BY SAUL BERRIOS-THOMAS | STAFF WRITER
MERCEDES — Heartbreak has come early and often for the Valley View Tigers this year.
After a tremendous football season, and in the second year under head coach Joe Rodriguez, the school was starting to get excited about the potential and growth of the basketball team.
Javy Lopez, who had a standout season on the gridiron, was excited to join the team after the Tigers final football game, but on Nov. 27, Lopez suffered an injury.
“When it happened, we were just hoping it wasn’t an ACL,” said senior guard Alan Fuentes, who suffered his own ACL tear in his sophomore year. “We went to the trainers to check up on him, me and my friends, and they told me, ‘we haven’t seen this kind of injury before.’ I was worried because I was thinking the worst, some sort of major injury. We wanted him to still be able to play, because he was a big part of our team last year, he was quick, and he helped us out a lot defensively.”
The injury ended up being an ACL, ending Lopez’s season just 11 days after he first got with the team.
Just as the team began to recover from that injury, Rodriguez endured more heartbreak.
“I lost my dad on Christmas night,” Rodirguez said. “It’s been hard. It’s been hard. But these kids they keep me coming, because they are very hard-working kids. They don’t know how to say quit.”
Coach Rodriguez’s father Robert A. Rodriguez was a migrant worker from Weslaco.
“He was a great dad, had a sense of humor and sacrificed for us,” Rodriguez said. “I want to thank my wife and rock Jesusita Rodriguez and my kids Jackie and Jeremy for all of their endless support. I am so grateful to my players, and their families, our school board and AD, and everyone who has supported me through this hard time.”
Rodriguez emphasized how much love he received from his players.
“We try to support him through everything,” sophomore guard Kevan Diaz said. “We have cried with him, tears come out and everything. We just try to cheer him up.”
As the action resumed after the tragic break, the Tigers lost two starters, including senior point guard Jose Solis who suffered the same injury as Lopez, an ACL.
“It was hard, because (Solis) would usually run the one all game,” Fuentes said. “We would hardly take him out, because he was our best player at the one. Others would run it, but not as good. He could control the pace and everything. He would push it, and we would all follow him. We respect him.”
Both Lopez and Solis will miss the rest of their senior year.
The pain and heavy hearts were bad enough, but the team couldn’t catch a break on the court either.
The Tigers are currently 13-11 overall, meaning they have already doubled last year’s win total of six, but their 0-6 district record shows how much the injuries have taken a toll on the team.
Many teams might have imploded given the circumstances, but Valley View turned to Fuentes, who has been the rock of the team.
“I don’t like giving up,” Fuentes said. “That is like failing. My little brother, he really looks up to me, so I don’t want him to see me quit at anything. Because, he is about to be in seventh grade, so like he is about to play and all that. I am going to try to teach him a lot of things, to get him better. We just play through it, win or lose.”
Fuentes has also taken over the ball-handling responsibilities since Solis’ injury.
“I’m starting to get comfortable with it,” Fuentes said. “I didn’t like to run the one, because I would get pressured. Against Brownsville Pace, that was my first time running the point, and I did really good. But I still had some minor mistakes that led to turnovers. Overall, I would say I am starting to get better at it.”
Sophomore guard Diaz has also emerged as a leader at the guard position, and has shown great potential on the court.
“Kevan leads us, by I think, a few points in scoring, as a sophomore,” Rodriguez said. “That speaks volumes to his talent.”
Diaz is just one of many talented sophomores who are beginning to form the future of the program. Forward Miguel Flores, guard Erik Trevino and wing Elian Camarillo along with Diaz were part of the JV team that went 10-4 in district last year.
The positive vibes that circles these gut-wrenching scenarios at Valley View flows from the coach to the players and vice versa.
“One of the things we always talk about is worry about the journey more than the results,” Rodriguez said. “That is the thing that they have kept up, and in the midst of all the negative, we stay positive. They always remember the approach that we are going to take. It is all about the approach.”
Fuentes knows that this may not be Valley View’s year to break through, although a playoff spot is still not out of the question.He also knows what he has seen from his coach.
At a program like Valley View, Rodriguez doesn’t have a row of assistants on the bench to lighten the load. The small staff has to work hard to cover all the ground. Still, Rodriguez takes the time to focus on building his pipeline with sub-varsity teams. Rodriguez is there early, and stays late. He works long hours with little rest. “I’m not sure whether the kids feed off of me more, or if I feed off of their passion more,” he said
Fuentes was there before Rodriguez, and he has seen the way the program has thrived under Rodriguez.
“We were a slow team my sophomore year, we would run Iso-ball,” Fuentes said. “Last year, we started to get into more a team concept. We started to run and gun. We tried just shooting the ball and pressing. That is what has helped us out this year.”
Fuentes grasps these concepts quickly, because even though he was a late arriver to the sport — he didn’t even play until the seventh grade — he quickly became a hoops junkie, watching his San Antonio Spurs, but also studying great players like Allen Iverson and Tony Parker.
“I started to watch a lot of NBA, and it really got me into how they read plays,” Fuentes said. “As soon as I saw that, I took it into my game, and it worked for me.”
Now, Fuentes and the rest of the seniors can leave their mark on the sophomore core at Valley View. Fuentes wants to be sure when his younger brother Alexander gets to Valley View, he is joining a strong program.
“Hopefully by his freshman year, I want him to be varsity,” Fuentes said. “He can be really good. I will make him better. Seventh grade, hopefully he makes the A team. I can’t wait to watch him play.”