Brownsville shoots and scores, though it took a while, and it’ll be a while, but it’s going to be big.
Ray Arellano, superintendent of the Brownsville Sports Park, has been with the city’s parks and recreation department for 18 years, the same number of years he’s been involved in trying to get the Texas Amateur Athletic Federation’s Summer Games of Texas to Brownsville. TAAF is a nonprofit organization founded in 1925 in Georgetown to promote, organize and conduct amateur athletic competition. The first Games of Texas was held in 1986 in San Antonio.
The event, essentially an amateur Olympics, draws thousands of athletes every year to the city lucky enough to be tapped as host by TAAF. Chosen cities get the games for two years back to back, four days each year. The TAAF board’s vote to hold the games in Brownsville in 2022 and 2023 took place in 2018. Thanks to the pandemic, which resulted in 2020’s games being canceled, the event won’t take place here until 2023-2024.
Still, Arellano is thrilled. He remembers joining parks and recreation in the early 2000s and learning soon that he would be part of a team from the attending the TAAF conference in the fall. It was there that he became acquainted with parks and recreation people from across the state.
It took years before Brownsville was at the point where it was a plausible contender in TAAF’s view to host the games, Arellano said.
“You start accumulating trust and respect from the organization by running numerous state tournaments, and the ultimate goal is to bid for the Games of Texas,” he said.
The city has hosted multiple mens major basketball and flag football tournaments at the state level as part of that process, Arellano said. In 2018, with the support of parks and recreation Director Damaris McGlone and the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, Arellano was part of a team that traveled to Lake Jackson to bid for the 2022 games, facing off against El Paso and Bryan-College Station, which had already hosted the 2018 games and was looking forward to 2019.
The TAAF board’s first vote resulted in a tie between Brownsville and College Station, he said. A new vote was was held, the pro-El Paso members of the board backed fellow border city Brownsville, and Brownsville won, Arellano said. When the games come to Brownsville starting in 2023, thousands of athletes will compete in 11 different sporting events, with swimming and track-and-field historically attracting the most competitors, he said. Winners of the state competitions will go on to compete nationally.
“We had a great group of people go up there,” Arellano said. “It was a lot of support from our department and also BCIC and the city itself. Everyone was really supportive of us making this happen. It was just the belief that we could do it. It turned out great. We’re pretty excited.”
It probably didn’t hurt that TAAF Executive Director Mark Lord is “very positive about the Valley” and that McAllen had success hosting the games four years ago, said Arellano, who has served on the TAAF board the last four years.
“People had a misconception of the Valley, but once they came down to McAllen they realized what a great area it is in Texas,” he said.
In 2016, the first of the games in McAllen, 7,621 athletes showed up to compete, with 8,100 coming the second year. Add in the family members that accompany the competitors and the result is a major economic impact, Arellano said. According to the city of College Station, with the vast majority of its 8,461 competitors coming from out of town in 2019, the games boosted the local economy to the tune of $8.1 million.
In addition to track-and-field and swimming, Brownsville’s competitions will include basketball, soccer, flag football, boxing and other sports. Venues will include the Brownsville Sports Park and city high schools. The city signed a memorandum of understanding with the Brownsville Independent School District 10 years ago to make sure there were plenty of venues available, Arellano said, noting that BISD Athletic Director Gilbert Leal and Assistant Athletic Director Sandra Powers have been “instrumental and very supportive.”
This year Brownsville hosted a TAAF Region 2 track meet and will host another one next year leading up to the 2023 games, Arellano said. Hosting such events is a big deal in itself, even if attendance was off this year due to the pandemic, he said.
“COVID put a little bit of a hurt on participation but I think next year it’s going to be a lot more positive and we’ll get back to the numbers that we need to,” Arellano said.
He predicts the games will have a profound impact on Brownsville in 2023-2024.
“I think it’s very valuable because it’s going to give us an opportunity to show the state not only how beautiful our city is but how competitive our athletes are as well,” he said.
