When Sanchez was elevated to prominence at USC, he found himself a symbol of Mexican-American identity and a role model for younger generations. Sanchez was placed on center stage in Los Angeles, home to more than 4.6 million Hispanics, the majority of whom are of Mexican descent. While there had been previous, successful Mexican-American quarterbacks such as Tom Flores, Jim Plunkett, Joe Kapp, Jeff Garcia, Tony Romo, and Marc Bulger, unlike most of his predecessors, Sanchez is a third-generation, full Mexican and none had been embraced to the extent Sanchez was. USC fans began playing up Sanchez's ethnicity by wearing items such as sarapes, lucha libre masks, and homemade "¡Viva Sanchez!" T-shirts. His rise to fame within the Mexican-American community was compared to that of boxer Oscar De La Hoya and baseball pitcher Fernando Valenzuela.