Texline basketball: It’s come a long way
Tornadoes travel 630 miles in chase for historic state title.
No basketball team from Texline ever soared to these heights.
Or traveled this far in pursuit of what was once thought to be impossible.
About 630 miles northwest of Austin, on the Texas-New Mexico border, sits the beyond-small town of Texline. If you’re into geography, it might interest you to know that Texline is closer to five other state capitals than it is to Austin.
The sleepy town of 511 will be quieter than usual Friday because many residents have made the trek here with hope of seeing history made.
Basketball is the main sport at Texline High. The school hasn’t had an 11-man football team in more than 30 years because there just aren’t enough boys on hand to field a competitive team. Before coach Tanner Martin’s Tornadoes qualified for the UIL boys basketball tournament for the first time in school history, the biggest thing to come to town was the Burlington Northern Railroad.
If the Tornadoes can find
a way to win two more games this season — completing their epic journey with a state championship — the perception of their town will change.
Texline will become the Little Town that Could.
“I’ve dreamed about this since I was six years old,” sophomore guard Carlos Espino said. “Now it’s here.”
Martin, 26, took the head coaching job at Texline three years ago upon his graduation from West Texas A&M. After the Tornadoes lost in the regional semifinals his first two seasons, he implemented more of a defensive approach — baseline to baseline — and the seventh-ranked Tornadoes pressed their way to a state tourney bid.
It’s a big change for the players but just as big of one for the town, where folks drive 12 miles across the border into Clayton, N.M., a community of about 3,000 that has a better selection of restaurants and night spots, plus a movie theater and a grocery store to boot.
Lately, though, people have been driving to Texline. Reporters from Dalhart, Clayton and Amarillo were spotted on campus this week, doing stories on the Tornadoes, who face top-ranked Roxton on Friday in a Class A, Division I state semifinal. Facebook posts are piling up, too.
“It is big for here,” said Texline’s first-year principal, Russell Schaub, whose son, Tyler, plays for the Tornadoes. “We’ve had elementary, junior high and high school kids making notes and posters for the team. They’re giving them all sorts of stuff to take with them to Austin.”
Local businessman Danny Poole (Texline Class of 1980) owns a chemical company with offices in several states, but he still makes his home in Texline.
“It’s a great place,” he said. “The school is just wonderful. My dad lived here. My granddad lived here. I have 150 employees and the people I trust the most either graduated high school from Texline, their parents are from Texline or they married someone from Texline.”
The Tornadoes have been celebrating nonstop since they defeated Lenorah Grady last week in a regional final, and their fans surprised them by packing the gym for a surprise party late Saturday night. Then there was a huge pep rally Tuesday.
“This school has been around since the 1920s,” Mayor Jim Smith told me Wednesday. “And nothing like this has ever happened around here before.”
The team bus left for Abilene at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, escorted down U.S. 87 to Dalhart, where fans of the school that beat Texline twice this season lined the streets to offer waves and well-wishes. Amarillo was the next pitstop, then the Tornadoes stopped off at the Lubbock mall before hitting the McDonalds’s in Snyder for lunch. By midafternoon they were practicing at Abilene Christian University.
“They got a little chippy with each other during practice,” Martin said. “That lets me know they’re ready to go.”
The team arrived in Austin on Wednesday night, checked into the Crowne Plaza, and Martin followed through on a promise to take his players out for pizza at the Mellow Mushroom on Guadalupe Street. On Thursday afternoon, the Tornadoes practiced at Huston-Tillotson University.
Martin is familiar with Austin. The Texline school district paid for him to attend the past two state tournaments as a spectator, a cool deal but not nearly as cool as participating in one. A former 6-foot-3 guard at Canyon, he began thinking about coaching after traveling across the border to Keyes, Okla., to watch his fiancee’s brother play a game. At the time, Martin was planning on a career as a history teacher once he left West Texas A&M. He’s been married to Kendra for four years now, and they are the parents of a 10-month-old daughter named Parker.
After his first two regional-tournament coaching experiences ended in disappointment, Martin wondered if his 2013 team would even make it that far after the Tornadoes hit a rough patch. After a 48-41 loss to Nazareth on Feb. 1 — the team’s only home loss in seven games — Martin questioned his players’ effort and locked up the gym.
“He gave us five days off,” said Aaron Gutierrez, a 6-5 sophomore guard who blitzed regionaltournament opponents with 57 points and 35 rebounds in two games. “We wanted to get back to practice and once he got us back in there, we went hard that day and started playing well after that.”
Martin texted each of his players during the Texas Longhorns’ “Big Monday” game against Baylor that aired on ESPN. They were watching. Several showed up at his house at the half, demanding the keys to the gym.
“I wasn’t really watching the game,” Gutierrez said. “I was watching the court the whole time because that’s where we will be playing. I’ve never been to the Erwin Center. I can’t wait to get there.”