Beneath the Rio Grande Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

As a young man, I had a sneering and snobby attitude towards the world of strip clubs. Not sure why, but I had a negative connotation of such businesses and expressed my anti-strip clubs view to a few friends of mine. But I had never actually been to one at the time, and it wasn't until December 29th, 2007 that I first entered one of those establishments. It was a night noteworthy for the great Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva slugfest and Georges St. Pierre finally cementing his status as the ace of the Welterweight Division with his second definitive destruction of the greatest Welterweight of all time, Matt Hughes. As the great UFC 79: Nemesis PPV was coming to an end, a friend of mine who I consider to be a strip club aficionado, decided he wanted to go over to Stilettos to celebrate his birthday that evening. I was a bit conflicted since I still had a deprecating air about strip clubs, but no way I was going to back out, since it was my friends birthday wish. As I entered the place, what a strange place I thought. I think strip clubs appear more bizzare and bit surreal if one doesn't drink alcohol or is under some kind of influence. So, I found the experience to be fascinating as I observed every detail of my unusual surroundings. I had a good time hanging out with my clique and meeting new friends, but I honestly didn't think I would ever attend another strip joint again. Until that same friend invited me to go to Valley Girls in the middle of a week in late Spring 2008, I accepted the offer but I wasn't looking forward to it much. But Valley Girls ended up feeling like the sort of place where one might get stabbed with an AIDS-infected knife and get raped in the restroom. My second and last time going to Valley Girls reveals it all, as it had a huge brawl break out in the parking lot with a lot of morbidly obese middle aged gentlemen and the owner of the establishment rushing out to break it up with a can of mace...

I was still a bit unsure about what the strip club experience could offer, but Xoticas changed my ridiculous negative bias on such fine establishments. Xoticas is actually fun! It's like a Russ Meyer film, it is shamelessly in love with the female form and it's a place where everyone comes together to have a fun unpretentious good time. Everyone knows why we go, we all smile at each other and silently tell the strangers around us "My goodness, those boobies, right on brother!". When the boom boom segment occurs on Friday nights, I seriously believe it becomes the happiest place in the Valley. I might go once a month or so since my friends like to go during happy hour. It's Thanksgiving week, so a good friend of mine called me Tuesday night, he had a thirst for some "birongas" and "viejas", and asked me to go join him with the guys. So I thought, "Sure, why not". We arrived just in time before they started charging cover, found some great seats and just sat back, relaxed and listened to such strip club classics as "I am not a whore" and "Don't want no short dick man". Yeah, while amusing this is the last sort of music I would ever listen to on my own time, but the stuff I listen to like Alison Krauss, Calvin Johnson, and John Cale wouldn't exactly fit the strip club atmosphere, would it? Or hmm...maybe someone should attempt a hipster strip club, just to see how it would draw...

As one of the lovely ladies was about to make her grand entrance, one of my good friends leaned over and informed me that the previous week they were here, this girl had informed the group that she went to PSJA North with us. My interest perked up, more than usual, at the sight of seeing this lady perform to see if I would recognize her (my friends had failed to remember her on their previous Xoticas trip). Since we were sitting right next to the main stage, it wasn't difficult to get a good view of her and when I did, I was befuddled. Not only did this lady attend classes with us at PSJA North High School and LBJ Middle School, she was the girl I had a major crush on in the 7th grade! I sat there, perplexed at the sight of this lady getting naked and bumping and grinding herself against all comers. I wondered, should I go up there? Would she recognize me? My friends went up there since they had already talked to her the previous week, but at the moment, I decided against going up there. As the night progressed, I observed the wide variety of ladies and analyzed how they used their techniques and body to attract the male audience. One lady, not more than 4'8, and with a haircut that resembles Japanese animation female characters, was and always is a huge draw whenever I see her perform. To be quite frank, I don't feel she performs a good a show as some of the other ladies, but the people of the Rio Grande Valley really love a 4'8 chick with tits bigger than her head and with distracting tattoos around her nipples (the nerd inside of me wonders why would someone tattoo stuff directly around their nipples?). Another huge draw is a lady around the height of 5'6 with, you guessed it, huge surgically enhanced mammary glands and long flowing blonde hair. Unlike her 4'8 peer, this lovely faux-blonde puts on an excellent show full of playful biting and epic tit slapping. So if you were to find yourself confronted with this lady, one should expect to have their nipples, knee, ear, neck and cock bitten on. One of the greats amongst the ladies, is a curly haired firecracker with natural perky breasts who is able to convey an infectious enthusiasm for bumping and grinding that is quite charming and illuminating.

