(Ed.'s Note: He wasn't a blowhard, flamboyant or a loudmouth as sports writers tend to be. Roy Hess, when those of us who worked with him at the Herald remember him, remember a self-effacing, accurate, factual and a working writer. Over the years got to know just about everyone having anything to do with sports in Brownsville be it football, baseball, track, boxing, you name it. You'd walk into the newsroom and wouldn't know he was there until his pages were finished and he'd leave his desk. Our condolences to his friends and family. We're going to miss you Roy.)
By Jerry McHale
Herald Sports Writer
"We have lost a gentle giant," said Rene Medrano, one of Brownsville's most outstanding football and baseball coaches. "He was the voice of sports in the Valley. You never heard anyone criticize Roy. He was a class act who wasn't a gotcha journalist. He had no other agenda than to promote local athletes. He told a straight story with an objectivity that you don't see these days. He truly loved his work. His idea of a night on the town was covering a sports event. I'm sure a lot of people are feeling pain today for this generous soul."
The Rio Grande Valley Hall of Fame inducted him into its organization in 2016. The association cited the breadth of his coverage. He was raised on the major three--football, basketball and baseball--but the UT/Austin graduate covered girls volleyball or softball with the same enthusiasm. And nobody did more for soccer than Hess who recognized at an early stage that boys soccer was the ticket to putting the Valley on the Texas athletic map.
Dave Handelman, a former Brownsville Herald sports editor, appreciated Hess's self-effecting manner. According to Handelman, Hess never wanted to be part of the story. He wasn't interested in being a personality. In his estimation, the coaches and the athletes were the personalities and he wanted the spotlight focused on them.
"I never heard Roy raise his voice nor use a bad word," recalled Handelman. "He had a soft, Texas drawl that would put a subject at immediate ease. He wasn't attracted to controversy although he never shied away from an important issue. He respected the challenges that the coaches and athletes faced and he wanted the public to share in their struggles for success. Unlike some of my ex-fellow scribes, Roy wasn't a cheap-shot artist. It was never his intention to humiliate or embarrass anyone. I never knew his religious beliefs, but he had a deep love for humanity."
"I will miss him," said Rick Lepre, a longtime baseball and softball coach who knew Hess for more than four decades. "He gave every sport its due. A cross-country runner would receive as much publicity as a star quarterback. In his estimation competition was competition and those who emerged as stand-outs deserved recognition. If I had to characterize Roy with one word, that word would be genuine. I enjoyed our interviews after the games because he wanted nothing more than the facts as well as my opinion about the outcome. And he never ignored the athletes. He always sought their input."
"My nephew plays for Veterans Memorial and I went to Sams Stadium twice this fall to watch the Chargers," recalled Max Maxwell, dean of the RGV sportswriters. "Both times I sat next to Roy. He didn't like sitting in the press booth. He wanted to sit among the fans in the stands because they added context to his reporting.
"He jotted down the details of every play from the yardline to the yards gained in his own shorthand. He was meticulous in his approach to his profession. He avidly followed boxing, a passion I also shared and we would talk at length about local fighters. I knew that he was dealing with health problems, but I had no idea he was in such poor physical shape. He certainly didn't give that impression as we discussed a variety of sports topics. The last time we were together I bought him a coke as he typed the first part of his story on his laptop at halftime. I don't know what the purchase of a coke means, but it seems to mean something now. He was a fine person. Especially in the sports community, we are lesser without him. It's a very sad day."
13 comments:
What Trump said about the riots in Minneapolis should surprise no one. This is the man who placed a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the death of the Central Park Five (now the Exonerated Five). What was shocking was the fact that a president who has been notoriously quiet when it comes to Black Americans dying at the hands of cops finally said something. He was quiet after the death of Stephon Clark in Sacramento, with his press secretary at the time calling it “a local matter.”
When he finally does address a case, he calls Black protesters “thugs,” a term often weaponized against Black people to make them out to be a threat, while actively threatening their lives with the use of more state-sanctioned violence. (A totally different tone than the one he used on May 1 when addressing a heavily armed group protesting stay-at-home orders meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19.)
Trump said nothing when armed White men stormed the Michigan capitol.
The Trump campaign has spent months trying to woo black voters who overwhelmingly opposed the president in 2016, including by casting his Democratic rival Joe Biden as a “bigot.” After Biden remarked that black voters who don’t vote for him “ain’t black” during a radio show last week, Trump aides tore into the former vice president and launched a website and digital ad accusing him of being racist. Biden quickly said he regretted the comment and said he’d work to earn the support of black voters.
A poll of some 400 black and white respondents conducted by Hakeem Jefferson, a Stanford political science professor, the day after Biden’s comments found that black Democrats were the least offended by the former vice president’s comments and white Republicans were the most offended.
There is a third dimension, beyond that is known to man. It is a middle ground between light and shadows, science and superstition. It pits man around fears and knowledge. It is an area of imagination; to many people it’s known as the Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Much of the comments written and published come from failed individuals who live in some of the poorest cities in America – streets that resemble Third World countries, outdated water plants built in the 1920s, water treatment plants that are inoperable, etc.
Towns with no sales tax revenues and boarded-up buildings.
Yet, these individuals think that their opinions matter – individuals that exist in pensions beneath poverty level – that instead of fixing their cities, they write silly letters criticizing the federal government.
To this date, I don’t know of anyone who is so financially wealthy in San Benito that the policy of the Trump administration impacts them.
So continue regurgitating the old tired meaningless laughable letters. Because that’s all; they’re meaningless.
- Frank Garcia, Harlingen
For Trump and his man-baby fans, "free speech" means they get to act out with no consequences
The snowflake right's "free speech": We can say whatever noxious crap we want, and nobody gets to be mean to us.
They dont make em like that no more
He covered all the brownsville schools fairly
Only the good die young.
Great guy n good friend... the herald has lost their best sports writer
May 29, 2020 at 4:29 PM
What took you so long to realize you are also part of the poverty problem and living in a KKK town indio pendejo.
God Bless You Roy Hess You Were Such A Gentle Giant. You earned your place in Heaven next To God Our Father & Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Onta el cheque Pat?
Our deepest sincerest Condolences to
Erika and Hess family..
PuroCachos/Community Boxing Club
Juan, why do you allow comments that have nothing to do with the story of Roy Hess, which was a great story because Roy dedicated himself to writing about local high school sports. His reports and stories touched many lives over the years. Of the eleven comments to date, six had nothing to do with Roy. This is a common occurrence with most of your articles. When are you going to start banning these quacks and wackos from ruining your contributions and efforts. It's always the same jerks, laying in wait to be the first ones to mock, jeer and ruin your writings with their sarcasm and crap. You know who they are, so please stop them. There are many of us who appreciate your work Juan, you deserve better.
quacks and wackos, must be posting about the idiot hillybilly parrot or something like that, make no sense at all, but that's what keeps (most) coming back for a good laugh.
Post a Comment