E-E athletics getting by despite financial woes

EDCOUCH - Edcouch-Elsa's Yellowjacket Stadium has been the home of some of the Rio Grande Valley's best football teams. The ‘Jackets have won six consecutive District 32-4A championships and have built a reputation as one of the area's most powerful teams. Their home is affectionately known as "The Black Hole," a name which evokes fear and dominance.

Recently, however, the stadium has become a symbol for something else, something different than easy victories for the home team. Actually, the fact the stadium is usable is a victory of a different kind.

Sure, the press boxes have broken glass windows and walls with holes inside of them, the J from Yellowjacket Stadium on the scoreboard is missing (though a replacement has been ordered) and the grass hasn't been mowed as frequently, but the stadium itself is still functional enough to host a graduation and 7-on-7 football tournament thanks to sacrifices made by students and coaches.

Not to sound trite or cliché, but that also represents the state of E-E athletics. Yeah, there probably will be more cuts in next year's athletic budget (which hasn't been determined), but the athletic department is still functioning and giving athletes a chance to compete despite its financial woes.

"We're in this situation and things will turn around sooner than later," said head football coach/athletic director Joe Solis, who is down to four varsity assistants after having 12 last season. "We just have to think about the kids. That's all that matters to me, the kids."

Because of an Edcouch-Elsa ISD shortfall of $10 million, cuts have been necessary all over the district. The stadium, like the rest of the athletic department, has suffered from a lack of available maintenance workers, thanks to massive layoffs which started in January. Within the last month, the condition of the field has improved, though, despite the insistence of Interim Superintendent Frank Perez that the "football field is perfect, the track is perfect, everything is real neat," it is not in the same shape as other grass fields in District 32-4A.

"I'm telling you, we're doing real good," Perez said.

The financial woes have taxed everybody involved in the program in difficult ways. For example, it is likely that next season, the track & field team will be unable to compete at a meet at San Antonio unless it can raise the money from fundraisers. Any purchase of equipment is on a basis of what's needed, not just on upgrading.

In the past, there has been plenty of in-house maintenance for Yellowjacket Stadium, the fieldhouse and the gymnasium. But thanks to cuts, stadium upkeep has been handled by kids sent from Workforce, while coaches like Solis and now-retired girls track & field coach Vickey Llanes have had to pitch in with clean up.

Solis, one of the most successful football coaches in the Valley, mops his own office. Llanes, who retired this spring after 30 years at E-E, had to enlist her athletes to pick up trash so they could host meets this spring in a somewhat-clean stadium. She said it wasn't difficult to entice her athletes to pitch in, as they saw coaches doing the same thing.

"I was there 30 years and we never had to do that before," Llanes said. "Because of the situation the school was in, we had to. Everybody had to pick up the slack when people were let go. That meant that somebody else had to go and do the jobs that people were doing."

Teams like coach Imelda Rubio's girls basketball squad have lost assistants and not been able to replace them. Rubio currently has none and has sent e-mails to teachers hoping to fill four assistant coaching spots.

Like other coaches, she cannot go outside the district to hire replacements.

"It's difficult, but most of the people here have good attitudes about it and know it's going to get better," Rubio said. "We just go about our activities knowing that we're still here and we're going to try to work hard to get them all back up. The students are great here. I really like it here. It's my first year back. That's one thing I noticed. They're very good students, they're very respectful.
"We'll be OK at Edcouch-Elsa."