Members of the 1961 San Benito Greyhounds are shown during pregame ceremonies Friday night in which their achievements 50 years ago were recognized. (Photos by Uvence Galvan)
By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
& CARLOS GONZALES
San Benito News
Uvence Galvan didn’t recognize many of his former teammates from the 1961 San Benito Greyhounds on Friday night, but he didn’t have to.
Once 15 members of that squad met at the 50 yardline on Bobby Morrow Stadium, it was as if they had been transported back to their glory days, and the memories came racing back.
“It feels strange at first, we had to introduce ourselves because it’s been 50 years, and we’ve changed,” an ecstatic Galvan said. “You don’t recognize each other. We had to come up to a person and introduce ourselves to find out who we were. But now we are getting along real good.”
The ’61 Greyhounds in attendance were on-hand for a special ceremony in which San Benito CISD administration and the Board of Trustees honored the team’s accomplishments those 50 years ago, when the ’Hounds won the 3A district championship and went 12-1 on the season. It was also a year that saw San Benito reach the state semi-finals and outscore opponents by a combined 363 points to 82.
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3 comments
Remember hearing Brownsville-SB game on KBOR radio (Brownsville). Went something like this: “Brownsville ball carrier tears through the San Benito defense, dragging tacklers with him . . . for a two yard gain.” “Helms runs to the left and is hammered by the Eagles defense–great stop by the defense–Helms only gains 16 yards.” Great times for the Hounds.
Those were the glory days for the Hounds. Congradulations to all those players.
To use some sort of a measuring stick to show how powerful a football team San Benito was in 61, Brownsville, Harlingen, Edinburg and McAllen were 4a teams, the highest classification back then. There was only one school per city and there was no money to make more than one high school per city, So from what I have been told, Brownsville for example had 5000 students, had to have split sessions, early morning and afternoon due to overcrowding. San Benito was outnumbered 5 to 1 yet still clobbered Brownsville and the other big valley schools. There were only four big schools in the valley back then and played in a split district with the big Corpus Christi schools.