Growing up in a family with 11 brothers and sisters, Mary Elizabeth Avelar-Guerra always had someone available to play sports with her.
The Brownsville native started playing competitive volleyball in eighth grade and played “B” Team and varsity volleyball as a student at Pace High School.
Guerra, wanting to continue learning the sport and aspiring to become an educator and coach, enrolled at TSC after high school and joined the Scorpion volleyball team, where she played from 1984-1986.
“TSC is where I learned new skills and techniques that took my game to a whole new level,” she said. “Here is where my career path to become a coach was solidified, and everything I learned I still use to this day.”
Today, the longtime Rivera Early College High School volleyball head coach is enjoying a career filled with multiple championships and most recently her 600th win.
“It’s never been about winning for me,” she said. “As a player, it’s been about learning and growing, and as a coach it’s been about teaching the skills my players need to become better players, leaders and team members and winning while doing this, of course, is an added bonus.”
In addition to volleyball, Guerra is also a physical education coach at Rivera, teaching her students traditional sports of basketball, touch football and track as well as games she learned at TSC such as badminton and the infamous pington.
Pington, a racquet sport similar to badminton, was invented in the 1960’s by TSC physical education professor Werner Steinbach and the rules were formalized in print by faculty member Jim Lemons and Judith D. Walton. All pington paddles were also locally made.
“Pington is one of my students’ favorite sports,” said Guerra. “Pington paddles are now hard to come by, but we make do with what we have. But this is proof that TSC’s sports still have a huge influence in what I do today.”
After earning her associate degree in kinesiology in 1986 and continuing her sport and earning a bachelor’s degree from a local four-year institution, Guerra began her career as a volleyball coach at Faulk Middle School in Brownsville for three years before taking over as head volleyball coach at Rivera.
It’s now been 28 years of coaching the Lady Raiders and achieving playoff and quarter final appearances, area championships and district champions, but Guerra said her biggest achievement of all has been watching her teams learn, work together, become a family and grow.
“It’s so rewarding when I see my teams giving it their all, working hard and realizing what dedication and hard work can accomplish,” she said. “Some of my students have even gone on to be coaches themselves and are using what I teach them. That’s the biggest honor.”
Guerra also has the privilege of coaching alongside her husband, who is her assistant coach at Rivera and coaching her daughter who also has a love for the game.
