A look back at El Paso’s last Final Four team
Andress basketball coach Jim Forbes will lead his team onto the court Thursday night in a state semifinal game.
A win against Lancaster (32-4) at the Alamodome would put the Eagles (33-1) in the state championship game on Saturday. Twenty years ago, Forbes coached another Borderland team to the Final Four.
“When we ran out and the roar of the crowd, it just kind of,” former Riverside High guard Ruben Rodriguez, now a baseball and football coach at Eastlake High, said before pausing. “I don’t know there’s a better feeling than that and they’re going to experience that.”
Riverside, coached by Forbes, lost to San Antonio East Central in that 1995 historic semifinal at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. Forbes says this time around his team is in it to win it!
“We’re not going up there to try and give them respect,” Forbes told ABC-7. “We’re going up there to try and win a state title.”
Rodriguez called Forbes one of his greatest coaching influences. And he’s not surprised his former coach is once ago so close to a state title.
“What he does is he builds great relationships with kids,” Rodriguez said. “He changes lives and that’s his priority and when he went out to the Northeast (to Andress), I think his priority was to change the environment out there.”
Rodriguez said Forbes did the same at Riverside 20 years ago.
“He was a disciplinarian,” Rodriguez said. “There was one day we had practice at 5:30 every morning and that door closed before 5:30. We had a couple guys show up late and the discipline was to miss the game and he was adamant about it and we knew what our expectations were and more importantly we knew what our role was on that team.”
Even in defeat 20 years ago, the Rangers were winners!
“I don’t know that people really understand the achievement that it was in 1995 and obviously what it is now for Andress High School,” Rodriguez said. “It’s tough and being from El Paso we’re not ever given anything and we got to work for it. But those guys did and they’re there. My only advice to them would be, ‘Hey, enjoy the opportunity.'”
Roman Diaz, a member of the 1995 Riverside Final Four team, is now a deputy with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. Tommy Galindo, another player from that Ranger team, is now a detention officer with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.
