“It was a tough thing to go through. But finally, as I was recuperating, the doctor wanted me to do some physical therapy. He asked what kinds of sports I liked. I named half a dozen things, because I’ve always stayed active. When I mentioned I’d been bowling a few times he said, ‘That’s what I want you to do.’ It was good exercise, using different muscles. So that’s where it started.

“The first game I ever bowled was a 69, and I said, ‘This will never do. I can do better than this.’ I’m very competitive. So I joined a Tuesday ladies league. That was in 1962, when you could bowl three games for about a dollar and a half. It was a lot of fun. And I’ve been bowling regularly for more than 60 years.

“I feel like I’ve made some contributions along the way. I really enjoyed the coaching aspect. I taught bantam, junior and senior bowling classes, and I was a bowling instructor at Lee College. I’ve met so many interesting people. Bowling has meant a lot to me: friendship, camaraderie, participation, challenge, competition. It’s been my second home, so to speak.

“These days, I normally bowl just on Mondays. But I’m also filling in on another night for a lady that had surgery. I used to bowl a lot more often. Except, Saturday was for doing the washing, mopping and catching up on chores at home, and Sunday was for church.

“You know, everybody’s life follows a stream one way or another. I’m just glad mine went this way. I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. As long as I don’t wake up with a tag on my toe, I’m going to bowl.”

— Dot Sitton, 89

During her career, Dot bowled numerous 200-plus games and 600-plus series. She was president and secretary of Baytown Women’s Bowling Association, and served in other roles on local, state and national levels. Dot received the Hall of Fame Award from Baytown’s combined women’s and men’s bowling association. She also is fondly remembered as the longtime bowling lanes DJ for Rock ’n Bowl and Kikker Bowl nights.

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“I was diagnosed with autism when I was 6 years old. My dad didn’t really understand what autism was. I asked, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ My mom said, ‘No. It just means that you’re special. It means that you’re unique, not like everyone else.’ Because I liked cartoons and stuff, it was explained to me that I was like the Wolverine in X-Men. Like, that’s my super power.

“Growing up was challenging, just trying to make friends and fitting in. Some people were mean. In junior high, kids would call me weirdo, ugly, all kinds of things. It was hard.

“But that’s where I met coach (Scott) Griffin. He was a football coach. He’s the man who found me and started helping me. He looked at me as a person, not an autistic person.

“When I got to high school, things were different. I got a chance to be manager for the Goose Creek Memorial football team. Coach (Bret) Boyd was really supportive, and the players were all good to me. I started making friends. People started liking me for me. And I cared about them. I felt like they were my brothers. They were my family.

“I was also team manager for basketball and baseball, all four years. It made me feel important. For the first time, it made me feel special. I felt like I had meaning in my life. I had a purpose. It was everything to me.

“Then when I began taking classes at Lee College, coach (Nick) Wade let me start helping out with the basketball team. It was after COVID, and I was trying to get back on my feet again socially.

“This was also the time when my dad had a heart attack. One day we got a call from the hospital, and they said we better come. He’s dying. That was awful. It still makes me sad to talk about.

“But all the coaches and the guys on the basketball team were so supportive. They were worried for me. If they weren’t there for me during that time, I don’t know where I would be.

“I’m so thankful to coach Wade. He gave me a team to be part of again. He gave me a family again.”

— Roberto (Berto) Nunez Jr.

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“I remember when I was 6 years old, my dad would come home from work and we would go out in the street to kick a football. I’m not sure why, but he would always take off his dress shoes and kick barefoot. I guess that’s where I got it. I’ve tried both ways. I just have a better feel for the football when I’m kicking barefoot. Because of some knee injuries and maybe a little favoritism going on, I only got to play one game as a senior at Sterling High School. I tried a 45-yard field goal, and that was it. But I knew I had a strong leg, and I was determined to play college ball. I reached out to a few schools, and I got a chance to try out for Kilgore College. The head coach only needed to see me kick for 20 minutes. He took me back to the field house and typed up a scholarship.”

While kicking as a freshman, a freak injury on an AstroTurf field in the team’s eighth game ended his college career. “Three knee surgeries later, I had missed my window. I felt pretty defeated.”

“Throughout my marriage, I would go out and kick about every six months. I knew I still had it. But my ex-wife didn’t want me to get back in the game. She was afraid I was going to get hurt again. Spring forward to when I was 34. I go through a nasty divorce. Didn’t have anyone telling me what to do anymore. So I decided to start playing again.”

What followed was a 14-year career in semipro football, playing for several teams in the Houston area — the last 10 years with the Texas Red Raiders. “That’s where I made a name for myself. I was known as The Foot. I finished my career with 702 points and played in six or seven all-star games.”

Seven knee surgeries and two neck surgeries finally took a toll, leading to retirement in 2018 at age 48. But after being selected to enter the Minor League Football Hall of Fame on Nov. 18 in Las Vegas, “It makes my knees and my neck feel a little bit better.”

— Jerry Michalsky

The 53-year-old plans to kick in one more game, as part of an all-star team playing a team from Colorado during the Hall of Fame weekend. “They’re not supposed to be able to rush on field goals and punts, so I think I’ll be OK.”

