Danny Medina is an assistant principal at Fort Hancock High School where he helped build the greatest six-man football dynasty in Texas history nearly four decades ago.
His title has changed, but his style has not. He is Fort Hancock’s drill sergeant.
Whenever a student earns a trip to Medina’s office, they enter a mini-museum of Fort Hancock football. Medina has all five state championship trophies from his eight-year stretch from 1986 to 1993 — four of them as head coach. He’s cut out every newspaper clipping from the era and framed it in a collage. Medina is 73 years old now, but his inner ball coach comes out when he points to these mementos and describes the discipline that earned them.
“We busted our asses in the weight room back in the 80s and 90s,” Medina said.
When the bell rang for the athletic period, every high school boy in Fort Hancock was in the weight room for 45 minutes of speed lifting. Then, they grabbed their shoulder pads and went to the field for 45 minutes of conditioning. Only after they’d finished bear crawling the field - from the 10-yard line and back, to the 20-yard line and back, and so on - and their tongues hung out of their mouths, cracked bone dry in the West Texas heat, did football practice start.
Fort Hancock’s extraordinary run was accomplished with ordinary athletes. The other teams were physically as talented. They could run as fast. They could deliver the same hits. But they couldn’t do it for as long. The boys who came through this program graduated as men who knew there were no shortcuts to success.
“It takes a lot of heart to be a champion,” said Harvey Vargas, a wide receiver from the Class of 1990. “It’s not just given to you.”
Medina doesn’t see that heart anymore.
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