Sources within the Brownsville Independent School District say that Hanna Golden Eagles Coach March Guess was able to overcome the political machinations of past district trustees at Memorial High School to land at Hanna and steer his football team toward a historic performance and a shot at third-round regional competition in the post season.
The Brownsville Herald reported that no Golden Eagle team has advanced to the third round of regional competition since the school started competition in the sport way back in 1909. Only five teams, the paper reported have had a 10-win season and only four have advanced to the second round.
This included the Brownsville High School Golden Eagles under Joe Rodriguez in 1969. That year, they shared the District 26-4A championship with Harlingen and advanced to the state playoffs by virtue of a 27-0 win over the Cardinals in the regular season.
In bi-district, they won 25-15 over a Corpus Christi Miller team boasting three future NFL players. The Golden Eagles then fell 47-14 to Seguin in the regional round to finish 10-2.
Guess left Memorial after serving there as head coach through the 2010 to 2011 seasons and then made BISd Athletic Director in 2012. He would become the Hanna coach in an interim role in 2016 and then finally made head coach under Principal Blanca Lambarri, who withstood the political pressures of the board to install Guess as head coach.
Rodriguez, who was a BISD trustee for 19 years, coach for 17, and Athletic Director for 27, cast a wide shadow over the district's personnel and purchases of sports equipment as a vendor for BSN Sports and Herrf Jones (ringmaker). During a Level III grievance by Veterans Memorial former principal Mary Solis, her complaint included allegations that he and other trustees had tried to bypass Human Resources recommendations, lean on the principal hire their favorite coaches, purchase equipment from their "friends" and manipulate the administration to replace personnel at the different schools.
Even though Solis won her grievance and the board ordered the BISD administration to return her to her former level, she never returned to Memorial after having been sent to Lucio Middle School.
Obviously, Guess was not one of Rodriguez's favorites. In her complaint, Solis said Rodriguez, himself a vendor for BSN, pushed for the school's coaches to buy from that outfit.
Her complaint also stated that Rodriguez's pushed for his preferred vendor for graduation products Herff Jones. The same sources say that Rodriguez told Solis that "You need to give business to these people. They take care of us."
It's fortunate for Guess and his Golden Eagles that he was able to course through the byzantine BISD politics and guide his team to a historic shot at a third-round regional title. Had he and Lambarri had not, who knows how the team would have fared.