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“I played volleyball in middle school and high school. Then I got a full ride to play at Lee College. It was my first year there, and we were at a tournament in the El Paso area when I landed wrong from blocking. I tore my ACL, meniscus and everything. I knew instantly.

“So I did the surgery. I did the rehab. I tried everything to get back into it. But I just knew it wasn’t going to be the same. I didn’t trust my knee enough to do the physical movements. I knew the sport was done for me.

“It was definitely upsetting. Being so young at the time, I thought my life was over. I wanted to eventually go into a four-year college program like my friends from our high school team. I really wanted to do volleyball as a full-time thing. But after blowing out my knee, I had to pick a different career.

“Right out of high school, I started working as a medical assistant at an OB-GYN office in Baytown. It’s the reason I decided to go into nursing. That and the fact that my mom has been a nurse for years. At the time of my injury, she was studying to become a nurse practitioner. She was constantly a role model to pursue a career in the medical field, and always encouraging me to do something big.

“I’m in nursing school at UTMB Galveston. It’s online right now, but hopefully we’ll go back to in-person soon. I’m still at the OB-GYN office, and I work alongside my mom. That’s been pretty cool.

“We really are best friends, so we work really well together. We mesh well. It’s like I know what she wants before she even wants it. Of course, we are mother-daughter, so sometimes we do butt heads. But for the most part, it’s been really nice.”

— Delany Boyd

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“I went walking today, and I found this beat-up basketball over there in the grass. I thought, I may as well see if I can still shoot.

“I played sports in high school, basketball and football. It’s been a while, though. I’m 56. I didn’t think I could do it anymore. But I surprised myself. I’m moving parts that haven’t moved in years.

“I’ve got this little knee problem from years ago. I slipped and fell at work. I never did try to file or anything. I figured it would work itself out. But it’s catching up to me in my old age. That’s why I keep moving. That’s why I’m out here exercising. If I stop, it gets stiff. Then I can barely do anything. I’m about 50-50 with it. I could have been 75 and above without it. But I can handle it. I can maintain. It’s just part of life. You’ve got to go with the flow. I have to because I’m still working.

“I work in cooling towers at the plants. It’s definitely hard work. Especially at my age. Everybody asks me, ‘What are you doing still working at this?’ Hey, I need to work. I didn’t go to college. If you don’t go to college, you’ve got to go to work. That’s what I try to preach to my grandkids. Hey, go to school. But they don’t always want to listen. I guess they just have to learn that on their own.”

— Walter Gonzales

The post ‘I’m moving parts that haven’t moved in years’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“Being a little country girl from Beaumont, I was always tomboyish. Although I wasn’t very girly, I was a cheerleader all through school. My junior year, I got kicked off the squad because I had the only fight in my entire life. So I needed something to do. I ended up being really good at powerlifting. I became the number one lifter in my weight class in the state and nation.

“But the one thing I always wanted to do was play football. I felt I was strong enough. So I approached the high school coach. At first, he wasn’t having it. He came around later and said that I could play, but not on varsity, only JV. Well, with my ego, I just chose not to pursue it.

“Years later, I was in the gym working out when I heard on the radio that Houston had a professional women’s team. It was the Houston Lady Oilers in the new Women’s Arena Football League. I got a tryout. And at age 32, I made the team. We won the championship, but the league failed and fell apart. I moved on to the Texas Lady Jaguars in the Sugar ‘N Spice Football League, and we won the Super Bowl.

“Early in my career, they tried me out as a linebacker because of my size and strength. But I was more aggressive as a running back. I didn’t like doing the hitting, but I loved getting hit. They called me Ironhead after Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, who was a physical running back in the NFL. I have no regrets, but my body suffers from it now.

“After I retired, I had excrutiating back pain, and my neck bothered me. I would have to roll out of bed, or my husband would have to push me off. MRIs showed that I had degenerative discs in my neck and lower back, and some arthritis setting in. I also have a bad hip. I’m not a medication type person. But by working out, strengthening my core, and just trying to stay active, I’ve learned to deal with it.

“When I went in for pain injections a few years back, the doctor was like, ‘Either you were crazy or you just really loved the game.’ And I was like, “I really loved the game. But I guess I was a little bit crazy, too.’”

— Raquel Segura

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“My husband and I have called Crosby home for six years now. We specifically chose Crosby as the place we wanted to raise our family: a smallish, diverse, one-high school town. We immediately fell in love with the culture. And we made that trip to Austin for the football team’s state semifinal playoff game in 2014, just months before our son was born.

“In 2017, I left my job as a nurse administrator in the medical center to start Crosby High School’s Health Science program. It has been great, but we’ve had our share of challenges: hurricanes, floods, a financial crisis, and then COVID. The current pandemic has proven to be a challenge like none we have ever faced as educators. Our campus staff have bonded during this time, and I love to come to work every day. It has been hard, but our students are what truly make it worth it.

