The Associated PressFormer Mission High and Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry
The 100 Greatest: The SeriesJuly 26, 2008 - 11:32PM
By The MonitorWith the upcoming school year marking the 100th season of high school football in the Rio Grande Valley,
The Monitor will take a look at the top players, coaches and teams in deep South Texas history with a preseason series called The 100 Greatest.
The 100 Greatest will rank - in order - the top 50 players, top 25 coaches and top 25 teams of all-time in the Valley. The sports staff at
The Monitor has written stories on the top 14 players, top seven coaches and top seven teams of all-time to make up the 28-day series.
The daily series begins Monday with a profile on the seventh greatest coach of all time - along with revealing Valley coaches ranked 25th through eighth - and concludes Sunday, Aug. 24, with a profile on the greatest player of all time.
Brownsville High played the first Valley football game December 11, 1909, against Kingsville High. Kingsville won, though the final score varies in reports in archived editions of The Brownsville Herald - then the most read newspaper in deep South Texas.
In total, there were 12 voters in the series.
Monitor sports staff members who voted were Sports Editor Wade Baker, Deputy Sports Editor Todd Mavreles, Peter Rasmussen and Jason McDaniel, along with former Sports Editor Oscar Gonzalez Jr., now the paper's presentation editor. Each of the above researched
The Monitor's historical 40 Days of Football series two years ago.
Veteran Valley sportswriters Pikey Rodriguez, Michael Pullen, Roy Hess and Greg Selber rounded out the media members voting in the series, along with longtime KRGV-TV News Channel 5 Sports Director Dave Brown. Manuel Hinojosa, a Valley sports historian, also voted in the series, along with one historian who elected to keep his name anonymous.
"This has been in the works since two years ago, to an extent, when we were working on 40 Days of Football, a historical series looking at each football program in the Valley," Baker said. "In April we sent out ballots to 12 key members of the sports community in the Valley, and by the first week of May we had our 100 Greatest."
Without giving away results of The 100 Greatest, here are a few tidbits on the series.
>> The vote tally for the top player in the Valley's history was the tightest. With 1,168 points awarded for first and second, the top player award came down to just four points.
>> Four coaches received first-place votes. Three of those received three or more votes.
>> Five of the top 25 coaches actively are manning head coaching jobs in the Valley.
>> One Valley program had four teams ranked in the top 25.
>> One Valley team finished the season undefeated, but didn't crack the top 25.
"When you're ranking players, coaches and teams from the 1920s and earlier against those from the 1990s and later, it becomes a difficult process," Baker said. "This isn't a scientific study, it's subjective. But with this being the 100th season of football in the Valley, we hope this informs readers how players, coaches and teams from each era of Valley football history stack up when compared to each other.
"This has been a fun project for everyone to work on, and we hope the readers enjoy it."
THE SERIESWith the 100th season of high school football in the Rio Grande Valley upon us,
The Monitor will take a look at the top 25 coaches, top 25 teams and top 50 players of all time.
THE COACHESThe top 25 coaches will be listed in our ‘100 Greatest' series, but we'll focus on the top 7 starting Monday.
THE TEAMSThe top 25 teams will be listed in our ‘100 Greatest' series, with the No. 7 team being unveiled Aug. 4.
THE PLAYERSThe top 25 players will be listed in our ‘100 Greatest' series, beginning Aug. 11, when we zero in on the top 14 players.
THE SERIESThe first Valley football game was played December 11, 1909 by Brownsville High, a defeat against Kingsville High. The series, which will rank each coach, team and player in order, will conclude Sunday, Aug. 24, with a story on the top player of all time. Short profiles will be provided daily of the top seven coaches, top seven teams and top 14 players as the series counts down to the top of each of the three categories.
THE VOTERSIn total, there were 12 voters from across the Valley. One voter wished to keep his name and votes anonymous. The other 11 voters are listed below, and their complete voting results can be found periodically online at rgvsports.com during the series.
>> Wade Baker, The Monitor
>> Dave Brown, longtime NewsChannel 5 sports director
>> Oscar Gonzalez Jr., The Monitor
>> Roy Hess, longtime Valley sportswriter
>> Manuel Hinojosa, Valley sports historian
>> Todd Mavreles, The Monitor
>> Jason McDaniel, former Valley sportswriter
>> Michael Pullen, longtime Valley sportswriter
>> Peter Rasmussen, The Monitor
>> Pikey Rodriguez, longtime Valley sportswriter
>> Greg Selber, longtime Valley sportswriter/professor at UTPA
ONLINE
Exclusive videos of some of The 100 Greatest will be available throughout the course of the series.
Select voters will be available for
chats in our forums where their selections can be debated throughout the series.
How they voted: Each selector's votes will be posted online through the duration of the series.
www.rgvsports.com/articles/school_2405___article.html/top_greatest.html
