Like last Wednesday when the El Paso Baseball Hall of Fame held its annual banquet and El Paso High School held a combination homecoming and reunion.
This weekend UTEP is celebrating its homecoming and the following Friday it will be inducting five former stars into its Athletic Hall of Fame.
I ATTEND MANY of those get-togethers to hear what these stars of stars have to say in their acceptance speeches. How did they start in their chosen sports? Who helped them? What made them so successful?
You’d be surprised how fascinating some of the answers can be. For instance, I asked Joe Castillo, the father of pitcher Frank Castillo who was inducted into El Paso Baseball Hall of Fame last Wednesday posthumously, what made his son so good that he pitched in the Major Leagues for 13 years. I thought he might answer “a good arm” or “good coaching” or “a good curveball.” He answered simply, “Heart.”
THE UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame this year is inducting Gus Bailey, Gloria Estrada, Harry Flournoy, Wayne Hansen and Greg Joy. I’m sure it’ll be interesting to hear what they all have to say, too.
I especially want to hear what Joy has to say. I like all track events but high jumping has always been the most fascinating to me. How in the world can a person jump so high, I ask myself. When I started out as a sportswriter in 1949 athletes were clearing six feet. But the bar kept rising and athletes kept going over it.
BORN IN Portland, Oregon, Greg Joy began high jumping at age fifteen and it wasn’t long before he cleared six feet. He just kept going higher and higher and a few years later he cleared seven feet. That’s seven feet, folks. And in 1976 he cleared seven feet four inches in the Olympics in Montreal to win a silver medal.
Wow. But he wasn’t through. He set a world indoor high jump record two years later, going over the bar at 7 feet 7 inches.
That record has since been broken, which is almost incredible to me. I’ll be at the UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame induction banquet next Friday not only to hear what Joy has to say — but to see if he was born with wings.
(Want to go, too? Call 915-747-8759 for tickets).
TRIVIA QUESTION: You know how many starters there are on a football team, a baseball team and a basketball team but how many in soccer? Answer at end.
A COUPLE of popular memorial golf tournaments are being combined into one. The meets, which celebrate the lives of Steve Cox and Donnie Henderson, will be held Oct. 19 at Painted Dunes Desert Golf Course in northeast El Paso. Entry fee is $125 and includes dinner and team prizes and raffle items.
The Cox tournament also remembers the lives of Paul Strelzin, David McCloughan, Robert Endlich and Mike Mauldin. For more information contact Margie Henderson at 584-3716 or 329-4653.
IT CAUGHT ME by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Response to my recent column on El Paso High School was overwhelming. I’ve received emails and phone calls from near and far. Then I remembered that El Paso High School is nearly 100 years old and heaven only knows how many former students are out there. Since the column is on the Internet it’s easily available. I’ll let you know some of the comments in a future column. You’ll find them interesting.