From Our Archives

It all started in Mrs. Hagood’s Government class at Lubbock High! This would have been in the winter of 1966 or 67!  Mando Yanez, El Changio (Bobby Aguilar-RIP), El Lupio (Lupe Urive), Mickey, and yours truly Mike Torres, started talking football!  Pretty soon the bragging started about which barrio was better at football; El Barrio Guadalupe or the Hub Homes vatos!  For barrio purposes back then, the area known as “the Flats,” south of Hub Homes to Broadway, was also considered Hub Homes area! After much discussion, the date of the Great Barrios Superbowl was set!  

By Miguel (Mike) Torres 

I had lived in “El Barrio” when we first came to Lubbock in 1955, so most of the barrio gang knew me!  We lived in front of Dona Huerta’s tiendita on ave N, and behind “El Cinco” (Cinco de Mayo store) a few houses down!  Then we moved to Don Pablitos’ apartment’s, down the street on Ave M., across from the Rubio’s and their home business establishment!  Hey, they even had a drive-in service!  Everybody had a nickname in the barrios!  From pelon to vacha, from los quates to every kind of animal you could think of!  We stayed there about five years, then moved to Hub Homes, east Lubbock, and finally settled back in Hub Homes again! 

Well, the great barrio Chicano Super Bowl was set for a weekday night, at Mackenzie Park, and I think it was on a Tuesday evening!  I distinctly remember the temperature being in the mid twenties, the first night!  Oh yes, the battle went on for two nights!  I remember we came walking down over the hill just behind the Mackenzie park swimming pool, toward the big open area, which is now part of Squirrel Hollow Meadowbrook golf course and were shocked at all the cars and players from the barrio!  It looked like they had 10-12 substitutes, to our 3 or 4!  They even had cheerleaders, and real fans ready to support their team!  Wow were we in shock!  We met down on the field, the rules of play were explained, we all shook hands and introduced ourselves, then prepared to let the games begin!  It was supposed to have been flag football, but quickly became full blown tackle, with no pads allowed!  Member this was the sixties!  Besides that, who could afford football uniforms back then, much less pads!  We had practiced the day before for a couple of hours, but not with all the players we had presently! The barrio boys had played before and had some Lubbock High football players on their team.  We had two LHS players, the Hernandez brothers, Pascual and Manual on our team.  The barrio boys were well balanced, as far as player size, and speed went!  Our players were mostly on the lean side, but with some pretty good speed!  So, guess who was on the line most of the time, glasses and all!  Yours truly “El Chubby,” of course!  

The game started, and right away you could tell they had a lot more practice and coaching than we did!  They had some pretty fast ball carriers like Mando, Mickey, and a few others.  We had the “ceja brothers” (eyebrow nickname) Emilio & Arnulfo (RIP) Hernandez, and “Richie boy Pineda” for speed, and believe me they had it!  Both teams moved the ball up and down the field all night for about two and a half hours!  El Barrio scored first in the third quarter, then we scored in the fourth.  The game was tied for the night, and so we decided to meet again the next night!

Both teams weren’t as lively the second night, not until everyone had played for a while, and worked out all the soreness.  You could see ace bandages and arm slings on both teams, but one of the barrio boys was in a leg cast and on crutches.  Yes indeed, it had been a rough first night!  Again, El Barrio scored in about the third quarter, and we never scored again, so they took the “Lubbock Chicano Barrio Championship!” And they got it by a touchdown on the second night of play!  

Again, at the end of the game, we all shook hands and congratulated each other on a great game!  There were never any fights between the two teams, oh yeah, some tempers flared, and a few choice words exchanged!  There were some very hard hits, broken/jammed fingers, cuts and bruises, but it was all worth it as stated by both sides!  There were a lot of new friendships made also on those two nights.  Some of our players nicknames (you know la raza), just in case some of the readers remember those days were as follows; la llewa, wesos, el karate man, el muerto, el teddy bear, leo the lion (RIP), el richie boy, los carnales cejas, el chubby (de los hub homes), cookie el Johnny B, Arnold el cuerno, Scarface, and el Bee!  The game was the talk of the school among la raza for a few days!  We enjoyed every bit of it, and it brought both barrios closer together!