Article first published in Vol. 37, 2020.
By Samantha Linn
"It's not who you are or where you're from. It's who you become." This was Nemo Herrera's philosophy of life ‒ and he shared it with his athletes. William Carson Herrera, coach of boys from El Segundo Barrio would guide the Bowie Bears to the 1949 Texas high school baseball championship. Despite facing racism on an almost daily basis, especially during out-of town games, the Bears never let their circumstances become an excuse for not doing their best.
Image caption: Nemo Herrera was celebrated at a dinner given by his players in the late 1950s. (Photo courtesy of Dave Rodriguez)
Their hometown celebrated the report of their being fed and safely housed more than their victories. The families of these young boys were exhilarated to hear Herrera reassure the city of El Paso that the boys were eating well. In his Sports Illustrated article entitled "The Barrio Boys," Alexander Wolff wrote that after the win over Waco in the 1949 state semifinals, Herrera called KTSM Radio and said, "They're eating well and hitting the ball, and that wins ball games."
The Bowie Bears faced challenges most teams did not. Sometimes they struggled to find a place to sleep at night or a restaurant in which to eat in order to celebrate a win. Wolff revealed that while the team was in Lamesa, Texas, for the bi-district playoffs, the boys had to eat in the kitchen, as they were not allowed to be served in the "largely empty dining room" of a restaurant. While the teams they were set to play against were staying at hotels, they would rest their heads on Army cots under the UT Austin Memorial Stadium stands during the final game. But all they needed were full stomachs, a good night's rest and a spirit of “¡Sí, se puede!”
Going by two nicknames, "Nemo," and later in life, "El Viejo" (the old man), Herrera was well- known in South El Paso. He practically raised his players, making sure they were fed just as he ensured their hard work in the game. His team of Bears consisted of boys from the poorest part of town. Their names were: Jose Corona, Guillermo Gomez, Antonio (Tony) Lara, Carlos Macias, Rodolfo Garcia, Fernando Gomez, Trini Guillen, Ernesto Guzman, Javier Holguin, Alfonso Lopez, Lorenzo Martinez, Ruben Porras, Ruben Rodriguez, Gustavo (Gus) Sambrano, Jose Galarza, Ramon Camarillo, Andy Morales and Heriberto Ramos.
These names may be unfamiliar to most readers, but they established Bowie High School's prominence and brought the school some fleeting celebrity. Reporter Dan Cook in his article in the San Antonio Express-News described Herrera as "a high school coach who took scared, skinny boys with growling stomachs and molded them into men of sturdy stuff."
The importance of the 1949 Bowie win arises from the fact that the Bears came from poverty and the racial discrimination that was rampant in the state of Texas, and, to a lesser degree, in El Paso. Bowie High School is located in El Paso's poorest neighborhood, home to a great number of immigrants. In fact, in the 1940's, Bowie was the only public secondary school in the United States that was committed to educating Mexicans, according to Wolff.
Image caption: Bowie High School State Class AA Baseball Champions are pictured with their trophy on June 6, 1949. Kneeling, front row, left to right: Carlos Macias, Alfonso Lopez, Javier Holguin, Jose Corona, Fernando Gomez, Gustavo Sambrano, Antonio Lara. Standing, back row: Coach Nemo Herrera, Ruben Rodriguez, Trini Guillen, Lorenzo Martinez, Jose Galarza, Ramon Camarillo, Ruben Porras, Ernesto Guzman, Andy Morales, Eddie Ramos, Mgr. Not pictured: Guillermo Gomez, Rodolfo Garcia, Heriberto Ramos. (Photo Courtesy of Dave Rodriguez)
Cook said of Herrera, "His opponents were poverty, pestilence and despair and he met them head on with a smile and understanding in his heart." It was true that his team faced discrimination and racism which could have distracted them from the game, but Herrera wouldn't let that be the case. According to Wolff, when traveling for games, the team saw signs like "No dogs or Mexicans" in the window at a rest stop in Lubbock, and "Mexicans sit upstairs" at the theatre in downtown Austin. Though the boys faced prejudice on their trips, they were taught to maintain their dignity.
Ignacio Garcia, news reporter, sportswriter and author of When Mexicans Could Play Ball, said that Herrera "did not come in preaching Mexican American pride." He taught his players that the way to overcome the stereotypes and establish recognition for talent and rare ability was through the game. "Beating them ‒ that's how to get back at them," Nemo Herrera would remind his team.
The Bowie Bears weren't the only ones with the skill for playing ball. Their coach also had a history of success in sports, but more significantly, he too was of Mexican descent. Herrera was born on February 19, 1900, in Brownsville, Texas, to Rodolfo and Carolina Herrera.
