By Rene Torres
After WWI, the craving for sports grew just like the consumption for liquor did as well. The roaring twenties was the decade of progress, prohibition, jazz, speakeasies and a period that also saw a tremendous growth in the popularity of sports.
Boxing led the way; the largest crowd and biggest moneymaker occurred in 1926, when Tunney defeated Dempsey in front of 120,000 pugilistic fans at ringside. Tunney beat Dempsey again in the famous “Long Count” rematch of 1927.
The “Babe” changed the game of base hits to electrifying homeruns. Ruth ended the dead-ball era, as he finished the 1920 season, the year he joined the Yankees, with 54 homers.
Baseball was still America’s pastime. Golf was becoming popular, and horse racing proved to be more than just a fad, with “Man o’ War” taking the tape with frequency. After his retirement in 1920, he was later voted as the greatest horse of the century—beating out “Secretariat” for the top spot.
This was also the decade of Knute Rockne, the famous Notre Dame Coach. Rockne took the rough game of football, played almost like rugby, and transformed it into a game of speed and deception. He introduced the box formation and passing, which previously was a strategy considered unmanly.
George Gipp was one of Rockne’s most famous players that after playing ill one day, he soon died of pneumonia — inspiring Rockne to use the line, “Let’s win one for the Gipper,” which made its way into film.
The Valley also followed the national trend as football fandom grew by the thousand.
In ’26, football was still a young sport in the Valley, but the interest and passion for the game was maturing with every passing year.
As Mother Nature provided a cool breeze during one week in the fall season of 1926, Valley fans broke attendance records at the gridiron. It was estimated that 10,000 viewed football battles throughout the Valley. The numbers are based on attendances at games played in Edinburg, McAllen, Mercedes, Harlingen, San Benito and Brownsville.
According to a Brownsville Herald report: “The Eagle Friday game played in Brownsville against Harlingen was witnessed by 3,000 fans; San Benito drew a least that many on Thursday, in its game with Robstown; Mercedes was host to Donna for at least a thousand in attendance; McAllen playing against Mission drew a couple of thousand on the Bulldog field; Edinburg and PSJA played before a thousand fans at Edinburg.”
Two other games that saw good crowds — at least 750 combined — was the encounter in Brownsville where El Jardin H.S. tangled against Stuart Place and the other being the San Benito-Harlingen Juniors.
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