Oscar Casares
Ready For Some Futbol?
Don’t tell me that the soccer stars from Brownsville’s Gladys Porter High— my alma mater— aren’t as American as they come.
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Once the team passed the inspection, it was clear to leave the area. That is, until the next inspection some ninety miles later, near the King Ranch. By law the bus driver was required to stop at the Border Patrol’s Sarita checkpoint so federal agents and their drug-detection dogs could search the vehicle. To facilitate the process, the players wore special tags that identified them as student athletes en route to a competition. (These tags prevent the sort of incident that occurred earlier this year when another team made it through the checkpoint only for it to be discovered later that some of the passengers were not actually with the team and had slipped away from the bus during a stop, supposedly to make their way into Texas illegally.) The Porter players were used to stopping at the checkpoint on their way to tournaments, including the semifinal match that had led to the championship game. Still, there is something disconcerting about being in your own country and having to identify yourself to a federal agent.
This time around, the Border Patrol agent happened to be female. As she boarded the bus, another agent led a dog around the perimeter of the vehicle. The players knew the drill: Sit up in your seat and give the agent your full attention.
“Everybody U.S. citizens?” she asked, stepping into the aisle.
The coaches and players all nodded and said yes.
“Where are you coming from?” she asked.
“Brownsville,” one of the nearby players answered.
“Which high school in Brownsville?”
“Porter.”
“Hey,” she said, “I went to Porter!”
After so many such inspections during the season, the players were more than happy to meet another member of the Porter Nation and hear her wish them luck. These warm feelings lasted only until the following afternoon, when they walked onto the field and fully realized the level of competition they were up against. The Coppell team was ranked second in the nation, with three of its players having already been recruited to play at the collegiate level. This was also Coppell’s third straight year to compete in the state championship, including 2004, when it won the title. As if this weren’t enough to contend with, there was also that Speedy Gonzales poster waving in the stands.
If Coppell fans noticed anything less than American about the Porter team, it might have been its style of play. Spectators in this country are used to watching the type of soccer showcased during the recent World Cup, which tends to be more physical (even when the players aren’t giving each other head butts in the sternum). But Porter plays a faster-paced soccer that focuses on shorter passes, in what some people might describe as more of a Mexican style. It certainly isn’t the kind of soccer most kids across suburbia grow up with. The quicker technique makes sense because of the smaller size of the players in the Rio Grande Valley. Porter’s approach to the game is actually quite common in this region of Texas, as well as on the other side of the river, because until recently, crossing over to Matamoros was the only way for boys to play on leagues year-round.
These contrasting styles just added to what was already happening in the stands. As the game wore on and the tension grew, Porter coach Luis Zarate, who himself had grown up playing on both sides of the river before becoming a placekicker for the University of Houston, called a time-out to center his team and deal with the slurs. “Focus on your game. At the end of the day, people are going to be talking about who won the game, not about these other things,” he said, probably in Spanish, since his players are bilingual and this is the common language of soccer along the border.
What Coach Zarate wanted more than anything was to impress upon his players that they had fought hard all season to make it to this final game and had earned every right to be on the field. “You’re here. You belong here!”
He repeated this until it began to sink in. “You’re here. You belong here!” Here at the state championship, here in Texas, here in the United States. They had traveled all the way from Gladys Porter High School, in the shadows of a proposed anti-immigration wall, to the 5A state championship, and they were exactly where they should be. “You’re here. You belong here!” His words held an immediacy, but they also managed to convey a message his players could carry with them off the soccer field.
Jorge Briones, described as “a scoring machine” by his coach, went on to make the two goals that won the game, and the Porter Cowboys became the first Rio Grande Valley team to win a 5A division title in any sport. The team returned to Brownsville to a hero’s welcome. Everyone, from alumni dating back thirty years to local politicians, lined up to publicly offer his congratulations. What no one could offer the players, though, was a way to afford the $300 championship rings. The University Interscholastic League, the governing body for most high school athletics programs in the state, sets limits on what gifts a team can receive from its school or school district. Eventually, businesses came together to offer the players jobs at various car dealerships in town. Briones spent a couple weeks washing cars at Marroquin Auto Sales, a used-car dealership along the freeway, so he could earn the money for his state MVP ring.
When I called Coach Zarate on his cell phone, he and his team happened to be the guests of honor, along with a few Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, at the grand opening of the new Wal-Mart Supercenter in Brownsville. The store manager had just donated $1,000 to go toward the team’s funds for next season. I spoke to Coach Zarate a few minutes before he asked if I wanted to talk to Briones. Then he turned to his star player and in Spanish told him there was a guy from a magazine who wanted to ask him some questions.
“Can I talk to him in Spanish?” I heard Briones ask.
“Sure,” the coach said. “He’s from down here.”
Then Briones came on the line and I congratulated him, until it got so loud at the grand opening that he could hardly hear me. It sounded as if there were a pep rally going on.
“Can you wait a minute, sir?” he asked.
And then we both stayed on the line, listening to “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing in the background.
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