According to an article in the Handbook of Texas, William A. Brkich and R. Matt Abigail wrote that Rodolfo Herrera had emigrated from Mexico after losing land during political unrest leading to the Mexican Revolution. Seven years after William Herrera's birth, his family moved to San Antonio. He was fortunate enough to grow up avoiding many social and racial issues regarding his Mexican heritage. This was simply a result of his being privileged enough to grow up in the Mexican American middle class.
His accomplishments in sports as a boy began to accumulate quickly. He started out as a batboy for the San Antonio Bronchos at 13. After that, Herrera would go full force into sports. At Brackenridge High School, he played baseball, basketball and football, and in 1918 he was recruited to play baseball and basketball for Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. During school breaks, Herrera would play semi-pro baseball. Sports writer Ray Sanchez wrote on his website, "He wasn't a big man physically but he was as ferocious a competitor as they come." At 5 feet, 4 inches tall, he was "small in size, but a giant in stature," wrote Morris Frank in an August 1970 Houston Chronicle article. Frank added, "That is, measured by the stature of a man in character, heart, accomplishments."
In 1923, he received his first coaching job at Beaumont High School. A scrapbook put together by Ignacio Garcia containing newspaper clippings, original photographs and handwritten entries by Herrera was presented to Dave Rodriguez, one of Herrera's former players and assistant coaches. In one of these entries, Nemo Herrera wrote about his team at Beaumont, "My team played 20 games, winning 19 and losing 1. This one loss was to a great Houston High School."
In the early 1920s, Herrera took a job with the Gulf Oil Company in Mexico. While there, he injured himself playing baseball for a utility company. In the American hospital, he met an Anglo nurse named Mary Leona Hatch, who made it a priority to see Herrera every day. Though it was hard for her to manage time for it, she always made an effort to care for him. "That's the kind of people they were," said Dave Rodriguez, referring to their devotion.
Of all the "scores" he made in his lifetime, you could say this was Herrera's greatest. The couple married and returned to San Antonio. Herrera took a job with the Public Service Company of San Antonio, and soon the young couple would have two boys, William and Charles.
In 1928, Herrera accepted a coaching job at a school located in the city's poor Hispanic barrio. According to Brkich and Abigail, his "strict and paternalistic coaching style" would prove effective. Herrera guided Sidney Lanier Junior High School's basketball team to a district championship in his first year as coach. The school would transform into a junior/senior high school and in both 1943 and 1945, the basketball team would win the state titles.
While coaching for Lanier, Herrera advised his players to have a mindset that dismissed racial opinions. He told them to ignore rude remarks and disregard those who provoked them. In a February 2017 article by Noam Hassenfield entitled "Mexican- Americans Prove They Can Play Basketball ‒ in 1939," Joe Bernal, a former Lanier High School student, recalled a lesson he learned quickly through coach Herrera's words: "Anybody saying ugly to you, the way you show 'em is to outplay'em."
Herrera's Lanier teams proved that basketball was not just a white man's game, and that Lanier's boys were capable of not only playing, but winning. A January 1939 San Antonio Express article said that Herrera had so many good players on his team that he "picked the starting lineup by lot." He drew names from a hat because everyone on the team had proved their ability to be starters.
In 1945, Nemo Herrera turned down an offer to coach at Texas A&M in order to improve his family's health. Being told that a drier climate would help Mary's hay fever and relieve his son's asthma, Herrera led his family to El Paso. Herrera accepted a coaching job at Bowie High School and asked a former student from Lanier, Dave Rodriguez, to be his assistant.
In a personal interview with Rodriguez in July 2019, he said that Herrera was a "second father." Rodriguez knew Herrera personally since junior high school when he became a coach at Lanier. Nemo Herrera always knew what Rodriguez was doing and stayed in contact with him, whether he was in college or serving in the military. Rodriguez said that "Nemo never spoke badly about anyone." He maintained an honorable character no matter his circumstances, and everyone knew what kind of man he was, as indicated by turning down the lucrative offer for his family's health. Rodriguez followed in Coach Herrera's footsteps and pursued a career in coaching and education which lasted for 53 years.
Image caption: Nemo Herrera played second base for the Public Service Company of San Antonio in 1927. (Photo courtesy of Dave Rodriguez)
Four years after Nemo Herrera arrived in El Paso, he led the Bowie Bears to the state high school baseball championship, beating a much larger and affluent team from Austin. Following the victory, Herrera called sportscaster John Phelan at KTSM Radio who said, "The whole city of El Paso is waiting to hear your voice, Nemo." In his typical low key fashion, Herrera replied, "Well it is a great success ‒ I mean ‒ a great success. ... The final score was three to two in favor of the Bowie Bears. We won the first state high school baseball playoff in the history of Texas!"
