basketball player who played for Leones de Marte and TRIAS. He toured Central America as a member of the Guatemala national basketball team. Until recently, he held the record for the most points scored (78) in a single game by a Guatemalan. He also taught at a primary school (called Santa Elena III), where he claimed to have spent six hours giving lessons and the rest of the day playing football. This earned him a visit from a Ministry of Education representative, who was sent to evaluate his pupils. The representative found that the students' education was actually above average. In 1988, he became the basketball coach of a boys' school (called Instituto Don Bosco). Music career 1980s: Beginnings and early breakthrough Arjona began his musical career at age 21, when he signed with the now defunct Guatemalan record label, Discos de Centroamérica, S.A., and distributed by PolyGram, and released his debut album Déjame Decir Que Te Amo in 1985. The label attempted to portray Arjona as a stereotypical Latin lover. The title track was released as a single, "Déjame Decir Que Te Amo". This album failed to chart, but received moderate praise from critics, with Allmusic awarding it three stars out of five. Because of his negative experience recording the album and its commercial failure, he decided to abandon music to teach school. At age 24, Arjona reversed course and sought the opportunity to represent his country in the OTI Festival with the song "Con Una Estrella En El Vientre". The sessions immediately following this decision produced the song "S.O.S Rescátame". His second studio album, Jesús, Verbo No Sustantivo brought him commercial and critical success across Latin America and the U.S. and became a best-seller in many Central American territories. 1990s: International breakthrough, Si El Norte Fuera El Sur and Sin Daños a Terceros Arjona started the new decade as a regular in the Mexican telenovela (soap opera) "Alcanzar una Estrella" (English translation: Reaching a Star), which assisted him in becoming a known singer throughout Latin America. After joining Sony Music in 1990 he released Del Otro Lado del Sol, one of his least successful albums. That year, he started composing songs for other artists, such as Yuri's "Detrás de Mi Ventana", for her album Nueva era (1993). The song became a hit, reaching No.1 on the US Hot Latin Songs chart for three weeks in 1994. He later