BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — Zaith Rodriguez imagined his Friday nights at Edinburg High would be engulfed in the kind of pageantry typical of Texas high school football. On game day, Main Street would go quiet, police would escort the team to a packed stadium brimming with eager fans. The fight song would echo as the marching band regaled the town of another opponent defeated.
At least that’s the way Rodriguez’s father described it to his son.
“He would always tell me how big of a deal Bobcat football used to be,” Rodriguez said. “Everybody would come out and support the team. Everyone cared about what was going on.”
That was the late ‘80s when Edinburg High was a perennial playoff presence. As Rodriguez enters his senior season, however, his illustrious visions have yet to be fulfilled. In the last three years, the Bobcats have gone a measly 6-24, never winning more than two games each season. When Edinburg High takes the field, their student section is small and unbefitting of a Class 6A program. There’s no police escort, no parades, and the band rarely plays as touchdowns have been hard to come by. But that hasn’t diminished Rodriguez’s zeal for the game.
“I love playing football, and I love being a part of the team,” he said. “I would never quit. I’m not a quitter. I just don’t have that in me.”
And so Rodriguez, his 16 fellow seniors and the rest of the Bobcats endure the oppressive heat of August, working into such a fury that a few kids dry heave even as they go through foot drills. The exhausting physicality is the by-product of a team with small participation numbers.
“We’re expected to go all out during practices because a lot of us play both sides of the ball,” Rodriguez said. “We’re never going to get a break on the field, so we try not to take too many breaks during practice.”
Rodriguez, who plays linebacker and tight end, was a freshman when his class became the first to be affected by Edinburg CISD split in 2012, which created Edinburg Vela High School. Rezoning siphoned much of the football talent to the SaberCats.
“We were supposed to play with (quarterback) Fabian Pedraza, Johnny Davila, and Elijah Reyna,” Rodriguez said. “We were all together in middle school, and we were going to take over. Instead, a lot of the best guys went to play for another team. I could tell then it was going to be hard.”
While Vela has quickly morphed into a Valley football powerhouse, the Bobcats are searching for an identity. Second-year coach Joaquin Escobar is attempting to instill what he calls Iron Man Football – a reference to the type of physicality demanded of athletes who play both sides of the ball.
“We have to play like that, we have to have a chip on our shoulder,” Escobar said. “Everybody I talk to says we’re small. But that’s O.K. We are what we are, we can’t change anything. We worry about what we can control, and what we control is our effort. If you play with effort, you have a chance every night.”
Escobar knows the commitment it takes to play every snap during a game. He did it himself as a receiver and defensive back at Comanche High School near Odessa, a Class 3A program at the time. He too understands the luster of playing God’s sport in God’s country.
“It’s awesome. It’s a small town, so no body else is there.” Escobar said. “That’s all they have. You’re either hauling cattle or going to a football game on Friday night.”
Escobar is attempting to recreate the luster of game day at Edinburg High, but stresses building success away from the football field first and foremost: good grades, attending workouts, not skipping practices. He emphasizes hard work, the kind experienced growing up in a small ranch town. But all work and few wins grew old to some players, who eventually quit the team.
“We had about eight guys leave last year,” senior lineman Pablo Guerrero said. “They just didn’t want to play anymore, so eventually, they just stopped coming.”
The Bobcats are caught in a vicious cycle. They struggle to win because they don’t have the numbers. They don’t have the numbers because they struggle to win. The remedy is simple, but has continued to elude the team.
“We have to win,” Rodriguez said. “Bottom line, that’s the only thing that’s going to fix things and make Edinburg football what it once was. We just have to keep trying and keep working. We have to keep believing that we’ll get to where we want to be.”
But while the Bobcats have little to show for their efforts in the standings, that doesn’t mean some are ungrateful for the experience of
“I’m glad the split happened,” Guerrero said. “If it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be working so hard. I feel like we’d be taking things easy. If we never split, maybe we never get coach Escobar. We’ve learned lessons through losing, too.”