The night was coming to a close, as one of my friends was planning on cooking some seafood over at his house in Hidalgo, and we were preparing to leave in a little bit. But, I noticed my old LBJ Middle School crush was preparing to make her way back to the main stage. I sat there, head tilted slightly, still wondering if I should go up there. She finished up her main stage performance, and headed over to the 2nd stage, but I was still unsure. Finally, as she was on the 3rd stage, and the song was halfway over, I thought, "Fuck it", and asked my gentleman's club connoisseur buddy of mine, if he would spot me a dollar to go up to her. No hesitation on his part, and he gladly handed it over and I earnestly speed walked my way over to the 3rd stage. She started dancing with her back to me, doing her thing with her ass like so many strippers like to do. When she turned around and saw me, she put her hands against my chest, and exclaimed "OH...I remember you...Eddie!". She proceeded to do her stripper shtick and have a conversation simultaneously, and it was a blast. After she jammed my face into her warm breasts and finished up, I told her to take care, and she did the same. I then heard from my friend that the DJ was calling out my name during my interaction with the lady. The DJ was another PSJA North 2004 alumni, and I thought, not only is Xoticas a temple of tits, it's also a great PSJA North 2004 re-union hangout! It's not the first time I've ran into old PSJA North friends and I'm sure it'll keep on happening as the years go by. Thinking about it now, I feel a bit old as we've all changed in many different ways and it's both nice and odd seeing old faces pop up randomly. We went on to H-E-B, and I was amazed to run into another old friend of mine that I hadn't seen in 5 years. I used to be associated with this good friend of mine all the time, as we once snuck inside the lucha libre ring at Tejana Saloon, and it led to him powerbombing me inside there...

What a memorable night, hung out with my good friends, I ran into some old friends I hadn't seen in years, I ate some expertly cooked seafood, and the girl of my LBJ Middle School dreams slapped me with her nice tits.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eduardo Martinez

The Eagle Rap from Mission High School (1987)

I hear from Texas high school football experts that Mission High School had a pretty good year in 1987. They went to the playoffs that season and had a really great team at the time. The Monitor recently ranked the 1987 team as the 15th greatest team in Valley history. 

But their greatest contribution to the world was this awesome video:




Mission has given us Tito Santana, Tom Landry and this rap! I think we should all thank them for that!

Las Bombitas de Pharr-San Juan-Alamo

History Channel's Gangland: Trinity of Blood

A very brutal documentary on the Tri-City Bombers and their violent effect on the Rio Grande Valley. I must admit, I always knew las bombitas were pretty bad but I didn't know they were this horrible. I dismiss those complaints that this is going to make South Texas look bad since it's a very fascinating look at modern gang warfare in these bordertowns and the terror they've caused with knives, frying pans, AK-47's, and hand grenades. Any information, whether positive or negative is good information. I did have a few complaints, like they framed the story from Brownsville at the beginning and they didn't mention that they were at one point considered a break dancing crew in the 1980s. Why would they frame it from Brownsville when this story begins in Pharr-San Juan-Alamo? They briefly mentioned the Po' Boys in passing, and I wish they would have gone more into detail with their bloody rivalry. But maybe that's just me since I attended LBJ Middle School and PSJA North High School and I knew students that dreamed of one day being members of either the TCB or the Po' Boys. There was some other assumptions that were made and issues that could be interpreted differently to people that are not from the Valley. Nevertheless, I wasn't aware of a lot of information presented in this documentary, like what led to the creation of rival gang The Chicano Brotherhood, some of the violent local incidents, how far their influence reaches, the ranking system of the gang, and the role of these gangs in Texas Prisons.

Now that I saw this documentary, I'm very interested to search if someone has written a history on this topic. This is an interesting primer to watch but I now think a book about this subject could be incredible and could do a better job telling this story.

The 1961 Donna Redskins

Since we are in the middle of High School Valley Football season, I thought I would post our one true tale of glory. My dad grew up in Donna and was a kid when this happened, so he'll mention it often. I am going to quote an excerpt of Jorge Iber's account of this tale:

The Donna High School Redskins, and in particular the team's Mexican American players (10 of the 18 were of Mexican descent), battled such perceptions of inadequacy as they took the field in December of 1961 against the Quanah High School Indians in a contest for the Class AA state football title.