“Our football team is preparing for the state championship game, and the ride has been such a bright spot for our school — especially for us as teachers. We attend sporting events at least weekly to cheer for our students, and we rarely miss a football game. We traveled to watch our team take down four top 10-ranked teams on the road to the championship game. But the proudest moment as teachers was watching them interact with Liberty Hill after we beat them last week. Our boys postponed their celebration to console the Liberty Hill players, who had just lost their head coach, Jeff Walker, to cancer in December.

“Our community has rallied around Coach Walker’s wife, presenting her with a check prior to that game. His hat and jersey will accompany Crosby to the state championship game, so I feel like we now have two communities cheering us on.

“It makes us so proud that our students aren’t only successful on the field, but they are showing real character. Crosby needed this bright spot during such a difficult year. It has truly been special.”

— Kristi Thompson

Kristi’s husband, Corbett, also teaches at Crosby High School. The Cougars (12-3) beat Liberty Hill 62-61 in overtime last week. They will play Aledo (12-1) in the Class 5A-Division II championship game at 1 p.m. Friday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

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“I’m in what is probably one of the top five oldest fantasy football leagues still in existence. We were all attending Arizona State, where I was a grad student. We were these jocks who played together on an intramural football team. We were just good friends who liked to hang around each other all the time.

“We held our first draft in 1978. We made up our own rules, who got scoring and all that kind of stuff. We started off at $5 a week. Whoever won the Super Bowl got to take a date out for dinner with wine, and bring back the tab for us all to split up.

“It started with 11 of us on that intramural team. Nine of the 11 are left. Two of us have passed. So we’ve got nine, plus a couple guys we’ve added over the years.

“The cool thing is that we all started our careers together. One guy went to the Naval Academy, and we call him The Admiral. We have very successful businessmen. We have educators. We have psychiatrists. We have one guy who’s in charge of all the electricity grids in western America.

“We’ve been through everything together: the birth of our kids, friends dying, businesses going up and down. We’ve gone on vacations together with our wives. We still meet twice a year religiously to do our draft and everything. That’s pretty cool, I think, to have a circle of friends, nine of whom are from the core you’ve known for over 40 years.

“We really never have gone online. We’re so old-fashioned, we still keep notes by hand. We have hard copy written minutes of every meeting. We have an archive of documents that you wouldn’t believe. All we do with the internet is submit our lineups every week, and we use it to communicate.

“We have a pretty special bond. I guess we all just love each other. But we still have a bloody, bloody rivalry when it comes to who wins that trophy, I’ll tell you that. It’s pretty cutthroat.”

— Jeff Butler

They were planning to meet in Las Vegas to hold this season’s draft. But due to the coronavirus pandemic, they will probably do it on Zoom.

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“When Maycie was in elementary school, things were great. It was so wonderful. The kids were nice. The teachers were great. And then junior high and high school just weren’t. Her school work wouldn’t be modified for her. The curriculum wasn’t accessible anymore. By ninth grade, she was being bullied.

“I remember when she was in track. They would go outside to practice, and she would need a friend to run as a sighted guide. The girls would argue in front of her about who was going to have to run with her. There were a couple times where she called me from the locker room because the other girls left her there by herself. So she couldn’t get out to the track. It took me a long time to get over that anger and that hurt.

“She started to flip into a really deep depression. It began in junior high. We just chalked it up to junior high being hard. It was for all my kids, not just for her. But by freshman year, she wouldn’t get out of bed. She was sad and angry all the time. She begged and begged and begged to please let her go to Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Austin. Ultimately, we decided that was the best place for her to learn and to grow. And it’s been great. She became happy again.

“So many school districts just aren’t equipped to handle totally blind children. Her main means of learning is Braille. In Austin, she was able to access her curriculum, and she was thriving. Sports was always a big deal for her. She played softball and ran track. But when she got to high school, it wasn’t easy. She never won a race because everybody was sighted, and she had to run with someone. When she went off to Texas School for the Blind, it was an even playing field. Whether you’re blind or visually impaired, everybody has to wear a blindfold. She started winning and excelling and advancing in sports. That does a lot for self-confidence.

“The biggest change I’ve seen in her is independence and happiness. Maycie’s 18 now, and she’s a wonderful advocate for herself. She’s done amazing. They say you’re not supposed to be prideful. But I have so much pride in my heart for her and how far she’s come in life.”

— Brandi Gonzalez

At Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Maycie is cheer captain, runs track, is on the swim team, plays goalball (chosen for the All-American team), is student body secretary, president of Leo Club, and a member of the National Honor Society. She plans to pursue a career as a child life specialist on a pediatric oncology unit.

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The post ‘I have so much pride in my heart for her’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I just finished my first semester at Northwestern State University in Louisiana. I’m there on a soccer scholarship. I had a few other offers, but I didn’t want to go too far away from home. It’s just a four-hour drive to Natchitoches.

“At the same time, I didn’t really want to stay in Texas. I was ready to see what it was like somewhere else. It’s kind of nice to be off on my own, away from home, and looking after myself. My parents aren’t there telling me to do things or making sure I’m home by curfew, which is nice.

“It hasn’t been that big of an adjustment, really. I’ve always been the type of person who’s responsible for keeping up with school work, soccer and everything else.

“So far I’m really enjoying college, especially hanging out with my friends.”

— Norma Trejo

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