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I wrote this a few months back after reading a few articles the local newspaper did on my hometown's sports teams, and for some reason, I wanted to share it. Feel free to leave some feedback :) Also, sorry it's so long.
*ALL CHARACTERS, TOWNS, & PLOTS LISTED ARE FICTIONAL. APOLOGIES FOR THE POSSIBLE SIMILARITIES OR PARALLELS TO REAL LIFE*
~~~~~
If you've graduated in the last five years or plan to graduate in the next five, you may be familiar with the Palau Family.
"It's so weird to think that we have an accomplishment for something as a group," Colton Nieves, a sophomore at Elk Valley High School, remarked. "I mean, it's just us. It's our family. We're chaotic. We're crazy. But it makes sense to us. It may not make sense to anyone, but it does to us."
"We're just a normal family," Cesar Hildago ('21) nodded. "Maybe we play a few more sports than others, but we're a normal family. We're normal people."
The Palau Family, which consists of Nieves, Hildagos, Kellys, Arias, Yanez, and of course, Palaus, is the most decorated in the state when it comes to TFSA (The Fictional Sports Association) at least. And they all hail from one school: Elk Valley.
"Saying you're from Elk Valley should be enough," Ian Kelly, also a sophomore, joked. "I've told people I go to Elk Valley, and their initial response is "How many times have you been to state?" And I'm just kind of like, 'Wow. You don't even know my name.'"
In case you were wondering, for Ian, the answer is five: twice in tennis, twice in band, and now, once in baseball.
"I'm one of the low medalists," Ian joked. "I have two bronzes from tennis and, hopefully, one from baseball soon. Some of my other cousins have more than ten."
"I remember taking the ASVAB test junior year," alumni Xiomara Yanez recalled. "The recruiter took a look at everyone's letterman jackets and said, "Show of hands, who in here has gone to state?" And everyone in the room raised their hands."
The Palaus have left their legacy on the school, as many of the older kids are planning on sending their kids back into the Elk Valley Independent School District. Xiomara, who graduated in 2020, joins Ian, Cesar, and a whopping twenty-two of their cousins, all of who have graduated from Elk Valley in the last five years or will graduate in the next five years.
(I originally had all the names and their accomplishments listed out, but there were too many lol)
The Nieves siblings: Rachel, Chip, Taylor, Corey, Marco, and Colton, have 59 trips on their own, twenty-one of those coming only from Corey. Their first cousins, The Alvarados, have an additional ten trips between the three of them: brothers Oscar and Benny and their cousin Rubi. Ian Kelly and his cousins, The Hildagos (Brandon, Cesar, Eva, Celeste, & Chris) have a combined 26 trips. The Yanez siblings, Xilo and Xiomara, carry 15 trips between the pair. (The Yanez siblings are the first cousins of the parents of the other athletes in this article.) The Arias siblings, Oliver and Mia, have four trips a piece, adding the final eight to a grand total of 141 trips to a TFSA state contest. This averages a little over five and a half trips per kid. Most schools are lucky if their students go once.
"Mia and I are the group's underdogs," Oliver Arias joked. "We're the two oldest in our branch. The next ones coming up are in sixth grade right now. The Nieves family has seven more siblings that aren't even in high school yet, so that fifty-something number will keep increasing. Their dad did a great job raising them; since he passed, Corey and Rachel have kept that installment in the younger ones."
When asked what their motivation was to strive for trip after trip, each of the kids answered the same: Arturo Palau.
"They're Palaus," Duncan Uyeno, the football, baseball, and accounting coach at Elk Valley, stated. "Their grandpa, Arturo Palau- he was a great coach, a great ball player, and an even greater man. I've seen him coach the youth teams as the years have passed. He's readied and touched every athlete he's ever had and prepared them for our high school programs. He loved every aspect of every sport. He wasn't easy on his descendants, and it shows in their skills. Those skills can only be formed by working day in and day out. Because of him, those kids are some of the best athletes in the state, easily. They're great kids. They're well-mannered, smart, top of their classes, and amazing athletes. The saying goes, 'No one is perfect,' but the Palau kids come pretty dang close."
