AMBROSIO ROBLES

A Facebook friend sent me a message that a BISD icon had passed away. Ambrosio Robles, Cortina High School's first principal, died earlier this week. Nobody had a more substantial impact on my career as an educator than Mr. Robles. I had taught at Jim Bowie High School 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 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. The bottom line wasn't there."

Jobless, I interviewed at Cortina with Mr. Robles. 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 Bowie 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 treasured the ESL kids. 

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 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 Vaqueros head coach. I would occasionally talk to Mr. Robles 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."

Cortina 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 there were few discipline problems. Mr. Robles 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 satisfying years under the tutelage of Mr. Robles. 

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, 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 never-ending losing streak, there was much tension between myself and the head football coach. This conflict also existed at Bowie where Diego Messi was garnering much success on the pitch while the Vultures 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 Cortina and Bowie 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 Diego and me received outstanding coverage. The night before an "El Clasico" Diego and I met at The Palm Lounge. Longtime Herald photographer Kent Connors took a picture of Diego and me arm-wrestling with our elbows resting on a soccer ball. When the story previewing the clash hit the streets the next morning, I received a summons from Mr. Robles office. The article, in their evil minds, had given the football clique an opportunity to put Diego and me in our places once and for all.

"The Bowie head football coach is going to suspend Messi for comments in the article, but he knows he can't suspend Messi if we don't suspend you," began Mr. Robles.

"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. Robles 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. Robles was old school. Eventually a new superintendent forced Mr. Robles to retire because he didn't value the intangibles that Mr. Robles brought to the district. I evolved into an old school educator and coach. Mr. Robles was my mentor. He trusted his staff. He never looked for trouble. 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. Robles. 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. Robles. You had a profound effect on the lives of thousands. With your passing, we sadly turn another page.