But he was also friendly, kind and caring. He cared so much, in fact, it often got him into trouble.
Oh, yes. He was also a romantic. Really.
No wonder, then, that he became one of the most beloved sports figures in the history of El Paso.
STRELZIN BECAME a public address announcer strictly by accident. One day he visited a track meet at Kidd Field where the Miners were competing. UTEP Coach Wayne Vandenburg was trying to do the announcing along with his other chores. In typical Strelzin style he went up to Vandenburg and told him he had a great event but the announcing was terrible.
Strelzin: “Wayne asked me if I thought I could do better. I said yes and he handed me the mike.”
A career that was to bring incredible joy and excitement to sports fans all over town was launched. Before long he was announcing basketball, baseball, football, hockey and other sports.
AND HE DID it with great fervor. His screaming of “MMMMMiner ball” at UTEP basketball games became a legend and incited the Miners to greater heights. And he would do other things, like cueing the band to strike up at wrong times or making comments that upset the opposition.
Visiting teams hated him and would complain vociferously. UTEP officials tried to tone him down but with little success.
It all came to a head one stormy night. UTEP athletic director Bill Cords had asked him several times not to cue the band to play. When the band struck up again Cords accused Strelzin of cueing it again. Strelzin claimed he didn’t do it this one time and threatened to resign. Cords, a hard, no-nonsense man, accepted the resignation.
Strelzin got up and walked away, never to return again.
UTEP FANS deluged the local newspapers with letters asking UTEP to re-instate Strelzin. Miners Coach Don Haskins came to his defense, too. Haskins wrote in his autobiography, “Haskins: The Bear Facts,” that Strelzin’s cheerleading was a big help in inspiring his team and that it wasn’t a unique situation in sports. He said that when the Miners visited other teams in the Western Athletic Conference the announcers there would do many of the things that Strezlin was doing in El Paso.
All the pleading went to no avail.
STRELZIN CAUSED Jim Paul, owner of the El Paso Diablos, many headaches, too. Visiting teams would complain all the way to league headquarters about Strelzin’s antics.
“I would get on him,” Paul once told me, “but he would keep it up. I must have fired him four times.”
And took him back as many times. Strelzin was a great asset to the Diablos, too, and baseball fans loved him just as much as UTEP fans.
STRELZIN WAS a highly educated man with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in education from New Hampshire College. He taught at elementary and high schools in El Paso. He was also quite an athlete. He lettered four years in both football and basketball. One of his college teammates was future movie actor James Caan.
Strelzin came to El Paso from Brooklyn in 1967 to visit a friend. He was driving on Mesa Street when he saw a beautiful girl driving the other way. He turned around and followed her all the way to La Fiesta Nightclub – in Juarez, Mexico. Turns out her parents owned the club.
Needless to say, the former Darlyne Valle wound up as his wife. How do you resist a whirlwind? They had three beautiful daughters.
PAUL STRELZIN and I had a long relationship. In fact, I wanted to write his autobiography just like I did Haskins’ but it didn’t work out. It would have made a great book. We had lunch a couple of times but he couldn’t sit still long enough to tell me the story of his life.
He did tell me one memorable thing, however. He said he wouldn’t be completely happy again unless UTEP asked him to return to the mike again. He still loved the Miners. “I miss them,” he said. “I want to be able to holler MMMMMiner ball once again.”
And oh, how El Pasoans would love to have heard him.
It didn’t happen.
Sad, but his call of MMMMMiner ball will live on in our memories.