PHOENIX – While some residents enjoyed the early lunch being served in the dining room at Casa de Primavera, an apartment community for older adults in West Phoenix, a few got up from their chairs and began to dance to the music echoing throughout the crowded space.

As performers wearing dresses draped in various colors swirled around the room, the cheers from onlookers reached a fever pitch when Big Red, the mascot of the Arizona Cardinals, joined in the fun.

The good times on the dance floor were just the beginning of the Cardinals’ Mexican Independence celebration on Tuesday, on the eve of the 216th anniversary of the country’s freedom.

“We call it El Grito,” Healthy Aging program manager Luis Raygoza said. “It’s the big yelp of us yelling that we’re free.”

Big Red was joined by Cardinals defensive lineman L.J. Collier, running back Evan Hull and former offensive tackle Rolando Cantú as the Cardinals’ representatives during the event. After the complex’s residents had a chance to dance and enjoy authentic cuisine, the four took their places as judges during a salsa tasting contest.

Nine participants presented homemade batches of salsa that varied in flavor and spice, and after tearing into each one with wave upon wave of tortilla chips, Cantú said “the margin was 0.1” when naming the first-place finisher.

“The level of intensity which these ladies prepared, and men also, the salsa was great,” Cantú added. “Today is just a celebration of our culture, a friendly celebration of the salsa contest. But today, in essence, is to get together with the family, with the community and celebrate.”

Cantú, a native of Monterrey, Mexico, was the first nonkicking Mexican football player to reach the NFL after training in the country’s collegiate system. After spending three seasons with the Cardinals before retiring in 2006, he transitioned from the team’s Spanish radio color commentator to the broadcast booth for Thursday Night Football on Prime Video and Sunday Night Football on Telemundo Deportes.

The former lineman has also been the Cardinals’ manager of international business ventures for more than 15 years and a promoter for the team’s efforts to reach out to the local Latino community.

“Now that I’ve started transitioning to a broadcaster with Prime Video and Telemundo, I think every time I come back and I mingle with my team and former colleagues that are still with the Arizona Cardinals, I think it brings back old memories,” Cantú said. “Obviously, it brings back the vision that’s always there: being a champion in the community.”

For Collier and Hull, their participation in the event extended beyond just taste testing. On one end, they both had the opportunity to take part in one of the most important holidays in Mexico for the first time.

“For them to welcome us into their culture like that and just helping us learn more about Mexican independence, which I didn’t know much about, but it’s just so cool to see all that love in there,” Collier said. “The dresses, the vibes, the people. They really enjoyed themselves and they loved today, and I appreciate them letting us come in and hang out with them.”

A Casa de Primavera Senior Center resident receives an autograph from Big Red, the Arizona Cardinals mascot, during a Mexican Independence Day celebration in Phoenix on Sept. 15, 2026.

Photo by Janes Reyes/Cronkite News

Collier and his cohorts also witnessed firsthand the connection between the Cardinals and Arizona’s Latino community. 

The event was one of three centered around Latino Heritage Month the team has scheduled during September as part of the NFL’s Por La Cultura initiative. The team’s home opener Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks at State Farm Stadium will feature additional engagement designed to spotlight Latino and Arizona culture.

“Summing it up in one word, I would say just love,” Hull said. “It’s a mutual thing. The Cardinals showing love to the Latino community but also the Latino community showing a lot of love for us as well.”

The NFL has made continuous efforts to increase its Latino viewership both inside and outside the United States since 2005, when the Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers played in Mexico City in the league’s first regular season international game.

A report from the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility in October 2025 found Latinos make up 19% of the U.S. sports ecosystem’s $160 billion value. In addition, data from GlobalWebIndex and the U.S. Census Bureau noted that 16% of the NFL’s fanbase is Latino.

Six days before Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny performed the first Spanish-only Super Bowl halftime show last season, the league announced that regular season games would return to Mexico City for the first time since 2022 with Estadio Banorte playing host from 2026 to 2029.

The Cardinals, in particular, are surrounded by one of the largest Hispanic communities in the country. According to the 29th annual DATOS report from the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hispanics account for 31.6% of Arizona’s population while one third of all counties in the state have a higher percentage of Hispanic residents (68.4%) than the state average (31.6%).

While there is still plenty of room for growth with the league’s pursuit of increased popularity in Latino and Hispanic communities, the Mexican Independence celebration event was a testament to the foundation put in place by the Cardinals over the past two decades.

“I think the best comment that I heard today was one of the gentlemen that was sitting in table three just told me to translate to L.J. Collier and Evan Hull, ‘I want you to tell them that the Latino community is always with the Arizona Cardinals’,” Cantú said.

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.