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The El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame has selected the 2022 Ray Sanchez High School Student-Athletes of the Year.

The awards will be presented at 3 p.m. June 21 at the Airport Radisson Hotel. The awards are named after Sanchez, who died Jan. 12 at the age of 94 after a distinguished career as a sportswriter, author and sports historian. He was a founding committee member of the Hall of Fame in 1955.
The El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame has selected the 2022 Ray Sanchez High School Student-Athletes of the Year.

2022 Ray Sanchez HS Athletes of the Year EPAHOF 3 The El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame and presenting sponsor the El Paso Sports Commission are pleased to announce the 2022 Ray Sanchez High School Student- Athl...

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1.16.21
Willie Cager’s book has been published, and it’s fascinating. He debunks many of the theories that was in the movie “Glory Road,” and other publications.
He coauthored the book with Don Park Shulte, who was born in El Paso and had a long career in education. He, too, graduated from Texas Western College.
Some pertinent points in the book:
• Some people think Willie Cager changed his name because of basketball. Actually, he got his name from his father, so he’s actually a “Jr.”
• Willie Cager Jr. was born in New York. He didn’t play basketball in high school.
• He was thrown out of high school because he beat up his teacher, something he regretted all his life.
• He was recruited not by Texas Western College coach Don Haskins, but by an unnamed El Paso banker who recommended him to Haskins after watching him in recreational basketball.
• Coming from New York City on his first flight on an airplane, he was surprised to see so much spaces and desert.
• He was surprised at how discrimination was rampant in the 1960s. He went to a barbershop and was denied service. He says he walked all the way to Alameda Street to get his hair cut.
• He was on the freshman team his first year along with David Lattin, Willie Worsley, David Palacio and a few others.
• Coach Haskins told them that he didn’t care personally but downtown people might object if they dated white girls. White girls nevertheless dated black athletes, including Caager.
• The Texas Western College players soon discovered Juarez, Mexico, and they would go there and have a good time.
• One day Bobby Joe Hill came back with a cut in his stomach. Cager: “Legendary trainer Ross Moore sewed him up.”
• Cager was the sixth man on the Texas Western College basketball team that won the national championship in 1966.
• After sitting on the bench for some minutes digesting what the opposition was doing, Coach Haskins often told him “to go get something happening,” which he did.
• He remembers the Jo Jo White of the Kansas Jayhawks vividly in one of the playoffs in the march to the Final Four. It went into overtime.
• Cager: “Jo Jo White launched a 35-shot with only seconds to go. Nothing but net.” But Jo Jo had his foot out of bounds, and the Miners won.
• The Miners lost only one game that season. That was in a frigid gym, 74-72.
• On to the Final Four. Haskins told Lattin to dunk the basket at the first opportunity as hard as he could. It worked. That rattled the Wildcats.
• Before the championship game Haskins caught Bobby Joe Hill, loose as ever, taking a nap. Haskins: “I was so angry, I took an eraser and beaned him with it.”
• But that didn’t keep Bobby Joe from stealing two balls and scoring four points.
• Cager went into the game a few minutes later and, like Haskins had told him, he did something happen. He pulled down six rebounds.
• After beating Kentucky in the championship game, 72-65, the Miners returned to a big reception in El Paso. The police guessed the crowd at 10,000 waiting at the El Paso airport.
• The Miners were toasted and revered far and wide. The movie “Glory Road” was filmed and the Miners and Haskins were inducted into the national Hall of Fame.
• Willie Cager was delighted that his family was present at the Final Four, his mother included (his father had died a few years before).

Willie Cager Endowed Basketball Scholarship For more information, visit www.MinerAthleticClub.com today!

Dad is someone I admired and got to know these last 3.6 years as a caregiver for Mom.
He was humble and didn't brag and I didn't know much of his accomplishments throughout the years. He joked to a friend who told me, "I am on so many boards I have splinters on my butt!" Dad put El Paso Sports on the map!

https://t.co/kZhIWYVkXs

Dad's Memorial Service I told an untold story about Dad. Something I found out about as recently as November 2021!

https://kvia.com/top-stories/2022/01/21/el-paso-hall-of-famer-ray-sanchez-laid-to-rest/

El Paso Hall of Famer, Ray Sanchez laid to rest - KVIA EL PASO, Texas – Longtime El Paso sports journalist Ray Sanchez has been laid to rest. Sanchez died on Jan. 12 at the age of 94. A mass was held at St. Matthews Catholic Church on Sunset Friday morning at 10 a.m. He was laid to rest at Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Santa Teresa, New

I covered Ruidoso Downs and other southwest as a sports writer, which was my regular beat.
• It was a delight to get back to horse racing. But that’s fodder for another Facebook. When Dick Alwan retired or changed beats, I was there to take over his job. He was doing a graded handicap, and doing a heck of a job. I filled in as well as I could.
• It was fun at first but eventually, after doing it for six long years, it became drudgery. I gave it up. I can brag that I beat the opposition every year.
• But it was fun for a while. It was great to get to a change of jobs. And when Sunland Park Racetrack opened it became even more fun.
• I was there in the glory days of Winsham Lad ridden by jockey Gale Mowers. The ladies in his barn used to hang up panties when they used to win a race. It was all in fun, of course. They even built a museum for him.
• I was also there when Bob Baffert won four Sunland Park Derbies. He was always ready to bring his horses from California where he ran at different races track.
• I was also there when Bold Ego took me to the Triple Crown races. That was a
lot of fun what with Churchill Downs ladies wear glamorous clothes and big hats.
I chose to break my oath to not bet more than a $100 bill, I was so excited. But it was worth it. My hundred dollars returned $11 and $10, so I doubled my money.
• P.S. – This is from Ray Sanchez, the former sports writer who wrote for the El Paso Herald-Post, the El Paso Times and the El Paso Inc.
• Stupid me! I fell and broke my hip bone. I have recovered from my injury and feeling well. I just wanted to let you know.

El Paso Sports Columns by Ray Sanchez