It's tempting to write that Alex Gonzalez is a fortunate man, that except for this and that he might have been a short-lived gang member in the perilous East Los Angeles barrio. But his history suggests that was never going to happen.

He credits his parents for starting him on the road to his present post as president of California State University Sacramento. They no doubt played a significant role, but it is apparent that even as a child he knew he had intelligence and potential, and was determined to use one to realize the other.

He went to Garfield High School years before teacher Jaime Escalante's efforts to push his students to excellence were made famous by the movie "Stand and Deliver." He was elected class president, and his path after graduation led to the Air Force, East Los Angeles College and Pomona College.

From there he went on to law school at Harvard, but decided the practice of law was not for him. A doctorate in psychology led to academia and, eventually, to Sacramento as the 11th president of the sixth-biggest campus in the 23-campus CSU system.

"I was attracted to the job in Sacramento because of the challenge," he says. "I see Sacramento as one big opportunity. It's a great campus, it's got history, it has some issues that have to be dealt with -- athletics is one of them -- and the opportunities are just tremendous. I like to do things, and the opportunities to do things are here."

Growing up
Second language: "English is my second language, but I don't get to speak Spanish much any more. My parents were immigrants from Mexico. Both were victims of the Mexican revolution. My father's parents were merchants, but they lost everything in the revolution and came to the United States. They ended up in Los Angeles in the late '20s.

"My father was about 16, and became an apprentice baker. He met my mother and they got married. She lived in L.A. maybe 60 years until she died at 82. She could understand English, could watch TV, but she couldn't produce the language. My father died when he was 56."

Six siblings: "I have four sisters and two brothers. I'm right in the middle. I was the classic middle child, very independent. It works against me sometimes because I don't let people help me. I was the first one in my family to go to college, and I'm the only one with a doctorate, although I have a sister who has a master's degree and is an associate school superintendent.

"I think there were two things responsible for me and my brothers and sisters not going the way of so many kids in East Los Angeles, and staying out of trouble. First of all, my mother never worked outside the home. And my father was very authoritarian, very Catholic. Our parents were involved. They knew where we were. They controlled us. We couldn't go roaming around. The opportunities were there. In the area where I grew up there were always gangs. Drugs were always around. We knew who the local heroin addict was."

Learning from example: "I think my parents' influence, and my older (siblings), all played a role. My older brother is only a year older than I am. We grew up together. He quit school and went to work when he was 15, and had it a little rougher than I did. I saw him as an example of how you could get in trouble easily. But he went back to school, to continuation school, and he graduated from high school when I did.

"I spoke Spanish first, and having older siblings I learned English pretty rapidly. But I always had to speak Spanish with my mother, and when we did anything with her outside the home, going shopping or whatever, we had to be the interpreter."

Moving on
Air Force: "A week after graduating from high school my friend and I went down to the recruiting office to join the Navy, but the recruiter wasn't there so we joined the Air Force. When I was in high school I had worked as a truck driver for a linen-supply company, and when I was discharged I got my old job back. After a couple of weeks they made me the manager."

To college: "I took a class at East Los Angeles Junior College and decided to use the GI Bill to go to school full time. I was recruited by Pomona College, which was developing a minority recruitment program. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in history, but I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do for a career.

"I had just gotten married. We had been going together, but I didn't want to get married until I got my degree, so that's what we did. We're still married."

To Harvard: "A couple of friends at Harvard persuaded me to go there. The first year at law school, for me, just wasn't very interesting. In the spring, I sent out some resumes to firms in L.A. One of the partners of a firm that responded was a Harvard graduate. I interviewed with them and they offered me a job.

"My wife and I went back to L.A. and I worked for them between my first and second years of law school. It was a small firm on Wilshire Boulevard, and was valuable because I saw what being an attorney was really like. The firm offered me a job when I graduated, but midway through the next school year I realized that it wasn't what I wanted; I just wasn't interested enough in the law to make it a career."

New career: "I applied to graduate school at UC Santa Cruz, in social psychology, and once I started I knew that was what I wanted to do. I got a master's and a Ph.D. I found that I loved working with people, I loved investigating the phenomena of human beings, and that's probably why I like being a university president and why, I think, I'm good at it.

"After four years teaching psychology at Fresno State I became chair of the department for three years, then assistant to the president for a year, then provost for six, then to CSU San Marcos and a presidency for six, and now I'm here. It's interesting. I think it's either I can't hold a job or I get bored, I don't know which."

Being president
No sports: "When I arrived at San Marcos they had no athletic program at all. The first thing I did was to start the first program, golf. And then we found a group of donors and, with their help, built a running track, a world-class track. After 18 years at Fresno State, I had to do something with athletics.

"We have a task force in place here in Sacramento, doing an analysis of each of the sports and looking at the different variables, for example, the conference they're in. Not every sport is in the Big Sky Conference, and that's one of the issues. So we're looking at each one of the sports, the conference, the pros and cons, the costs, the travel, all these things."

Sports plan: "At the end of the semester we hope to have a plan set in place as to what we're going to do in order to continue to develop the athletic program. I think it's pretty clear that there are many, many positive aspects of athletics, but it should remain revenue-neutral, especially because of the budget cuts all schools are faced with.

"The football coach is telling kids he's trying to recruit that we're going to have football. No decision has been made on whether or not to continue a football program, but it's safe to say that even if we decide to eliminate football it would not happen for a couple of years. It would be phased out. Dropping football is in the realm of possibilities. It's one possibility, but I don't think it will happen."

Personal: "My wife is pretty much a stay-at-home person now, but she is very involved with the university. She has a degree in psychology and was a counselor and involved with mentoring programs.

"For stress relief, I spend time with my best friend, my wife. We like to read, watch movies and travel. Our son Alex is in San Francisco and works as a development officer for a nonprofit bilingual radio station. Michael, our younger son, is a student at San Marcos and he also works as a research assistant."

Background
Age: 59
Education: Bachelor's degree in history from Pomona College; master's degree and Ph. D. in psychology, University of California Santa Cruz
Residence: Sacramento
Native of: Los Angeles
Family: Wife, Gloria; sons Alex and Michael