He was the subject of an extensive article complete with several photographs in “Connections,” a publication of the Texas County and District Retirement System. And well deserved. I can’t think of anyone who has done more to help potentially wayward kids in El Paso straighten out their lives.
And he did a lot of it with sports.
BUT FIRST, as the article points out, he had to straighten himself.
It states, “Born and raised in El Paso, Alberto grew up in poverty. Rebelling against an abusive home life, he began hanging out with the wrong people and getting involved in gangs. As a result, he was in and out of a detention home and reform school between the ages of 11 and 17.
“After his last stint in reform school, his probation officer urged him to leave El Paso and join a federal job corps program. Though he initially didn’t want to go, Alberto says it was the best decision he ever made. ‘I helped myself. I found out where I was, what I was doing wrong. I looked in the mirror and said, what’s the purpose of me being in this world? Is it for me to hurt people? To hurt my family? No, I need to change.’”
AND HE DID change. He came back to El Paso and went to work at the local detention home as a janitor. But not for long. He talked his way into becoming the first teacher at the Judge Enrique Pena Juvenile Justice Center.
The center didn’t have a teacher and the youths were locked in their rooms 24 hours a day. They were destructive and caused damage to the facility. Renteria went to the director and told him they were destructive because they had no outlet to their energy and suggested they could take them out of their rooms and do something positive, like educating them.
He was given the green light, but he would have to teach them himself.
“I only had a GED,” he says. “How could I teach?” But he got help from Houston Elementary School. He was married by then and his children were going there.
THE REST is history. As the article points out, “Alberto built a library, game room and clothing exchange in the detention home. All of the rooms were stocked with donations Alberto solicited. His efforts extended south of the border, too. He took kids on probation on trips to detention homes in Mexico to play with children in detention there, as well as to bring donations of food and clothing. He built relationships with the Juarez police, making it easier for probation officers in El Paso to work their cases.”
AND HE FORMED baseball, softball, basketball and volleyball teams and took them to play throughout Texas.
And they were good teams. They won several championships through the years at the Texas Youth Commission annual tournaments in Edinburg.
More importantly, players were learning a new way of life.
RENTERIA HAS received a lot of recognition. He was named Texas Probation Officer of theYear in 1982 and National Probation Officer of the Year in 1983. He received the City of El Paso Conquistador Award in 1993 and 1995. Four mayors of El Paso, U.S.
Rep. Silvestre Reyes and the governor of Chihuahua, Mexico, have recognized
him for his service
Renteria, now 66 and living a much quieter life, retired in 2008 after 32 years with the department. The article adds he “still refers to the kids he worked with at the detention home as ‘my kids,’ These kids have gone on to become FBI agents, border patrol agents, teachers, a principal and a computer analyst.”
BETO RENTERIA used to call me with reports of his teams when I was sports editor of The El Paso Herald-Post. His enthusiasm for what he was doing was astonishing.
He’ll always hold a special part in El Paso sports lore.