Never before has someone of Manuel Hinojosa’s unique stature been inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Sport Hall of Fame, which was founded in 1985.
He’s an artist/architect/sports historian/sports memorabilia collector (and more) who has spent a lifetime involved in projects closely affiliated with athletics and well-known sports figures.
The 67-year-old Mission native will join eight other inductees to comprise the Class of 2017 at Saturday’s 30th annual RGV Sports Hall of Fame banquet at Boggus Ford Events Center in Pharr.
Tickets for the event are no longer available. It begins with a reception at 4 p.m. The banquet follows at 5 p.m. and the program starts at 6 p.m.
Besides Hinojosa, the 2017 inductees include Tom Chavez (Brownsville football), Tony Villarreal (Brownsville football), Ruben Gonzales (McAllen track), Frank Hernandez (Mission football), Jim Lancaster (Edinburg sports medicine), Jim Norris (Mercedes football), Sonia Sepulveda Dempsey (Edinburg track) and Harlan Woods (Mission journalism).
Hinojosa, already inducted into a hall of fame in Laredo, said his life is a charmed one.
“I’m doing the things that make me feel very satisfied,” said Hinojosa regarding his multitude of activities, which for the most part all revolve around sports. “It’s a wonderful feeling and I’m a very happy person.”
Hinojosa is a 1968 graduate of Mission High who earned all-district honors for the Eagles in football while playing for legendary coach Lum Wright along side teammates Eliseo Pompa and Bobby Jack Wright. He earned an undergraduate degree in art from Pan American University in 1974 and received a masters in architecture from Southwestern Louisiana University in 1977.
Since the time he was hired as Port Isabel’s city manager in 1987, Hinojosa has remained a resident of the small town by the Gulf with a lighthouse and continues to commute weekdays to McAllen for his work as an architect.
For the past 12 years, Hinojosa has been part owner of Doubleday Bar of Champions with his brother Rick Hinojosa, a structural engineer. Also part of the ownership team is Norma Hinojosa, Manuel’s wife of 26 years who is a native of Elsa.
The sports bar is located in Port Isabel on Highway 100, and actually is more like a sports museum that serves refreshments and food, thanks to its wall-to-wall displays of famous pro athletes’ jerseys, portraits, balls and bats, and other items including sports figurines, particularly just about every player of note for the Dallas Cowboys. The facility houses the Valley’s most extensive collection of sports memorabilia.
“If I’ve given anything back, it’s having a place like this where I have the opportunity to showcase all these sports items and let others see them, particularly the kids,” said Hinojosa, who was inducted into the International Latin Sports Hall of Fame in Laredo in 2016. “I see dads explaining to their children who a certain athlete was, and the next time they come in, the kids remember and many times they’re the ones doing the talking (and telling others about the athletes). It (the sports legacy) is passed on (from generation to generation). This is a place where they learn a little about the sports heroes their dads grew up with and some of them (showcased here are) even before that.”
Beyond the sports memorabilia displays, there’s most notably Hinojosa’s drawing skills, which came into demand more than 50 years ago when he was hired as a youngster to paint the eagle mascot on the sides of school buildings in Mission and on the floors of gymnasiums.
It wasn’t long before he developed a distinctive talent that fueled his passion for painting portraits of renowned sports figures, who in turn have autographed the works for him.
His autographed portraits include Mickey Mantle, Muhammad Ali, Dan Marino, David Robinson, Ted Williams, Barry Sanders, Jim Brown, O.J. Simpson, Wilt Chamberlain, Terry Bradshaw, Joe DiMaggio, Brett Favre, Magic Johnson, Sammy Baugh, Pete Rose, Roger Staubach and others.
“I like the idea of painting a (sports) celebrity and having them touch (autograph) it,” Hinojosa said. “I feel like I’ve made contact with them in that (brief) period of time.”
Hinojosa has used his architectural abilities to design several athletic facilities in the Valley. They include Brownsville’s Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center, the Earl Scott Field House adjoining the football field at Donna’s Bennie LaPrade Stadium and the recently constructed high school gymnasium at Edcouch-Elsa along with other South Texas athletic structures.
The artist/architect also is close to becoming a published author. He soon will complete a four-year project and release a book about the remarkable life of retired world-class jockey Herbie Hinojosa of Brownsville (no relation), whose career reached a high point in the early 1960s when he rode horses that won millions of dollars. He rode horses in the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, along with many other top horse racing events.
Perhaps Hinojosa’s most renowned and challenging work was painting the Tom Landry mural in the mid-1990s over a 95 x 18 foot space on the side of a building at the intersection of Tom Landry Street and Conway Avenue in downtown Mission. The late Dallas Cowboys coach (1924-2000) was born and raised in Mission. The city wanted to honor Landry, so Hinojosa was contracted to paint the mural on a building owned by Bill and Gen Long. The colorful and detailed mural still exists, having undergone a renovation or two in recent years.
The project took a year to complete and it depicts the life and football career of Mission’s favorite son. Hinojosa said Landry was involved with the project throughout its entirety. Hinojosa came to know the famous coach and gained an even greater respect for him.
“Coach Landry once called me his friend (when introducing me back then to someone he knew) and I was so honored,” Hinojosa said.
The mural was dedicated on Sept. 18, 1995, with Landry on hand as the featured guest for the ceremony.
Hinojosa remembers Landry was introduced at the dedication, got up and told the crowd, “I still don’t know why you’re honoring me, he’s the one who painted it (the coach said while pointing at Hinojosa).”
When Landry died on Feb. 12, 2000, residents of Mission and surrounding areas placed flowers at the foot of the mural in honor of the beloved coach. Hinojosa said within a day or so, the scene at the mural with all the flowers was pictured on the front page of the San Antonio Express News.
It was a time Hinojosa says he will never forget along with all the other events that have impacted his life.
“I’m just a sports fan who loves to paint and hear (and research) sports stories,” he said.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess