physical exam the same day as the first meeting, he says.

"I was very surprised he was ready to go the next day," Santamaria says. "Most kids take about a week to get the physical.

And he adds, "On the first day of practice, he was beating our No. 1 runner."

Ngoan says joining the cross country and track teams helped him get over his shyness and learn to speak more English.

"Running makes time go fast," he says. "And it gives me confidence."

With Ngoan's gift of speed and endurance, Santamaria says he encouraged him early on to try for a scholarship because he was so dedicated to the sport.

When Ngoan was considering another high school his senior year because it was closer to his home, Santamaria talked him into staying.

"I feared if he wasn't here he'd fall through the cracks," Santamaria says. "He wouldn't get the support I could give him. And he wouldn't have earned two scholarships if he'd gone to another school."

Santamaria says Ngoan's challenges have shaped him as an athlete and a quiet leader.

"He set the example as our winning champion," Santamaria says. "The runners saw him training hard every day."

Ngoan remembers feeling intimidated by Santamaria before he got to know him. But talking to him every day at practice and seeing him in class during his sophomore year for world history and senior year for psychology made this coach and teacher his role model.

"He always helped me and motivated me in running," Ngoan says. "He's why I know more English."

Going the extra mile, Santamaria would meet with Ngoan and Gilbert to study on the weekends at Denny's Restaurant so the two kept up.

"Ngoan's language struggle continues today," Santamaria says. "But it's a testament to his will and dedication that he met every requirement and passed."

Ngoan says he's happy to be the first in his family to go on to college, but adds that he is nervous about making new friends. But the good news is that Gilbert will also attend San José City College and the two have become close friends.

"Gilbert's like the voice for Ngoan," Santamaria says. "He's helped him adapt socially. They joke about trying to learn each other's language."

Santamaria adds that the two boys have shared the challenges of being immigrants and having financial struggles. And both are going on to college through their running successes.

"I see them being friends for life," he says. "And I see great things for them in the future."

Santamaria, who returned to his alma mater to teach and coach in 2000, says running in high school had a major influence on his college career at UCLA, where he competed in long-distance running. The 1985 Willow Glen High School alumnus remembers the camaraderie among his high school cross country teammates and how athletic discipline motivated him to pursue a bachelor's and a master's degree in sports psychology.

"I believe 100 percent that sports can help students adapt and that it supplements and inspires academic excellence," says the 36-year-old, who is passionate about using sports to motivate students to reach college.

"In Gilbert's case, running was the fire and the glue that kept him academically eligible, and now he's motivated to run collegiate," Santamaria says. "Regardless of Ngoan and Gilbert's background and challenges, they can still succeed. They have a tremendous intensity of life that just needs to be refocused."

When Santamaria nominated Gilbert and Ngoan for the $2,000 Charlie Wedemeyer Family Outreach Scholarship, he knew only two students in the Central Coast Section would be selected, so he didn't expect both to win.

"It was very clear that they've both overcome adversity," Santamaria says. "But I was very shocked when both were selected."

Ngoan was also awarded a $1,000 scholarship by the Blossom Valley Athletic League for being the top long-distance runner.

For Santamaria, who has been building the school's long-distance running program the last four years from 10 to 40 athletes, Gilbert and Ngoan have been crucial to the team's league championship this year.

"I work with many other athletes closely, but these two stood out because of their level of competition and leadership," Santamaria says.

Gilbert, an enthusiastic and outgoing leader, was voted captain by his teammates and was named an all-league runner this year. He has a lot of memories from running and leading the team as this year's captain.

"The team camaraderie has been building since I got there," Gilbert says. "We were all friends—girls, boys, junior varsity, varsity. I felt I belonged to something productive."

Ngoan was Blossom Valley Athletic League champion for the last six out of eight seasons in cross country and track. He's also made the state qualifiers twice.

As the No. 1 and No. 2 runners on the high school track team, Gilbert and Ngoan helped lead the team to its league title, which Santamaria says they are more proud of than their individual achievements.

Not only have Gilbert and Ngoan achieved notable accomplishments on the field, but they have also overcame socioeconomic disadvantages that might have deterred other students from entering college.

"I'm so proud of both of them," Santamaria says. "Their success fires me up to want to run with them and watch them run in college. I'm convinced that there are more students with their same potential."

And he adds, "I'll be sharing their stories for many years to come."