Champion of the Barrio | Dallas Morning News
Buryl Baty was a winning athlete, coach, builder of men -- and an early pioneer against bigotry. In 1950, after serving in World War II, quarterbacking the Texas Aggies during glory days of the old Southwest Conference, and being drafted by the NFL's Detroit Lions, Baty became head football coach for the Bowie High School Bears in the Segundo Barrio of El Paso. Coach Baty quickly inspired this all-Mexican American team of athletes from the south side ghetto with his winning ways and personal stand against the era's extreme, deep-seated prejudice to which they were subjected. Decades later, the school and its former players memorialized Coach Baty's legacy by dedicating Bowie High's stadium in his name, and inducting him into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame. Champion of the Barrio: The Legacy of Coach Buryl Baty is written by Gaines Baty, son of this legendary coach, who came to know his dad, and learn from him, through the eyes of over 100 people whose lives he touched.
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Dallas Morning News

23 May Dallas Morning News

First-time author tells story of father and former Aggie he barely got to know. 

Buryl Baty was a star at Paris High and at Texas A&M, not to mention a hero at El Paso Bowie.

But he was mostly a ghost to his oldest son, who was 4 when his father died. Gaines Baty’s memories are fleeting, wispy, dreamlike. Watching practices from the bench. A hunting trip, arms locked tight around his dad’s neck as they jump a dry gully. Waking up to his mother crying, then hearing the reason.

“Honey, your daddy won’t be coming home.”

By Kevin Sherrington

Read more here