Editor’s note: The San Antonio Report is pleased to feature the weekly bigcitysmalltown podcast hosted by Robert Rivard, co-founder of the Report. We’ll be publishing a brief synopsis of the podcast each Tuesday.
As the saying goes, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Such was the case for Mario Lomas, Felipe Romero, Lupe Falen, Joe Trevino and Gene Vasquez, Chicano high schoolers in 1950s Del Rio.
The five boys achieved stunning success as the San Felipe High School Mustangs golf team, winning the Texas state championship in 1957.
Their story, first told by San Antonio author and Del Rio native Humberto G. Garcia as a book titled Mustang Miracle, will be released in the U.S. on April 12 as The Long Game, a major motion picture starring Jay Hernandez, Cheech Marin and Dennis Quaid.
During episode 43 of bigcitysmalltown, Garcia told host Robert Rivard that when Lomas and Romero got jobs as caddies at the all-white country club in town, they and the other three boys would scavenge golf clubs from the trash — and sometimes from the creek running through the golf course, the discarded remnants of wealthier golfers’ frustrations.
The boys learned the game by watching the better golfers as they caddied and built their own one-hole golf course to practice on because, as people of color, they were not allowed to play on the city-owned golf course.
Civil service worker Hiram Valdes saw the boys practicing and, along with school superintendent JB Peña, fostered the creation of a golf team for San Felipe High School.
As Garcia says in the podcast, the five students “learned the game well enough that they could compete with the kids that grew up in the country club and had everything.”
Without fancy golf shoes and uniforms, the boys played in blue jeans and T-shirts, “but they let the game do the talking. And they were able to match the white schools all across the state,” eventually surpassing them, Garcia said.
Listen at the link below or visit bigcitysmalltown to listen to Episode 43 featuring author Humberto Garcia.