Founded in 1907, the town of Donna is located in Hidalgo County, nestled right next to the Rio Grande, which serves as the border between the colossus of the North and los Estados Unidos de Mexico. Because of its proximity to Mexico, the county was the scene of much cattle rustling and many other illegal activities. The jurisdiction also fits in nicely with the tradition of corruption and political chicanery common in South Texas during the early 1900s. Although Mexican Americans in Donna did not enjoy civil and social equality with their white neighbors, the political boss system then prevalent in the area provided a certain amount of protection from the worst ravages of racism experienced by some of their brothers and sisters in other parts of Texas. As long as corrupt Democratic Party machines needed "Mexican" votes, relations were amicable.

The arrival of the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railway in 1904, however, stimulated a land boom in South Texas and radically changed the area's racial dynamics. The arrival of Midwestern farmers during the late 1910s and early 1920s brought stricter segregation to Hidalgo and adjoining counties. Donna split into two separate communities - one mostly white, the other almost all "Latin". The poorer side of town, East Donna, was the domicile of virtually all Mexican Americans, and the children of farm trabajadores (workers) often encountered humiliating and difficult circumstances in "their" school. During the early 1930s these students faced daily dirt and health inspections (specifically for lice infestation) and segregation for the first five grades because of perceived educational "handicaps". Due to such social and economic pressures, few of East Donna's pupils made it out of elementary school.

Because they were classified as "whites", however, those that did survive attended Donna High School (located on the west side of town), and, as one reporter noted in 1931, athletic ability could help increase Mexican Americans' acceptance among their white peers. "In fact, the Mexican children who can show their skill in art, music, scholarship, or physical prowess soon become favorites with the other white children and are wholeheartedly admired by them." By the late 1950s, therefore, the Donna Redskins had a history of fielding competitive, ethnically mixed teams. The 1958 and 1959 squads produced records of eight wins and two losses but did not earn playoff appearances.

For the 1960 season Donna administrators hired Earl Scott, who had a proven record of succeeding with border area teams, in hope of winning their long-sought-after district championship. The coach's credentials were impressive as, starting in 1955, he had guided the Eagle Pass (Maverick County) Eagles to a record of seven wins, two losses, and one tie (with a team that was 90 percent Mexican American) before moving on to Laredo (Webb County) in 1956. Prior to his arrival, Laredo school board members actually considered dropping football because, Scott asserts, many of them believed that the town's "kids could not compete in the league."

However, the new Laredo head coach proved the administrators wrong. After winning two games and losing eight in his first season, Scott's last two Laredo teams finished acceptable campaigns of six wins and four losses and nine wins and two losses. Both programs, though, lacked money, facilities, and winning traditions, and they generated only limited community support. Clearly, Scott was an able motivator and administrator who produced positive results under challenging conditions. Fortunately for Donna's bureaucrats, Scott purchased a small citrus farm in the community and accepted a junior high school teaching post in 1959. When the head coaching position came open, the veteran coach accepted the spot and guided the Redskins to eight wins and three losses in 1960, earning a district title and qualifying for the playoffs. The team's run ended when the squad lost to Sinton 12 to 0 in the first round of the state tournament.

At the start of the 1961 season, Texas' sport media predicted that Donna would be respectable (selected to win its district, number 32AA), but the team was not perceived as a potential championship threat. In class AA, the pundits expected traditional powers Sweeny and Jacksboro to clash for the statewide supremacy. The Redskins' early season schedule featured a scrimmage with San Benito (which fielded 45 players against Donna's 18), as well as two class AAA nondistrict teams, Rio Grande City and Mercedes. Injuries in the scrimmage and setbacks in the first two nonleague games (20 to 0 against Rio Grande City and 12 to 8 against Mercedes) got the team's campaign off to a rocky start.

In addition to a grueling schedule, Scott also faced much the same situation as many Rio Grande Valley teams of that era: dealing with players who worked as migrants picking crops or performing agricultural and other types of labor in other states. A 1961 report by the Corpus Christi Caller stated that the (mostly Mexican American) population could "travel to approximately 38 other states on their journey...follow[ing] the cotton crops" and even trekking to "Colorado for sugar beets, Idaho for hops, Wisconsin for vegetables, Illinois for corn, and Illinois and Alabama for potatoes." Such circumstances made preparation for an upcoming season difficult since Coach Scott and his assistant, Bennie La Prade, never knew "what they had [with regard to talented players] going into any season."

