'Mexicans Don’t Play Basketball'

Latino USA

Futuro Media and PRX

Society & Culture

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1939, a Mexican-American high school basketball team shocked the world. Basketball, at the time, was considered a white man's game. Until Lanier High School, with their all Mexican-American basketball team, won the 1939 San Antonio city championship. But at the moment of their greatest triumph, things suddenly took a turn for this worse.

This episode originally aired in 2016.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	1939 Texas.
0:10.8	The two best high school basketball teams in San Antonio are squaring off in the championship.
0:18.6	On one side, the home court eagles from Brackenridge,
0:22.4	an all-white team with fans packing the stands.
0:26.4	On the other side, the Vokes from Lanier High School,
0:29.9	an all-Mexican-American team from the city's west side.
0:34.6	A game that starts out like any other sports tournament, but ends in violence.
0:44.5	From Futuro Media and PRX, it's Latino USA. I'm Maria Innojosa. Today, the story of an all-Mexican
0:52.2	American high school basketball team that shot for the stars,
0:56.5	their journey would impact San Antonio for years to come.
1:02.9	Nearly a century ago, there was a historic basketball game between the Eagles and the Vokes,
1:09.6	and it ruffled some feathers, because even though
1:12.6	this happened almost 100 years ago, it was also a time of tremendous anti-immigrant sentiment.
1:20.0	The 1939 matchup in Texas provided a striking image. Tall, lanky, white kids playing against a team of mostly short, skinny,
1:31.0	Mexican-American players led by their star Tony Gardona, all five-foot-one inches of him.
1:38.6	It's a tie game in sudden death overtime. The next basket is going to win the championship. The Brackenrich
1:45.5	Eagles have the ball, and as they get close to the Lanier loop, Brackenrich got the ball. They
1:51.5	went down and they missed the shot. This is Professor Ignacio Garcia, a former Lanier student,
1:58.2	and the author of When Mexicans Could Play Ball. It's a book about
2:02.3	Lanier's team. Joe Trevino, who was the big center, just went up, gobbled the ball, passed
2:07.8	it out to Billy Saldaño. He sees Tony Cardona, who was the star player running toward the
2:13.6	Brackenridge Basket. He throws the ball in a beautiful pass.
	...

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