Series marking 100th season of football in RGV debuts July 27

McALLEN - With the upcoming school year marking the 100th season of high school football in the Rio Grande Valley, The Monitor will take a look at the top players, coaches and teams in deep South Texas history with a series called The 100 Greatest.

The daily series begins Sunday, July 27, with the introduction and concludes Sunday, Aug. 24, with a profile on the top player.

Brownsville High played the first Valley football game December 11, 1909 against Kingsville High.

"We wanted to do something special for the 100th season of football in the Valley," Monitor Sports Editor Wade Baker said. "Two years ago when we were doing 40 Days of Football, a historical series looking at each football program in the Valley, we knew we had to do something special for this season. So with that, the idea of The 100 Greatest was born."

The 100 Greatest will rank - in order - the top 50 players, top 25 coaches and top 25 teams of all time in the Valley. The sports staff at The Monitor will write stories on the top 14 players, top seven coaches and top seven teams of all-time.

The five Monitor staffers who researched the 40 Days of Football project voted on The 100 Greatest, along with seven other sports historians and media members - past and present - that have witnessed high school football in deep South Texas.

"Each of the 12 voters submitted their forms in April, and we totaled the results from there," Baker said. "In the voting process we always took into consideration what each player did after high school football, which ultimately added to that respective player's overall legacy on the football field. As always, there were some surprises when the totals were added up, especially when you talk about putting everyone in order, but at the end of the day everything seemed to fall in place.

"It was just a fun series for everyone involved to work on."