For students such as running back Abel Benavides, playing conflicted with assisting in his family's economic survival. Benavides's father, for example, did not want his son to play and instead insisted that he toil in the fields until mid-September. "My dad didn't believe in sports, he believed in working all the time." Still, Benavides persevered, and his words buttress some of Gems's assertions regarding the value of football to the life of a minority student. "The migrant students had it especially tough...because their lack of English generally shut them out of school activities. For a young man struggling for a toehold in the mainstream, football worked wonders."

Quarterback Luz Pedraza faced similar circumstances since his family spent summers picking potatoes in northern Alabama and later in Illinois. Fortunately for Luz, his parents and siblings sacrificed some of their earnings and sent him home to Donna each year before the start of school. Other players, such as Richard Avila and Harry Lantz, shared similar experiences. When Avila's father, a Hidalgo County peace officer, died in 1955, the fifteen children in the family bagged groceries, delivered papers, raised livestock, and worked as migrants to generate income. Lantz's family traveled the nation as carnival workers, and the young Harry lived by himself in a trailer behind a local gas station for most of the school year.

Although they lost their first two games, the Redskins remained optimistic as they prepared for their third and final nondistrict game against the Mission Eagles. First, both Scott and La Prade were stern disciplinarians who insisted on tenuous conditioning (the Redskins started the first weight-training program in the Valley) to produce a team with stamina that played well through the fourth quarter of their games. Players recall that they "'didn't ever take [our] helmet off or sit during timeouts...[We] sprinted on changes of quarter. We sprinted to the huddle. We ran everywhere.'" Second, tightly scripted practices were designed to perfect their offensive attack and eliminate mistakes. These efforts paid off handsomely during the playoffs as Donna totaled a minuscule fifteen yards in penalties during its last three games. Finally, unlike the situations Scott had faced in Eagle Pass and Laredo, the Donna community, both Mexican American and white, supported their team boisterously, with crowds of two thousand or more attending the junior varsity games. These factors, combined with a talented squad, generated eight consecutive victories (including holding opponents scoreless in four of their last five games), a perfect in-district mark, and a berth in the bidistrict (first round) playoff game.

The Donna Redskins, the unlikely powerhouse from the Rio Grande Valley, marched into (and through) the tournament, defeating Refugio (32 to 0), Devine (12 to 7), Sweeny (32 to 14), and Brady (16 to 14) to reach the state title game with Quanah. In all five contests, they were considered the underdogs and were also the visiting team, which increased the difficulty of success. An examination of the Texas Class AA team polls from the 1961 campaign reveals that Donna never ranked in the top ten of the classification, while for the majority of the season, Sweeny, Brady, and Quanah were all ranked in the top five.

Because of its racial undertones, the most noteworthy clash in the early rounds was the battle with Sweeny High School. Coach Scott never used race as a motivating factor for his team; during the regular season he certainly did not have to since most of the 32AA district teams also had substantial numbers of Mexican Americans. But the Sweeny game (which was played in the Gulf Coast city of Freeport) was different. One of the opposing coaches questioned the team's ability because of its ethnic composition. Prior to the game, he approached Scott and asked, "Can these pepper bellies play? I mean, you never heard of any of them in the Southwest Conference." The Redskins' field general responded that his players would show their mettle between the sidelines and informed his squad of the commentary. Nick Padilla, who went out for the coin flip before the contest, endured one final insult when the Sweeny captain inquired whether he was a "real" player or the team's mascot. After the battling to a tenuous 13 to 6 lead through three periods, the Redskins wore down their opponents in the fourth quarter, crossing the goal line three times in the final period to seize the victory.

Donna's opponent for the title came in with highly impressive credentials. During a dominating season, the unbeaten and untied Quanah Indians tallied an astonishing 483 points, while permitting a mere 56. The team from north central Texas had been classified as high as third in the state polls and had already eliminated top-ranked Jacksboro in the other state semifinal match. The Redskins' "Cinderella" season, prognosticators assumed, would meet an inglorious end on the turf of the University of Texas' Memorial Stadium on December 16, 1961. The Valley's representatives were apparently outmatched by their foes for the title game. In a 1999 interview, Luz Pedraza discussed some of the most glaring differences between Valley teams and squads from other parts of Texas. Although his commentary dealt with the 1961 team, it still holds true in many instances today (before the championship game one newspaper described the Redskins as being both "outweighed and outnumbered" by their opponent). "We have mostly Mexican American kids. Other areas have more talent and speed, which you need as you go further and further in the playoffs."

