By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
WESLACO — Before he took over the Weslaco High softball team nearly a decade ago, Mario Rodriguez coached girls basketball.
As part of their usual practice routine, Rodriguez had players wear specialized goggles to force them to keep their heads up while dribbling. When he landed the Lady Panthers’ softball gig, Rodriguez brought some of those philosophies with him. Whether they were hitting the ball or fielding it, he had the players wear similar frames to force them to focus on the target.
“The number of different skills and drills that he brings is amazing,” assistant coach Craig Johnson said. “He does a lot of searching, a lot of researching on the internet, talking to people, and he finds the things that’ll make the girls better.
“I’ve been coaching for 25 years, and he puts me to shame with some of the skills and drills that he brings to practices.”
As a former high school basketball player and special teams coordinator with the football squad, Rodriguez has implemented a variety of tactics stemming from his diverse background. And the Lady Panthers have reaped the benefits, becoming only the second Valley program ever to qualify for the UIL state tournament.
“For me, coaching is coaching,” Rodriguez said. “It’s about getting the kids to understand the fundamentals of the game. Whether I’m coaching football, basketball or softball, it’s about getting the kids to mature and to expand their skill level.
“If you only care about the outcome of games, the kids are going to see through that. You have to care about the kids, and try hard to get the best out of them.”
At 6 p.m. Friday, Weslaco will face Pearland in the state semifinals at McCombs Field in Austin. It will mark the third time in four years the Valley has sent a team to the tournament, after San Benito played there in 2013 and 2015.
The trip marks a monumental step for both Weslaco and Rodriguez. Since the program started in the mid-1990s, the Lady Panthers had never reached the area round of the playoffs. Weslaco has long surpassed that mark this season, as it prepares for its sixth playoff opponent now.
Rodriguez has been at the center of it all, devising ways to improve his players’ skills, even if it goes against the norm sometimes.
“We don’t warm up like a traditional team, I don’t think,” Johnson said. “For a long time, we’ve gotten into four-square throwing, working on short, quick releases that come up in games all the time that you don’t normally practice. Hitting approach, those types of things, too. He talks to a lot of people, and he’ll bring different types of gadgets and goggles to have the players hit.
“He’s just done a terrific job finding things that work for him. I don’t know if it’s important that you have experience playing the sport, like a lot of other people think you do. If you can do the research and learn those skills, it’s up to you to implement it, and he obviously has.”
A decade ago, current San Benito coach Kristy Leal played for Rodriguez on both the softball and basketball teams. Leal remembers Rodriguez displaying much of the “aggression and enthusiasm” for softball that he showed in basketball.
“I think he had a lot of intensity, and that really helped us,” said Leal, who played college softball before serving as an assistant at Weslaco for two seasons. “Basketball’s a more intense game, a lot louder, a lot more action, and he really tried to bring that to the softball game.
“It helped him in that sense. Being so well-rounded in different sports, it really helped him develop his own style of coaching.”
Heading into Friday, Rodriguez will field a team that has defied most odds for state-qualifying programs. The Lady Panthers have little playoff experience or tradition. They have no seniors on roster. They’ve generated very little interest from college recruiters. And they reached the state semifinals despite finishing third in their district.
Pearland, by contrast, has 14 seniors, all of them committed to play college softball. And it is in the state tournament for the fifth time in its history, in search of its third state title, with the winningest coach (Laneigh Clark, 617 wins) in state history leading the way.
“Because (Rodriguez has) only coached for nine or 10 years, he’d be one of the younger coaches there at state,” Leal said. “So, for him to achieve all that success within that period of time, it says a lot. It says a lot about him, and it says a lot about softball in the Valley.”