Champion of the Barrio

Book excerpt: Buryl Baty (1924–1954) was a winning athlete, coach, builder of men, and an early pioneer in the fight against bigotry. In 1950, Baty became head football coach at Bowie High School in El Paso and quickly inspired his athletes, all Mexican Americans from the Segundo Barrio, with his winning ways and his personal stand against the era’s extreme, deep-seated bigotry—to which they were subjected. However, just as the team was in a position to win a third district title in 1954, they were jolted by an unthinkable tragedy that turned their world upside down. Later, as mature adults, these players realized that Coach Baty had helped mold them into honorable and successful men, and forty-four years after the coach’s death, they dedicated their high school stadium in his name. In 2013, Baty was inducted posthumously into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame. In this poignant memoir, R. Gaines Baty also describes his own journey to get to know his father. Coach Baty’s life story is portrayed from the perspectives of nearly one hundred individuals who knew him, in addition to many documented facts and news reports.