To the Band of Brothers: October 16, 2020
Good morning,
In the fall of 1985, two Belen juniors and two seniors had this crazy idea. They decided to start up the first-ever Belen golf team. These were four guys who played golf recreationally. Not the kind of recreational golf that afforded them memberships to country clubs like Riviera or the Biltmore. Not the kind of recreational golf that afforded them Titleist clubs or Calloway drivers. Definitely not the kind of recreational golf that afforded them lessons.
No, this was the kind of recreational golf that had them sneaking onto the par three, seventh hole of the Granada Golf Course (the one with the little water tower in the background) where they would play until they were kicked off the course by management or it got too dark to see the ball. The kind of recreational golf that had them using one set of clubs between the four of them, playing barefoot, and using old range balls that were spray-painted orange to erase the black line that identified them.
These four guys thought if they had so much fun playing golf “recreationally” then let's have just as much fun playing golf as a team for the school they loved so much. So, these four guys approached the athletic director, Carlos Barquin, and sold him on the idea.
Back in the 80s, golf was a spring sport, so they convinced Coach Richard Stuart to use the off-season (football is and always has been a fall sport) to moderate the golf team. “All you have to do Coach is organize the matches and drive us to them.” He agreed, and thus was born the Belen golf team. It was downhill from there.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I was one of the juniors. We were terrible, but we had fun.
I remember one match in particular at the Fontainebleau Golf Course. We had yet to record a “W” and Coach Stuart was getting desperate. We were playing Gulliver and I was placed as the fourth man in the match. I was paired up against some super-golf-stud from Gulliver who ate birdies for lunch and used golf tees as toothpicks.
I remember how nervous I was standing on the first tee, looking down the fairway of that par-five fairway. My opponent had ripped a 275-yard drive down the middle of the fairway. As I pulled my driver out of the bag, a club that had previously belonged to my grandfather and that was so old the guys on the team nicknamed it “Fred Flintstone,” I prayed to St. Andrew to help me. I wasn’t too sure if he was the patron saint of golf, but it made sense at the time, and figured if it wasn’t him, he could easily relay the message to the right guy. “I don’t care where the ball goes,” I whispered to him, “as long as it goes forward.”
Thank God (and St. Andrew) it did.
Then it got ugly. On the ninth and last hole of the match, I was just off the fairway when I saw Coach Stuart frantically running out towards me. He had a smile from ear to ear exposing his teeth as they shone in the sunlight. As he approached, he ran up to me and held me in his arms enthusiastically claiming that the three guys before me had scored like never before. He said, “Even if you shoot a 12 on this hole, we still win the match.” I didn’t know how to break the news to him that I was lying 11 where I stood. My drive had gone into the water five times until I put “Fred” away and punched a three iron on to the left rough of the fairway.
When the final put went in, I had scored a 15 and the match was lost. What a terrible day and what a terrible sport. Terrible, that is, until the following week when playing a match against Ransom Everglades at the Palmetto Golf Course, it was my nine-hole score of 41 that won the match for Belen.
Man, how things have changed. Our golf program has grown up and no longer struggles for victories anymore. The golfers don’t use orange balls and they don’t play barefoot either. They have cool uniforms, cooler clubs, and even golf bags for God’s sake! Earlier this week, we won the district title again helping to set a standard of excellence in such a competitive and difficult sport.
Right behind the guys on varsity are a whole pack of younger Wolverines who are swinging away at every golf ball they see, nurturing the future of this great sport for Belen. Kudos to Coach Carlos Rodríguez and his team as they keep working towards another run at a state title. We’ve come a long way.
St. Andrew… pray for us.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.