THE BIG JOE SAGA MMXIV: THE STORY WE'D LIKE JERRY WRITE

By Dr. G.F. Mchale-Scully
Those of you who were around Brownsville that Friday night at Sams Stadium when the Golden Eagles under the stewardship of Joe Rodriguez might not have know it reading my kissass stories about Coach Joe.
You see, despite my plaudits to his sagacity and shrewd athletic mind, the Seguin Matadors gave the lolca boys under hyis tutelage a drubbing that they haven't recovered from yet. Remember the score? It was Seguin 47, BHS 14.
Yet, Rodriguez managed to manufacture an industry and personality cult from the jaws of this yawning defeat.
He parlayed this into promotion within the Brownsville Independent District as Athletic Director, then as a trustee on the school board, along the way lining his pockets and those of his adoring followers with cushy assignments and bloated salaries. If you played the game with with Coach Joe, he would let you play with his balls.
Over the years, as he negotiated his way in and out of district employment and later as an unusually successful vendor of athletic equipment. someone always had Coach Joe's back. Sometimes it was trustees like Graciela De Peña and her assorted in-laws and outlaws like Oscar Cantu, Sr, and Jr. who were outed with having fake PhDs. Sr. was allowed to retire quietly, and Jr. is now a principal at an elementary school.
And after other boards who were not dazzled with his charm and presence started questioning his golf scholarship fundraisers which seemed to make him more money than he handed out to students, he raised a fuss and threatened to sue – legal services free by his son – if the board released audits conducted by district auditors.
On that occasion, a private citizen went to the Texas Attorney General to have them released and the AG said they were public documents and as such open to the people, he had the school board members sue the AG to prevent it.
Even the Brownsville Herald requested the audits and were denied them until the AG ordered them released.
They did not paint a pretty picture of Coach Joe's machinations.
The district also had to shell out cash after an audit of his running of sports events found that the students used in the affairs were underpaid and fined the BISD.
When Rodriguez left the board (and we thought that was the last we'd see of him) he was indignant that somehow the administration had included him by mistake in a personnel item and he sued. The board gave the old coach $90,000 to soothe his ruffled feathers.
And currently, Rodriguez is involved in a $1 million lawsuit over (again) his ruffled feathers when he and his protege Tom Chavez were named in a forensic audit which recommended that Rodriguez be removed as a vendor from the BISD and Chavez removed as AD or terminated outright because of what the auditors said was favoritism toward the old coach that cost the district $100,000s more for athletic equipment than his competitors.
He, of course, sued.
In fact, he has a propensity to run toward the courthouse everytime someone mentions the word "audit" in his direction.
He "almost" won that, too.
During this last time around for elections of the Brownsville Independent School District board of trustees, much was made about the $2 million First Amendment lawsuit filed by former trustee Lucy Longoria and current member Catalina Presas-Garcia.
Althtough that litigation still hasn't reached a conclusion and the BISD removed from the lawsuit, trustee Cesar Lopez made it seem like the most unconscionable thing that one could do was "take money form the children" that could be used for instructional purposes.
Well, how about the money paid to the attorneys to defend them from this lawsuit?
The lawyers the BISD hired to defend the district are racking up expenses climbing upward of  $500,000.
One of those law firms just happens to he Colvin, Chaney, Saenz and Rodriguez LLP.
In fact, the "Rodriguez" in the law firm turns out to be the Coach's son. Tony Rodriguez, was also his father's representative in a lawsuit he threatened to file against the district over the release of the two audits.
When will Coach Joe have enough? After all The 1969 loss to Seguin was 46 years ago.
And so the "Coach Joe Saga" continues...