March 27, 1969
Nemo Herrera and Harry Phillips, juggernauts in the field of coaching, and Don Maynard, record-setting star flankerback for the world champion New York Jets professional football team, have been named to the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame, and will be inducted into their niche in history at the annual awards banquet Tuesday, April 8.
PLAYED FOR JETS
Maynard, who became the professional football record-setter in pass receiving yardage this past season, has been a member of the New York Jets the past nine years. A former Texas Miner star, he has played 11 years in pro football and is widely recognized as an all-time great.
The Hall of Fame Awards Banquet, an annual highlight on the winter-spring schedule, will be held at 7:30 p.m. April 8, at Sheraton Motor Inn. Tickets for the affair are available from all Hall of Fame Committee members.
William Carson Herrera, known as “Nemo” in all walks of the athletic world throughout the nation, is completing his 41st year as a high school coach this spring, at the age of 69. His achievements at Beaumont, where he stared in 1928, at San Antonio Sidney Lanier High, where he reached championship heights, and at Bowie High in El Paso, are tremendous.
When he retired from coaching basketball in 1960, his varsity teams had won 543 games and lost 193. He won two state titles at Sidney Lanier High.
Herrera coached the first schoolboy baseball state champion in 1949 when his Bowie Bears won the first Class AA (now AAAA) state tournament in Austin.
In 1960 Herrera returned to the San Antonio schools, but returned to El Paso in 1963, taking the baseball coaching assignment at Coronado High which he holds now.
Nemo’s football coaching career in El Paso was a brief emergency measure. He filled out the 1954 season at Bowie High following the deaths of Jerry Simmang and Burl Baty in an automobile accident.
Already Nemo has been inducted into the Texas Coaches Hall of Fame and has been named El Paso coach of The Year by the El Paso PTA.
PLAYED PRO BASEBALL
In his younger days, following graduation from Southwestern College in 1922, he played professional baseball in the Texas, Western and cotton states Leagues, and also was widely known as an umpire both in this nation and in Mexico.
Harry Phillips was associated with the late Mack Saxon, an earlier selection for the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fames, as coach of the Texas College of Mines football team in the years when the school took the earliest steps on the road leading to its present position and title of University of Texas at El Paso.
During Phillips’ 1929-1942 tenure at the hillside school the Miners played many great teams, and also began the series of appearances in Sun Bowl games which have contributed to the school’s grown in stature.
COACHED OKLAHOMA
He resigned the post in 1942 and later served on the coaching staffs at Oklahoma and Arizona, where he was an assistant to Mike Casteel, but returned to El Paso in 1946 to retire from coaching.
He served during the summer of 1946 as head of the city recreation department, but resigned in September that year to enter business for himself.
He continued as a football official for several years thereafter, working in a number of Sun Bowl games and in several other post-season classic games.
Maynard’s history as a football player is dotted with achievements. He won All-Border Conference honors as the leading pass receiver and pass defender for Texas Western in 1956 and 1957 season and also was conference champion hurdler.
JOINED TITANS IN 1960
He played a year for the New York Giants in the NFL, and another season for the Hamilton Tigercats of the Canadian League. In 1960 he signed with the New York Titans of the American League and remained with the club when it became the New York Jets in 1963.
He holds a total of 16 individual records in AFL competition including 14 touchdown pass receptions in one season, and ranks No. 1 in all professional football for yards gained on pass receptions – 9,433 yards in 11 seasons.
He has received numerous special awards and honors for his play.
El Paso is his off-season home and he has worked as a plumber, mechanic and teacher during those periods. He is a working member of the Fellowship of Christian
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