Donna's season had a happy ending, however, although the title game did not start off very well. Donna received the opening kickoff and quickly had to give up possession of the ball and put to Quanah. The Indians marched down the field and scored to take a 7 to 0 lead after only five minutes of play. The scrappy Valley team responded with a drive of its own, although its offense lost possession of the ball near their opponents' goal line. The Redskins' defense then made a gallant stand, lead b Raul ("Chief") de la Garza and Fabian ("Outlaw") Barrera, who combined to sack the opposing quarterback, forcing Quanah to surrender the football. An appalling punt left the Redskins on the Indian's twenty-yard line, from where they quickly drove their offense across the goal line to make the tally 7 to 6 (Donna failed on a two point conversion attempt). The powerful Indian offense was unable to gain ground on their ensuing possession, and the Pedraza-led offense scored again with less than two minutes left in the second quarter. At halftime, surprisingly, the underdog led by a score of 12 to 7.

The second half began with an exchange of punts until Quanah pushed across the Donna goal line with about four minutes left in the third quarter. Uncharacteristically, the Redskins then turned the ball over on a Pedraza interception, and their opponents scored again to take a 21 to 12 advantage. The championship dream seemed to be slipping from the Redskins' grasp. Team member Joe Gonzalez recalls that this was the only moment of panic for the squad. "Two or three guys started crying in the huddle, but Luz helped get them refocused on the task at hand."

Atoning for his earlier miscue, quarterback Pedraza drove the offense down the field for a score and made a two-point conversion to narrow the deficit to 21 to 20. With less than six minutes to go, the Redskins' defensive unit stopped the Quanah offense and regained possession of the football. The Redskins' drive began on their opponent's 42 yard line and, with pinpoint passing and the hard running of Fred Edwards, scored a touchdown with about three minutes left. The Indians, in a final attempt to salvage victory, took the ensuing kickoff and drove down the field to make a tying score. Their last-ditch effort ground to a halt when Oscar Avila, one of the five siblings on the Donna squad, sealed the title by intercepting a pass. The final score read 28 to 21 in favor of the Rio Grande Valley's representative. The Laredo Times reported the triumph by stating that "Donna's Redskins were the only team to pull an upset. They brought the first state [football] championship in history to the lower Rio Valley area."

The Donna Redskins had done what many prognosticators thought impossible: A Rio Grande Valley team had become football champion of the state of Texas. Indeed, the "Mexicans" had shown "them what they could do if given an opportunity." The task of the student of U.S. sport history is to uncover the significance of such an improbable triumph. What impact did the victory have on individual and community life? Sport reporters of the era noted the achievement but did not appreciate the social and historical significance of the victory. Harold Ratliff (in an article titled "The Latins Show Them") lavished praise on Coach Scott but voiced only faint approval for the sacrifice and talent of the Spanish-surnamed players. The championship "paid for all of the hard work the boys had done in showing that the Mexican boy can play football as well as anyone if he has the coach to tell him he can do it and show him how to prepare himself for the task at hand."

The interviews conducted with members of the team provide insight into the sport's ability to engender social change. The Mexican American players asserted that competition offered them a setting where they could battle alongside and against whites and in which they were judged on individual merit, not their ethnicity. In part, football helped them stay in school, graduate, and pursue college degrees. As running back Abel Benavides reported, "'Football gave me a much better outlook on life. In football we all grew together. Coach treated everybody the same....In this town, I went comunidad used a mostly Mexican (and Catholic) way to commemorate victory in a mostly American (and Texan) ritual.

The second incident is apparent in an interview with Oscar Avila in May of 2002. Avila, who now lives outside the Valley, visits Donna frequently. During one of his sojourns an older gentleman approached him and inquired whether he was one of the "Avila boys" from the 1961 team. After indicating that he was, the individual turned to his wife and said, "Mira, viejita, este es uno de los Avilas que jugo en el equipo del '61 cuando les ensellamos a los gringos que nosotros tambien sabiamos jugar football" (My dear, this is one of the Avilas boys who played for the '61 team when we showed the gringos that we too knew how to play football).

This is an excerpt from Mexican Americans and Sports: A Reader in the Athletics and Barrio Life. Also, if there are any typos to be found in this great excerpt, it is my fault, so blame me.

Eduardo Martinez