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Sanchez was born in Guanabacoa, Cuba. The son of Cuban political exiles who came to the United States in the 1950s from Cuba, Sanchez grew up in the city of Hialeah, Florida. He graduated from Hialeah High School in 1977 and accepted a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead. He transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on a CBS/WCCO Journalism Scholarship in 1979.

He and his wife, Suzanne (also a Miami native), have four children - three boys and a girl, Ricky Jr., Robby, Remmy, and Savannah.