The stakes during Friday’s RGVSports.com Game of the Week between No. 3 Weslaco High (6-0, 1-0) and No. 5 Los Fresnos (5-1, 1-0) are immense.
Both teams are title contenders in District 32-6A, with the winner likely controlling their path to the district championship. A win or a loss also can impact playoff seeding at the end of the year.
For one family, however, the game means a little more.
When the Falcons and Panthers take the field Friday, the Peña family will be divided, with siblings Greg and Joe lining up on opposite sides of the field, doing their part to lead their respective teams to victory.
Greg serves as Los Fresnos’ special teams coordinator and quarterbacks coach, and Joe is Weslaco High’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
“It’s always an honor and privilege to go into this game and know I have my brother this week,” Greg said. “It’s not even like we’re going head-to-head, since he’s on offense and I’m on special teams, but it’s a cool thing. I know it puts our mother and father in a weird situation, though.”
Friday’s meeting between the brothers marks the fifth time they’ve lined up on opposite sides of the field as coaches, with Joe in his fifth season as offensive coordinator at Weslaco and Greg in his eighth at Los Fresnos.
The Peña brothers are no strangers to sharing the field, however, as they competed alongside and against each other in various sports growing up.
“We grew up together as neighborhood kids,” Greg said. “We’d run around together, playing football, baseball, basketball. I was two grades older than him, so in high school my junior year was his freshman year, but we got to play a couple of seasons together at Rio Hondo. … Sports have always been our thing. We didn’t know any better. We didn’t do anything else. We’d do chores around the house or were playing sports somewhere.”
After high school, football became the coaches’ future, each going on to play at the collegiate level before becoming coaches. Greg played football and baseball at a small school in Iowa, and Joe spent a year at Texas Lutheran before walking on at Texas A&M Kingsville.
The two brothers even shared the field once again for a brief stint, with both serving as assistant coaches at Corpus Christi Carroll at one point.
“Football is everything for us because it is what helped us become who we are,” Joe said. “It has been part of our lives and helped mold us in a sense. It means a lot.”
Since then, both have gone on to establish themselves as some of the top coaches in the RGV in their respective positions.
This season, Joe’s offensive unit at Weslaco is one of the most balanced offensive attacks in the RGV, averaging 337.0 yards and 31.5 points per game this season.
Over at Los Fresnos, Greg’s special team unit is among the most dangerous in the RGV, fielding one of the most accurate kickers and a opportunistic kickoff squad capable of changing the game with an onside kick at any moment.
“It isn’t just a rivalry between us, but we get to showcase our players and abilities, and show what football did for us,” Joe said. “To me, this game lets us honor the coaches we played for growing up to become who we are.”
Heading into Friday’s contest, Joe holds a 3-1 advantage over his older brother since taking over as OC, including a 21-17 victory during last year’s meeting.
Neither sibling is looking at the brotherly rivalry heading into the contest, however, aware of the stakes of this game for their respective teams.
Regardless of the outcome, the siblings likely will gather at one of their houses and talk about almost anything but football.
“You know, it’s funny but we try not to make it a big deal,” Greg said. “I take my job seriously, and I know he does, too. At the end of the day, we’re not going to let a game ruin the relationship we have because we’re too competitive. Every weekend we get together and barbecue at one of our houses, and we’ll probably do it again this week.”
Kickoff for the RGVSports.com Game of the Week and the unofficial Peña Bowl is scheduled for 7 p.m. today at Leo Aguilar Memorial Stadium in Los Fresnos.