To the Bowie Bears, winning the state baseball championship in 1949 meant more than they were the best team around. It was about equal opportunity and a fair chance, proving that they could do anything and everything the other teams could, despite their heritage. "Victory meant they belonged, but more important, it meant they belonged while maintaining their identity as people of Mexican descent," Ignacio Garcia wrote in his book.
The win was big but the reaction was small. According to Bill Knight in an El Paso Times August 2017 article, the boys were given "pats on the back"and were told "they did a good job." Wolff said, "The Bears sensed that even in their hometown, they were given a second-class celebration"
Sixty years would pass before the players ‒ now grandfathers and great-grandfathers ‒ would be rightfully recognized for the success. In 2009, Socorro High School won the state baseball championship. The Socorro Bulldogs were the first El Paso area team to claim the title since the Bowie Bears in 1949. The championship win shed light on those somewhat forgotten Bears. The 1949 Bowie Bears were finally recognized in August 2017 in a ceremony at Bowie High School, where a memorial to them is located. Sports writer Bill Knight quoted Gus Sambrano, one of the team members, "When you look at the big picture, we beat the odds. You know what I mean? We beat the odds. You name it and we persevered. And it was the way we were led."
After coaching at Bowie, Herrera returned to San Antonio to coach at Edgewood High School for a year and then came back to El Paso to coach at Coronado High School. He coached at Coronado until he was 70 and was forced to retire. On a page written in the Nemo Herrera scrapbook given to Rodriguez, the coach wrote, "The trail has been long. Joyous but sometimes full of tears ... I have enjoyed it and would do it again if the opportunity was offered."
With an overall record of 545 wins and 193 losses in basketball, and 469 wins and 298 losses in baseball, Herrera coached Texas high school sports for 43 years. His teams won two basketball state titles, while appearing in state playoffs nine times and state championships seven times and winning more than 1,000 games in total. It seems Herrera's greatest impact was made in the barrios, where the kids were willing to work for the win and accomplish what seemed impossible according to the social constructs of the time.
A 2009 article by Lorne Chan entitled "Nemo Herrera's Legacy Continues at Lanier" quoted Dave Rodriguez at the dedication of the Nemo Herrera Court at Lanier High, "Every kid always played their heart out because we wanted him to be proud."
Besides the accolades he received in San Antonio, Nemo Herrera was inducted into the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1967, the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame in 1969 (some 20 years after the championship win), and posthumously into the El Paso Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988. It would be another 14 years before the Bowie baseball field was named for him in 2002.
The William C. Herrera Elementary School at 350 Coates Drive in West El Paso was named in his honor. Ray Sanchez wrote, "Herrera was one of the greatest high school coaches not only in El Paso but in all of Texas. Now he has a monument in El Paso that testifies to that fact ‒ a school bearing his name."
Image caption: EPISD dedicated the William C. Herrera Elementary School in West El Paso in 2010. (Photo by Donald Murphree)
Though the 1949 win was downplayed by many at the time, the lessons that Herrera taught his boys were not forgotten by the Bears themselves. They would never forget that there is something greater to learn when you are “practicing your catch.” Baseball is a metaphor for life. For Nemo Herrera, coaching meant more than taping ankles and running practice drills. It was a responsibility to mold young boys into men who knew respect, self-control, the value of good character.
Nemo Herrera not only taught his teams baseball but also life skills such as patience, dedication, achieving excellence through practice and just showing up! Wolff wrote about Herrera spending Saturdays as a self-appointed truant officer, searching for team members who had skipped school that week.
In his book, Ignacio Garcia recalled Herrera placing a quote from “The Coaches Code” by an unknown author in his scrapbook: "My first consideration shall be the welfare of my boys. My leadership shall ... contribute to cleaner living, better health habits and a true respect for the rules of play [and] authority of officials."
That was Herrera's accomplished aim, and he proved that the objective of the code could be fulfilled: "My objective shall be to win if possible, to lose if necessary, but at all times to have the conduct of all contribute to a fuller understanding and a keener appreciation of fair play. I shall teach that Good Sportsmanship is Good Citizenship and as such is essential to individuals, communities, state and nation."
When Mexicans Could Play BallL basketball, race, and identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945 by Latinopia Event: Bowie Bears, interviews with surviving team members, parts 1 and 2
Borderlands Treasures: Exploring the Tenements of El Segundo Barrio
