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The Brownsville Independent School District will dedicate the playing field at Sams Memorial Stadium as Joe Rodriguez Memorial Field in an unveiling ceremony at 7 p.m. Thursday at the stadium.
A plaque celebrating Rodriguez’s life and legacy will be unveiled at the ceremony, the district said Wednesday afternoon.
Rodriguez left a legacy of lifting up the young people of Brownsville through athletics and educational endeavors of all kinds, people who knew and worked with him over a career that spanned more than 50 years said at the time of his passing at age 85 in April 2021.
Coach Tom Chavez, who Rodriguez brought to Brownsville at the beginning of his coaching career in 1969 and who regarded Rodriguez as his best friend, credited Rodriguez with inspiring many of the new athletic facilities that had come on line in the years after 2015, including an indoor football practice facility at Rivera Early College High School, the new gymnasium at Hanna, turf soccer fields at all BISD high schools and other projects.
“All the facilities we have here now we wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for him,” Chavez said in April 2021.
Rodriguez served as BISD Athletic Director in the early 2000s. His offices were under the home bleachers at Sams Memorial Stadium.
Rodriguez coached baseball and football. His baseball Eagles went 125-72 with two state Final Four appearances. Brownsville High reached the state finals in 1965 and state semifinals in 1966.
Rodriguez’s football teams won 89 games, including the talented 1969 team that won a district championship and reached the second round of the playoffs. The 1969 team had gone 0-9 in Rodriguez’ first year in 1967, but the seniors enjoyed a banner season two years later, according to the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame, into which Rodriguez was inducted in 1991.
His brother, Eduardo, a Brownsville attorney, said coach Rodriguez “believed in giving young people the opportunity to spread their wings and see how far they could go. He believed in kids … The most important thing he did was instill in young people a desire to participate and do your best in whatever you do. … He loved sports, he loved his coaches and he loved his players. He always kept an interest in the school system.”
Even late in life “he wanted to go in and help the kids of Brownsville,” he said, adding that Coach Joe this past year attended basketball games at Veterans Memorial ECHS to see his grandson Campy Rodriguez play. He also attended all home football games at St. Joseph’s High School to see another grandson, Jackson Seguin Rodriguez, play.
Rodriguez was a member of the BISD Board of Trustees that in 1992 hired Esperanza Zendejas as superintendent.
She said many of the projects that came to fruition in recent years can trace their lineage to ideas first proposed during that time.
“When you spoke with Joe you felt better about what you were doing. He lifted you up,” she said. “As a board member, Joe was a force. He questioned. As a person, he was the type you wanted to hang around with.”
Zendejas served three years in the early ‘90s before going on to another position.
In 2014, Rodriguez again got elected to the BISD board. Zendejas said he and a few other board members called to ask if she would be willing to help out “for a few months.” It turned out to be four years.
“Joe Rodriguez has left a legacy that will not be forgotten,” she said. “Joe has helped so many young adults in so many ways. He raised up everyone he met.”
