mr. robles
A BISD icon has passed away. Tony Ortiz, Porter High School's first principal, died earlier this week. Nobody had a more substantial impact of my career as an educator than Mr. Ortiz. I had taught at Hanna from 1975 to 1977, but I resigned in frustration because the students didn't want to learn and I had nothing to teach them. For the next three years I traveled extensively eking out a wayfarer's existence in a variety of locales as a journalist. Circumstances found me back in Brownsville working at The Brownsville Times when I showed up at the office one insufferable August day and a note stuck in the typewriter read, "Your services are no longer needed."
Desperate for a job, I interviewed at Porter with Mr. Ortiz. He sat back with his hands folded over his ample stomach, asked me a few questions and in less than five minutes into our Q&A hired me as an ESL teacher. He assigned me to a portable with no air-conditioning and two three-hour blocks of ESL students. I had learned to refrain from making the many mistakes that had turned my classrooms at Hanna into riot zones and I had devised a strategy to teach English. It was the same grammatically based strategy I had followed learning Spanish. Needless to say, I was more successful as an educator and I truly enjoyed the ESL kids. Most were from Matamoros and I was the first gringo in their lives. I have always said that they taught me more Spanish than I taught them English. It was here I also learned to sing and play the guitar to fill one of the three hours each day.
I was still a young punk partying until the wee hours in the morning in Matamoros and sleeping off the hangovers in the nurse's station during my lunch and planning periods. My hair hung to my shoulders and I was maybe the first male teacher in BISD history to sport an earring. I dressed in T-shirts, jeans and sneakers. I ran for city commissioner and then for mayor. I lived in a variety of downtown apartment complexes and housed numerous friends who in the majority of cases didn't have jobs. I was between my first and second marriages and it was a five-year spree that every young man should live. Back then as now, I never had a car, so I was delivered from the misfortune of a DWI. It was also during this period that I commenced my soccer career as the Cowboys head coach. I would occasionally talk to Mr. Ortiz about an academic or athletic matter, but once I had articulated the gist of the subject, his attention would turn elsewhere as people streamed in and out of his office. He would dismiss me with "you're doing a good job and don't worry about anything."
Porter had approximately 3000 students in those days. A third were housed in portable classrooms. It was a sprawling campus with plenty of nooks and crannies for lovers to fly the envelope and for dope-smokers to hit a joint, but a tranquility reigned over the school. Mr. Ortiz was a benevolent dictator who surrounded himself with a cadre of compadres destined to become distinguished principals and counselors themselves. I spent ten of the best and most enjoyable years under the tutelage of Mr. Ortiz. Always attired in a pair of cheap slacks, a white shirt and a perfunctory tie, he never once lost his temper to the best of my knowledge. He was the reigning Buddha. He treated everyone with respect, but he operated in a Zen gray area. He would quietly listen and nod his head while a teacher or a student would explain his problem. At the end of the discourse, he would tell the aggrieved individual that he would look into the matter, caution patience and calm, excuse the person pleasantly and in 99% of the cases the problems would dissolve on their own.
With the inauguration of soccer and my teams winning title after title while the football team was mired in a 47-game losing streak, there was much tension between myself and the head football coach. This conflict also existed at Hanna where Juan de Dios Garcia was enjoying much success on the pitch while the Golden Eagles were getting plucked week after week on the gridiron. The football establishment did everything within its power to undermine soccer's acclaim, but they failed at every turn because winning is a convincing argument while losing undermines credibility.
In no time the showdown between Porter and Hanna became "El Clasico" because the clashes often determined the eventual soccer district champion. Since many of my friends were reporters at the Herald, the confrontation between Juan and myself received outstanding coverage. This incident tells the whole story about the friction between the soccer and football forces and proved that bad intentions will seldom defeat good intentions. The night before "El Clasico" Juan and I met at The Vermillion. Longtime Herald photographer Brad Doherty took a picture of Juan and me arm-wrestling with our elbows resting on a soccer ball. When the story previewing the clash hit the streets, I received a summons from Mr. Ortiz's office. The article, in their evil minds, had given the football clique an opportunity to put Juan and me in our places once and for all.
"The Hanna head football coach is going to suspend Garcia for comments in the article, but he knows he can't suspend Garcia if we don't suspend you," began Mr. Ortiz.
"And why should we be suspended?" I asked.
"According to the head coach, you were betting and the prize was a bucket of beers. He is arguing that it is against UIL rules to bet and mentioning alcohol in relation to a high school event is absolutely forbidden."
"What kind of bet is it when the winner pays and a bucket was the wager," I stammered. "We were betting a bucket of cokes."
"There is no mentioning of a bucket of beers in the newspaper?"
"No, sir."
He quickly perused the article. Sure enough, there was a "bucket" but no word of beers.
Mr. Ortiz leaned back in his seat and his folded arms returned to their accustomed spot on his big belly. He flashed a huge smile. He was a man's man. He hated hypocrites.
"You can go back to class, Coach. I'll take care of this."
Like reading, writing and 'rithmatic, Mr. Ortiz was old school. Eventually a new superintendent forced Mr. Ortiz to retire because he didn't appreciate the intangibles that Mr. Ortiz brought to the district. I evolved into an old school educator and coach. Mr. Ortiz was my mentor. He trusted his staff. He never looked for trouble. And he gave you all the rope you wanted. It was your responsibility not to hang yourself. Like many of my colleagues and pupils, I am forever indebted to Mr. Ortiz. He epitomized a generation of educators who made the BISD a special institution. I fear we will never know those days again. God speed, Mr. Ortiz. You had a profound effect on the lives of thousands. With your passing, we sadly turn another page.
