By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
PORT ISABEL — Most of the inductees came from far and near to be enshrined at Saturday’s 28th annual Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame banquet at Port Isabel Events Center.
And then there were other honorees who just drove over from Brownsville.
The ones from Brownsville included former Hanna boys soccer coach Juan de Dios Garcia, who was inducted along with eight others Saturday as part of the RGVSHOF Class of 2015.
Juan de Dios retired as Hanna’s coach in 2012 after 30 years of guiding the Eagles and finishing with a Valley-best 437-206-66 career record. He took his 1990 Hanna team to the UIL state tournament.
“This is the biggest honor that someone can receive,” said Garcia, who continues to serve as president of the Rio Grande Valley Soccer Coaches Organization.
“Thanks to all my former players,” he added. “Actually, this honor belongs to them.”
Also recognized were members of the 1965 Brownsville High baseball team that went 30-8 and advanced to the Class 4A state final. That Eagles team of half a century ago is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its historic achievement, a feat unmatched by any Brownsville public school team in all the years since then.
During his time at the podium, Joe Rodriguez, coach of the 1965 team and later Brownsville ISD athletic director and school board member, thanked his former players, his late wife, Emma, and also all those who have memories of that special team.
“I say, ‘Thank you,’ to the players,” Rodriguez said. “They’re men now. They were boys then. I say, ‘Thank you,’ for what you did for the school and the community.
“Thanks guys for the journey,” Rodriguez added. “I loved you then, I love you now and I love you forever.”
Saturday’s 28th annual induction banquet attracted approximately 300 people, many of them family members and friends on hand to honor the nine enshrinees and 1965 Eagles.
Besides Juan de Dios Garcia, the other eight inductees were Weslaco’s Tommy Barker (basketball), Harlingen’s Stacey Siebert Banks (basketball), Edinburg’s Alfonso “Knot” Garcia (baseball), Mission’s Jaime Pena (basketball), Mission’s Aaron Ramirez (running) and Harlingen’s Harold Hees (football), and Mission’s Lupe Rodriguez and Nati Valdez (former football teammates).
This year’s class of inductees pushes the organization’s list of enshrinees to beyond 200, including 29 females counting Siebert Banks, a former standout basketball post player in the 1980s at Harlingen High and Texas Tech.
Rodriguez, Valdez and fellow wide receiver Frank Hernandez lit the fire for Mission High’s wide-open, pass-first shotgun offense under the late David Lee, their coach. The Eagles of that era, the late 1980s, were an offensive juggernaut through the airways that few had witnessed on the football field in the Valley, let alone the state.
As a senior in 1987, Rodriguez threw for 4,179 yards and 50 touchdowns, still all-time records in the Valley that at the time ranked among the best in the nation. Valdez and Hernandez ranked second and third in the nation in 1987 with 104 and 98 catches, respectively. All three went on to play football in college.
“This is great,” said Rodriguez, now the offensive coordinator and QB coach at Mission Veterans Memorial. “After I stopped playing football I never thought I would receive any more honors, so this came as a surprise. It’s an honor to be in such great company with all these other inductees. There have been so many great athletes in the RGV.
“It’s an honor to be inducted, and to go in with one of my former teammates from Mission just makes it extra special,” Rodriguez added. “It brings back a lot of good memories from our playing days with the Eagles.”
Valdez, now a pharmaceutical businessman in San Antonio, was equally as honored as his former QB to experience the induction. He was enshrined into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame in 2008.
“I’m just grateful that the two of us can share this moment together,” Valdez said. “We’re being inducted as former teammates and friends, so it’s just something super special for the two of us.
“I had the time of my life playing for Mission,” Valdez added. “I smile when I think about those days, and I’m just so proud that I was a part of it.”
Barker did not attend. He was a 6-foot-10 all-state player at Weslaco High during the 1970s who is perhaps the best basketball player South Texas has produced and the only Valley athlete to make it to the NBA.
“Knot” Garcia was a former Pan American University standout and Pittsburgh Pirates minor-league infielder who later played on the 1969 Reynosa Broncos team that won the Mexican League championship. He died in 2005.
Hees was a bruising running back for Harlingen High in the mid-1950s who went on to star in the backfield at then-Texas A&I and earn Associated Press Little All-America honors as the Javelinas captured the first of seven national championships.
Just like Barker, Pena is considered one of the best to play basketball in the Valley. A mobile 6-8 standout at Mission High during the 1970s under Roy Garcia, Pena went on to star at Lon Morris Junior College and New Mexico State before playing pro ball in Spain, Puerto Rico and Mexico.
Ramirez grew up in Mission and became one of the top distance runners in the country while at the University of Arizona in the 1980s. He went on to compete in the 10,000 meters at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.