BY SAUL BERRIOS-THOMAS | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — “I believe we have the best d-line in the Valley,” Edinburg Vela senior defensive tackle Brandon Beebe said.
Beebe is not the type to brag or boast too much — he doesn’t really like interviews — but he had to set the record straight during the team’s bye week.
The sentiment is hard to argue. It starts with Vela’s starters, senior Sergio Carrizales leads the team in sacks, Beebe is an anchor in the middle, and in Week 7 against Weslaco High, senior Kobe Gipson made his debut and recorded two sacks.
The story on the Vela line doesn’t end with the starters though.
“We play a lot of bodies there,” Vela coach John Campbell said. “We basically have a seven or eight man rotation.”
Junior Eddie Salinas is one of the first guys in that rotation. He started for the first six weeks in place of Gipson.
But there is one player in the rotation that few thought would do well.
“He didn’t look like a d-lineman,” Beebe said. “He looked like he played skill or something.”
“I first saw that his shoulders and arms were small,” Carrizales added.
Both were speaking of senior Ramsey Amador. Amador has been a standout on the baseball diamond for years. He is viewed by many as Vela’s best baseball player, but Amador had never played football prior to this fall.
“I was coming back from a big summer ball season in Missouri,” Amador said. “Coaches were talking to me about playing football. I wanted to, but I had to check one thing.”
Last year, Amador led the SaberCats with his .484 batting average. He smashed eight home runs and knocked in 36 RBIs, but he wasn’t able to show his full potential. A nagging arm injury prevented him from pitching much last year, but he was a stud on the mound in his sophomore season. His skill on the baseball diamond allowed him to earn a scholarship from Division I UTRGV.
“I asked my recruiter from UTRGV about football,” Amador recalled. “He thought it was a good idea to get stronger legs and more power for the lower body, because that is what you need in baseball.”
So Amador committed. He was there every day. And the long hours in the weight room assuaged the teasing of his teammates, but it also helped him become part of the team.
“We bonded a lot in the weight room,” Beebe said. “We go hard in there, and he proved he was a part of the team with the way he worked in there.”
It was still an uphill battle for Amador to see the field. Amador had never touched a football field, not TYFA, not Pop Warner, not even just to try it in middle school.
“First, I started as an outside linebacker, and my whole thing was, just chase the ball,” Amador said. “Anyone can chase the ball. You hand a ball to your little brother and chase him, anyone can do that. That is what I was best at. But other than that, coach (Jody) Cantu has taught me everything.”
Cantu is one of the longest tenured coaches on the Vela staff. He was a constant during the changeover from Michael Salinas to John Campbell, and he has worked with many of the seniors on the defensive line since their freshman year.
“Coach Cantu is definitely a key for me,” Carrizales said. “He is beyond a coach for me; he is now like a father to me. Everything he says, I take it to heart. I try to spread his intensity to the rest of the d-line, because even if they don’t have that relationship with him yet, I want them to understand the intensity.”
Amador was like a sponge around Cantu, trying to soak up every morsel of information he could get.
“Coach Cantu has taught me everything,” Amador said. “He is the reason for everything I do on the field.”
As Amador continued to grow, learn and add muscle mass, he started to feel more comfortable on the football field. Like so many football players before him, Amador got his start on special teams.
“Special teams is all about being an animal on the field,” Amador said. “You just go as hard as you can to stop the guy, and get the defense room to work with.”
It was there where the style of Amador’s game started to show.
“He’s just a big kid, he’s got a lot of length,” Campbell said. “He is very new to the game of football, but at the same time he is a great athlete. We fixed things up pretty quickly. The fun thing with Ramsey is he is enjoying himself. He is fun to be around in practice. With him not having really played before, you really get to see a lot of progression on a week-to-week basis.”
That progression continued to show in his play, and by week three he was in that deadly rotation. In his first game on defense, Amador registered a sack and made several more tackles.
“Ramsey is a fool,” Carrizales said with a smile looking right into the eyes of his teammate. “But he is one of those guys that you need out there on the field. He brings that energy and stuff like that. He is a hell of an athlete.”
It is easy to see this experience will help Amador on the diamond, but right now, that is the furthest thing from his mind.
“Being that it is football season, these guys have brought me in and made me one of their own,” Amador said. “Now I get to ball out with them.”
Ball out is what they do best. Edinburg Vela is the last undefeated team in the Valley, and the SaberCats are poised to claim back-to-back undefeated district titles. The road to that massive accomplishment starts at 7 tonight, as the SaberCats get back to work after their bye, hosting Donna North at Richard R. Flores Stadium in Edinburg.
“To be the last undefeated team in the valley, my senior year especially, is one of the biggest blessings of my life,” Carrizales said. “I thank all the coaches, all the players, God, my family, it means a lot. Not only has it been a challenge through the years here at Vela, but now we have set the pillar that all the guys after us will have to reach. But that doesn’t stop here. We are focused. We are ready, and when the time comes we will bring our best to the playoffs and try to set that standard even higher.”