Desperate for a job, I interviewed at Porter with Mr. Ortiz. He sat back with his hands folded over his ample stomach, asked me a few questions and in less than five minutes into our Q&A hired me as an ESL teacher. He assigned me to a portable with no air-conditioning and two three-hour blocks of ESL students. I had learned to refrain from making the many mistakes that had turned my classrooms at Hanna into riot zones and I had devised a strategy to teach English. It was the same grammatically based strategy I had followed learning Spanish. Needless to say, I was more successful as an educator and I truly enjoyed the ESL kids. Most were from Matamoros and I was the first gringo in their lives. I have always said that they taught me more Spanish than I taught them English. It was here I also learned to sing and play the guitar to fill one of the three hours each day.
I was still a young punk partying until the wee hours in the morning in Matamoros and sleeping off the hangovers in the nurse's station during my lunch and planning periods. My hair hung to my shoulders and I was maybe the first male teacher in BISD history to sport an earring. I dressed in T-shirts, jeans and sneakers. I ran for city commissioner and then for mayor. I lived in a variety of downtown apartment complexes and housed numerous friends who in the majority of cases didn't have jobs. I was between my first and second marriages and it was a five-year spree that every young man should live. Back then as now, I never had a car, so I was delivered from the misfortune of a DWI. It was also during this period that I commenced my soccer career as the Cowboys head coach. I would occasionally talk to Mr. Ortiz about an academic or athletic matter, but once I had articulated the gist of the subject, his attention would turn elsewhere as people streamed in and out of his office. He would dismiss me with "you're doing a good job and don't worry about anything."
Porter had approximately 3000 students in those days. A third were housed in portable classrooms. It was a sprawling campus with plenty of nooks and crannies for lovers to fly the envelope and for dope-smokers to hit a joint, but a tranquility reigned over the school. Mr. Ortiz was a benevolent dictator who surrounded himself with a cadre of compadres destined to become distinguished principals and counselors themselves. I spent ten of the best and most enjoyable years under the tutelage of Mr. Ortiz. Always attired in a pair of cheap slacks, a white shirt and a perfunctory tie, he never once lost his temper to the best of my knowledge. He was the reigning Buddha. He treated everyone with respect, but he operated in a Zen gray area. He would quietly listen and nod his head while a teacher or a student would explain his problem. At the end of the discourse, he would tell the aggrieved individual that he would look into the matter, caution patience and calm, excuse the person pleasantly and in 99% of the cases the problems would dissolve on their own.
With the inauguration of soccer and my teams winning title after title while the football team was mired in a 47-game losing streak, there was much tension between myself and the head football coach. This conflict also existed at Hanna where Juan de Dios Garcia was enjoying much success on the pitch while the Golden Eagles were getting plucked week after week on the gridiron. The football establishment did everything within its power to undermine soccer's acclaim, but they failed at every turn because winning is a convincing argument while losing undermines credibility.
In no time the showdown between Porter and Hanna became "El Clasico" because the clashes often determined the eventual soccer district champion. Since many of my friends were reporters at the Herald, the confrontation between Juan and myself received outstanding coverage. This incident tells the whole story about the friction between the soccer and football forces and proved that bad intentions will seldom defeat good intentions. The night before "El Clasico" Juan and I met at The Vermillion. Longtime Herald photographer Brad Doherty took a picture of Juan and me arm-wrestling with our elbows resting on a soccer ball. When the story previewing the clash hit the streets, I received a summons from Mr. Ortiz's office. The article, in their evil minds, had given the football clique an opportunity to put Juan and me in our places once and for all.
"The Hanna head football coach is going to suspend Garcia for comments in the article, but he knows he can't suspend Garcia if we don't suspend you," began Mr. Ortiz.
"And why should we be suspended?" I asked.
"According to the head coach, you were betting and the prize was a bucket of beers. He is arguing that it is against UIL rules to bet and mentioning alcohol in relation to a high school event is absolutely forbidden."
"What kind of bet is it when the winner pays and a bucket was the wager," I stammered. "We were betting a bucket of cokes."
"There is no mentioning of a bucket of beers in the newspaper?"
"No, sir."
He quickly perused the article. Sure enough, there was a "bucket" but no word of beers.
Mr. Ortiz leaned back in his seat and his folded arms returned to their accustomed spot on his big belly. He flashed a huge smile. He was a man's man. He hated hypocrites.
"You can go back to class, Coach. I'll take care of this."
Like reading, writing and 'rithmatic, Mr. Ortiz was old school. Eventually a new superintendent forced Mr. Ortiz to retire because he didn't appreciate the intangibles that Mr. Ortiz brought to the district. I evolved into an old school educator and coach. Mr. Ortiz was my mentor. He trusted his staff. He never looked for trouble. And he gave you all the rope you wanted. It was your responsibility not to hang yourself. Like many of my colleagues and pupils, I am forever indebted to Mr. Ortiz. He epitomized a generation of educators who made the BISD a special institution. I fear we will never know those days again. God speed, Mr. Ortiz. You had a profound effect on the lives of thousands. With your passing, we sadly turn another page.
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