As Sunday’s Super Bowl demonstrated, winning three straight championships is no easy feat. Cuero knows this and so does Victor Mathis.
As a senior on the 1970 Cuero football state playoff team, Mathis’ life was changed by a coach. To hear him describe it, that coach changed Cuero.
“Coach Gilbreath got us all in a room and told us it didn’t matter who we were, the best players would take the field,” Mathis recalled from his easy chair, surrounded by a wall of photos and medals from his own 39year career as a coach. “That was during civil rights and not many teams were doing that.”
Mathis recalled his junior year with the team. “We lost because we didn’t have a kicker, but we knew we had a good team. We’d been playing together since 7th and 8th grade,” he said. “We decided as a team that we were not going to lose. It was one of the most joyful experiences of my life.”
A profound moment on those sidelines stayed with Mathis all these years. “Looking up in the stands, I called my friend over,” he said. “There were black AND white fans yelling for us. It changed the community. And that’s what God wants.”
Gilbreath’s Gobblers went back to the state playoffs and won three straight years, establishing Cuero as a powerhouse in football. Coach Victor Mathis, who came back to Cuero in 1977, helped hundreds of Cuero athletes and led his track teams to state championships three times.
Mathis retired in 2016 after 39 years coaching with Cuero ISD, as well as Junior Olympics and Summer Track along the way. On Saturday, the community is coming together to celebrate Coach Mathis with a gathering of appreciation at the Ag Friar Event Center.
When he retired at the age of 64, Mathis was experiencing health problems.
“By God’s grace I survived,” Mathis said of the years since retirement. Now, he’s considering his speech for Saturday.
“I helped a lot of athletes get scholarships, both black and white,” Mathis said. “And to put a smile on a kid’s face is like having a million dollars.”
Mathis coached football, basketball and track at Cuero ISD, and became the head track coach in 2003. He had actually been offered the head basketball position, but though he had winning basketball teams, his heart was in track.
“I had run track in college and that’s where my heart was.WhenIstarted,Iasked God for one state championship,” Mathissaid.
As head track coach, his teams from 2005, 2006, and 2008 were state champions. In 2007, they were state runner-up.
Athletesthathecoached throughout the years knewhecaredaboutthem.
“Kids want two things,” Mathis said, “to know you care, and to be disciplined. They want to know right from wrong.”
Cuero track parents even gladly shared their phone numbers with him.
Martell Williams, from the class of 2005, said he missed practice once and Coach Mathis called his father, who immediately drove him to the track.
“Practice was intense,” Williams said. “Coach was a motivator, and very qualified. He had us out there running like wild horses, doing the 500 all the time and timing us. If we didn’t give our best effort we’d do it again.”
“He knew our families,” Monte Green, class of 2011, said. “Our parents were only a phone call away. He coached me up all I knew and it’s about relationships. We became like family, and I took that with me.”
Green, who is now a coach at Richardson High School, says he tries to be the same kind of coach to his athletes as Mathis was to him. He said some coaches these days avoid getting personal with athletes.
Isaiah Glover, class of 2009, remembers being with Coach Mathis at the state championship instead of at graduation. That’s the bittersweet aspect of successful track athletes. They often miss graduation celebrations if they are at state track and field.
Glover said at first he didn’t do field events. “Coach got me to try the triple jump and then the long jump, where I did good,” he said. “I set a record at TAMU in Kingsville. It’s what got me to college on scholarship.”
Mathis said the fastest athlete he ever worked with was Brandon James, Class of 2006, who attended CHS his junior and senior years.
James credits Coach Mathis with helping him to achieve mentally and physically on the track. “He helped me learn to pick up speed.” He added he was upset his junior year because he wanted to earn individual points. Coach Mathis helped him understand it was about the overall points and “looking out for the other guys.”
But Coach Mathis workedhardtohelpJames develop his talent as well.
“Coach would pick me up at 5 in the morning four days a week for block training start ups,” James said. “The first 10 steps everyone was ahead of me.”
He said Coach helped him to master block starts his junior year to be ready for the following year. “I had the second fastest 100 in the nation,” James said of his senior year. “I could go to any college in the state.”
James, who grew up competing in track, said Mathis was the coach who worried about his well being outside of school, including nutrition.
“Cuero elevated my fundamentals and eating,” James said. “I use the same work ethic now. You really have to have your heart in it.”
James’ daughter, Patton, is now a track competitor and earning the benefit of lessons from Coach Mathis, who is also very proud of the female athletes he helped over the years: Sabrina Hanekes, Sandra Lott, Abby Sheppard, (Alex & Avery Sheppard), Gabby Thomas, Paisley Hansen and more.
The combination of developing talent and team play came together for Coach Mathis throughout his career, but he credits Cuero itself as a special place.
“When I started going to competitions around the state, no one knew where Cuero was,” he said. “I’d say we were by Victoria, but they didn’t know where that was. Then I’d say south of San Antonio and they could get it. Now, they know where Cuero is.”
Mathis recalls his years coaching Junior Olympics and how Cuero would always find a way to support its competitors. “It was expensive with all the vehicles and gas and hotel rooms,” he said. “This town supports its athletes.”
He said the saying of “it takes a village” describes the type of community that Cuero has been.
Mathis said the talent in Cuero is unreal. “It is such a blessing. I hope it never changes. We are truly blessed, truly, truly blessed.”
