By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
At first, Ron Adame was taken aback by the request.
Why would Major League Baseball scouts ask Sharyland High for football tape on former quarterback Tres Barrera? he wondered.
Barrera was a multisport athlete at Sharyland High, starring at quarterback for Rattlers. His best shot at NCAA Division I scholarships, and perhaps one day playing professionally, appeared in baseball. Yet, when MLB personnel reached out to Adame, the Sharyland football coach, for footage of Barrera under center, it seemed odd at the time.
Eventually, Adame understood it.
“They wanted to see his demeanor on the football field,” Adame said. “They wanted to see how he played the game, how he carried himself, the intangibles. Certain scouts look for those kinds of things.”
The multi-sport athlete is not rare in the Valley, given the lack of participation in certain sports. Yet, there appears to be a shift from the old ideology — loading up on sports year-round to remain active, presumably in shape, focused and out of trouble — to a new line of thinking, particularly with athletes who have a shot at playing in college.
“I think years ago, everybody kind of just played everything,” BJ Garcia, director of the South Texas Showcase, said. “Now, they’re focusing on two sports instead of a lot of sports.”
The idea, Garcia suggests, is to give one’s body ample time to rest. Meanwhile, athletes can find a complementary sport that enhances their primary passion. For skill football players, it’s picking up track and field. For the linemen, it’s powerlifting.
Volleyball players might choose track for conditioning, or basketball to harness their vertical leap. Whatever the choice, there’s a growing sense that athletes are putting more thought into their secondary sports.
As a freshman, Sean Landez arrived at Sharyland wanting to play baseball and football while competing in track and field.
“Track really helps for football,” he said. “Track, you’re going full speed. It builds your endurance for football, and football helps me in track by keeping my hamstrings in shape, keeping my legs fresh.”
Baseball didn’t quite fit into that equation. Not for him. Not with seasons overlapping and commitments to academic clubs. So within a couple weeks, Landez dropped it.
“(Baseball) didn’t allow me to do the other things,” Landez said, pointing to the sports he eventually flourished in.
He capped his senior year as the All-Valley All-Purpose Football Player of the Year, playing a pivotal role for the No. 1-ranked team in the Valley, and later enjoyed a standout track season with James Cole, also a budding star on the football team.
This fall, Landez will compete in track and field for Texas A&M Kingsville and walk on for football.
Mayda Garcia made a similar decision before arriving at McAllen Rowe. While she enjoyed soccer and softball, Garcia excelled in volleyball and was an all-district performer in basketball. So she nixed the two sports from her club schedule, focusing on the latter two.
By her sophomore year, Garcia was an All-Valley first-team selection for volleyball. And this past season, she was anointed the All-Valley Player of the Year.
“I enjoy playing both sports,” Garcia said. “I can’t just do one thing. I have to play multiple sports. Some coaches encourage it, others don’t. I could see both sides.
“You have coaches who tell you to do it because it’ll help you get other scholarships. And it’ll help your mental toughness, getting stronger and being more of a team player.”
Coaches rave about the competition factor.
“If you’re playing baseball and you’re up to bat — 3-2 count — there’s pressure on you to hit the ball or strike out,” longtime Valley coach Arnold Martinez said.
“Any pressure situations in games that you can experience from different sports, it’s going to benefit you down the road,” he added. “Players can store that in the back of their minds so when they’re in the playoffs, they’re not scared.”
Adame saw Barrera, who bypassed the MLB draft in 2013 to become a star catcher for the Longhorns, benefit from the experience of having a more measured approach.
Others like McAllen Memorial’s Trevor Speights, a blue chip prospect who is considering signing with Stanford, Tennessee or Texas A&M, have done the same. Speight, the reigning two-time All-Valley Football Player of the Year, has used track and field the past few years to help his burst at running back. Former Sharyland Pioneer standout Nora Monie picked up powerlifting (a non-UIL sport) last season to enhance her strength for field events.
Monie — one of a handful of Valley athletes to sign with a Division I school this year, when she committed to the University of Houston — capped her senior season by winning a state title in discus throwing.
“You want to get to a point where the pressure situations are almost like second nature,” Adame said. “Life is about growing from experience, and the more situations you have like that, the more comfortable you feel. Those individuals can go from sport to sport and oftentimes you look at the better ones and they’ve got this calmness to them when they compete because they’ve done it so often.”
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