Are you starting to get excited about the upcoming UTEP football season? I am.
The Miners will play their first game in five weeks (Sept. 5) and I can’t wait to see. runing back Aaron Jones
and kickoff return specialist Autrey Golden back in action. They’re so good Jones has already been named a preseason candidate for the 2015 Doak Walker Award presented annually to the 
nation’s top college running back and Golden has been named the preseason Conference USA Special Teams Player of the Year.
To me, there’s no more thrilling sight in football than watching a back running through, around and over would be tacklers. Maybe it’s because of my high school experience.
I WENT OUT for football as a sophomore running back at El Paso High School. I weighed only about 135 pounds then but boy, was I fast. The first time I took a kickoff I blazed through my bigger, stronger – and slower — teammates like water through a strainer.
Unfortunately, on the first play from scrimmage I hit the line and a big lineman (170 pounders were considered big then) fell on my left arm and broke it.
I was taken to the hospital and a cast was put on. I expected to get a lot of sympathy when I got home but instead my mother (a typical strict, loving but no-nonsense Mexican mother) gave me the bawling out of my life. “I told you not to play that stupid game,” she groused.
She made me drop the sport.
But to this day every time I see a running back break loose for a long run I can imagine me in his shoes.
Bring on the football season!!!
TRIVIA QUESTION: What was Doak Walker’s full name and for which college and pro teams did he play? Answer at end of column.
THERE’S HOPE again that the El Paso Golf Hall of Fame will be revived after a few years of being comatose. Rita Aguilar writes:
“The board of the El Paso Golf Hall of Fame is proud to announce that this year’s induction banquet will be held Nov. 17 at Coronado Country Club. As usual, we are requesting resumes for nominations … Resumes should be sent electronically in pdf format to: epgolfhof@yahoo.com. Deadline for resumes is Monday Aug 3. Resumes must include golf background and qualifications along with biographical information either as a player, coach, volunteer or any other golf related capacity. Should also include any other civic involvement if applicable. Referral and recommendation letters may be included within the resume and biographical information.”
ONE FELLOW I would love to see inducted is the late Ernie Ponce. Ernie, a longtime community leader, led the push to build Ascarate Municipal Golf Course at its present location, which is so much more accessible to the general public.
As the council member overseeing the Parks and Recreation Department, he also helped the construction of small playgrounds all over the city during his three terms from 1951 to 1957.
A graduate of El Paso High and the Alexander Hamilton Institute of Business of New York, he was also a successful businessman.
Many believe Ascarate Golf Course should have been named Ernie Ponce Municipal Golf Course just like the previous municipal golf course was named for A.S. Valdespino, its originator.
AND OUR condolences to Ron Gillett on the death of his wife, Elizabeth “Liz” Hughey Gillett. She passed away June 30. Born in El Paso November 6 1941, she attended Dudley School, Mesita School, El Paso High School, Mary Baldwin College and graduated from Texas Western College (UTEP). An exceptionally attractive lady, she was a tennis buff and she and Ron owned Dos Lagos Golf Course in Anthony for 29 years.
ANSWER to trivia question: His full name was Ewell Doak Walker Jr. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1948 while playing for SMU then played six seasons for the Detroit Lions. He was inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.