Jim Arellanes remembers the overwhelming greeting he received from 33,155 Red Wavers the first time he ran onto the field as Fresno State’s quarterback in 1995. Now, he’s a Fresno State student once again, this time in the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
When Arellanes returned to the Fresno State campus on June 23 for a three-day summer residency program, his welcome was just as warm – albeit with tens of thousands fewer spectators. He was greeted by the nine other members of his online cohort and faculty from the program.
It was a different setting than his first taste of college life at Fresno State – but his Bulldog spirit is as strong as ever.
Flash back to Sept. 2, 1995, when the Fresno State football team opened the season against Northeast Louisiana (now known as Louisiana-Monroe). At the beginning of the second quarter, after an injury to starting quarterback Richie Donati, Arellanes made his Bulldogs debut.
“I remember the crowd reaction when I jogged out onto the field at Bulldog Stadium. I was thinking, ‘this is really cool,’” said Arellanes, who is now the principal at Buena Terra Elementary in Orange County.
A week later, Arellanes made his first start for the Bulldogs in their 25-24 win at Cal, before being sidelined with a partially torn MCL. But the signature win over a Pac-10 Conference opponent resonates today, as Fresno State is set to kickoff its first game as a member of that same conference (now known as the Pac-12).
The Bulldogs’ season opener at USC will be nationally televised on Fox at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, and Arellanes plans to be at the Los Angeles Coliseum with his wife, Renee, to witness a slice of Bulldogs history – about 16 miles from where he grew up.
Arellanes, a graduate of El Rancho High in Pico Rivera, was recruited as a junior college All-American out of Los Angeles Valley College by the Bulldogs’ head coach at the time, the late Jim Sweeney, and then-offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford. Arellanes spent his first season at Northern Arizona University before transferring to junior college for a year, and eventually choosing Fresno State over about 15 other scholarship offers.
Arellanes majored in criminal justice in his two years at Fresno State, where he threw for 4,026 yards and 26 touchdowns in 19 games. He started all 11 games his senior season and earned a trip to the Hula Bowl, a college all-star game.
He signed with the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent, earning a spot on the practice squad before going on to play in NFL Europe, the Arena Football League and the XFL, a professional football league that launched in 2001 as a joint venture between the WWE and NBC.
His pursuit of a professional football career left him several units short of his bachelor’s degree at Fresno State, so he finished his coursework at a different California State University campus. “My degree says Long Beach State, even though I was only there for a little while, and it kills me,” Arellanes said.
That’s part of the reason he made the decision to return to Fresno State to pursue his doctoral degree. The Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership is one of three doctoral programs at Fresno State, in addition to the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Doctor of Physical Therapy. Fresno State is designated as one of only 14 California universities with “Doctoral University – High Research Activity” – or R2 status – by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
“The Fresno State Ed.D. program is built for people doing the work across P12 and postsecondary education leadership,” said Dr. Ignacio Hernandez, director of the program. “We don’t ask practitioners to step away from their leadership roles; we ask them to bring those roles into the learning spaces nurtured by the program. One of our greatest sources of pride is that our doctoral students advance scholarship grounded in the lived experiences of the communities they serve. They graduate as scholar-leaders who are more equipped, not just more credentialed. For someone like Jim, who is leading a school while pursuing a doctorate, that integration is the point.”
This is Arellanes’ 27th year working in education. Most of his teaching and coaching experience came at the high school level before he got the opportunity to become principal at Don Julian Elementary, a TK-8 school where he worked for four years before moving to Buena Terra Elementary in August.
He didn’t originally intend to work in education. But shortly after he was released by the Seahawks, he got a call from Greg Salcedo, a coach he had known since his youth football days. “He was so grounded in the community and so pro-Pico Rivera,” Arellanes said. “He was proud when I went on to play in college and professionally. He would say, ‘Who cares if you’re from this tiny community?’”
Salcedo hoped Arellanes would be an inspiration to youth from a similar background in his hometown and asked him to work with an up-and-coming quarterback. Arellanes agreed and began working at his high school alma mater as a campus monitor. He began teaching in 2002 and served in administration for 11 years before landing his first principal position.
Two years ago, he noticed Fresno State’s doctoral program. Arellanes has always worked in low-income communities similar to the one he grew up in and wanted to position himself to make the biggest impact possible on the students he serves.
“I don’t just want to be a principal, I want to be a social justice leader,” Arellanes said. “This process has been really eye-opening for me as we dive into structural and theoretical frameworks that make you reflect on what you’re doing.”
Arellanes talks about the tendency to approach education from a deficit lens – focusing on what students lack rather than recognizing their strengths. “How do we remove their barriers?” he said. “How do we really provide opportunities for all students? Our students don’t have things more affluent districts have.”
Arellanes can relate. He grew up in the same type of community, with challenges similar to those some of his students face today. But he was fortunate to have supportive parents and family who sacrificed to provide opportunities for him and two younger sisters, and helped him lean into sports when he found his passion.
“On a personal level, I was not a good student growing up. Athletics motivated me and pushed me,” Arellanes said. “If I’m not a scholarship athlete, I don’t know if I finish college. It can be band, music, art or anything else – find your thing that is going to push you.”
Arellanes and his wife preached that message to each of their three children, including Jim Arellanes III, who followed in his father’s footsteps as a high school quarterback and is now attending UCLA; Madison, a library media technician attending Citrus College; and Alex, a high school sophomore in the marching band.
When speaking to his students, Arellanes often catches himself echoing the same types of messages he would hear from Sweeney and Tedford as a college student-athlete. He remembers his coaches emphasizing community, collaboration and accountability. And it translates directly to his pursuit of a doctoral degree.
“It’s a lot of work. There’s a lot of effort that goes into it, and I’m still a site leader,” Arellanes said of the three-year, 60-unit program designed for working professionals who are in leadership positions or poised to be. “I knew it would be a challenge, but I’m always looking to improve my leadership and do what I can to improve the lives of our students.
“For me to be two years away from my doctorate, it’s not something I ever thought I would do.”