"It was hard being his grandson at times," Benny Alvarado ('21) admitted. "After every game, after every team huddle, win or lose, he'd pull us aside. We weren't allowed to talk to anyone until we talked to him first. Win or lose, he'd rip us apart about every error in the game, whether or not we were the ones to make it. If I could go back and change things, though, I wouldn't have it any other way."
"He made sure we knew that no matter the outcome of the game, we still had room to improve," Corey Nieves ('19) finished. "Benny and I were starters on the team that won state in 2019. We WON state. That's supposed to mean you're the best of the best. I remember he came and hugged us, congratulated us, all that hesh, and I'm sitting here thinking, 'Did we just beat the boss level?' But he had us on his back porch at nine the next morning with our gold medals, his notepad, and his little chalkboard, and he grilled us for a solid twenty minutes."
'His little chalkboard' was a two-foot, sanded-down, wooden shingle Arturo found at a scrap yard. He'd found some chalkboard paint and some sidewalk chalk and spent his evenings doodling out different scenarios of baseball games, challenging his little grasshoppers' abilities to think on the spot of what they'd do if the ball was hit to a specific position, even alternating them being hypothetical fielders and batters.
"He never wanted us to get cocky or arrogant," Xiomara nodded. She and Eva were members of the state-champion softball team in 2019. X was also a member of the 2018 qualifying team. "He made sure we knew we weren't perfect. That perfect wasn't realistic."
"He'd probably be mad that we're doing this interview at all," Ian laughed.
"Corey and Benny used to beg me to talk more," Coach Uyeno recalled. "They used to want me to take as long as possible so they could think of as many errors or scenarios as possible."
"We found out he had cancer in May of 2019," Corey recalled. "We were told he didn't have but a week left. It broke my heart because he always said he just wanted to see the kids he coached graduate. He told us he wanted to see us win state every playoff run. That year, every day could've been our last, both in baseball and with him. We didn't know it then, but Nic, Dylan, Josh, Oscar, Brandon, and I were the last ones he was gonna see graduate."
"He always said he wanted to see at least one of his grandkids win state in something," Brandon said. "He wanted us all to be successful. Especially in baseball."
Arturo Palau, the legend at hand, passed away in February of 2020 to liver cancer. That state championship game in 2019, where he saw Corey and Marco Nieves, Nicolas, Dylan, Isaias, and Joshua Palau, and Brandon and Cesar Hildago presented with gold medals, was the last he'd ever attend.
"I know it was hard on the kids," Uyeno continued. "I had four of them in my class when they got the phone call that morning. It was hard. Three of them were baseball players. I knew from that day it would be difficult for them in the upcoming (baseball) season."
"It was weird to step foot on that field two weeks later," Oliver Arias ('21) said. "I wanted so bad to go home from practice and tell him who all was playing, what our team looked like, how many starters were returning. And I couldn't. He wasn't there."
Arturo passed away on Corey's birthday- the day he was to start practice for his first season of college baseball. Corey received an offer straight out of the state tournament from the Plainstownillo Sod Poodles, a Double-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. He also received multiple offers from local and nationwide colleges. He ultimately chose to go to the University of Plainstownillo, four hours away.
"I wanted to be able to come home often to see these guys play," He said. "I can do a four-hour drive. I don't do planes, so I wouldn't have ever made it out of state."
When asked why he didn't sign with the Sod Poodles, Corey replied that he wanted to 'start from the bottom and work his way up.'
"I got the phone call that morning on the way back to school," Corey nodded. "It was my birthday weekend and the Super Bowl weekend, so I went home. I went back to school (the next day) to go to practice, but it didn't feel right. The team had a scrimmage about two hours after his funeral, but I didn't go to it. And Xio, Benny, and Oliver had prom that night. It was rough."
It was rough, especially for the Nieves brothers. Their father, Jay Nieves, was killed in a freak accident on the family ranch just two days after Arturo's funeral. Corey was the one to find him.
"I know it was hard for him," Marco shared. "It's hard to lose a loved one: point blank period. But to lose the two men who had the most to do with our upbringings in the span of a week was really hard. And for Corey to find Dad... He doesn't talk about it, but I know it's hard. Whether or not he wanted us to know, I know he struggled for a while."
"I was never a big fan of baseball, but after February, I felt more obligated than ever to play. I felt like I owed it to Pa and to Corey. I felt like I had to play to honor Pa. Corey, since I can remember, he just wanted to play baseball for as long as he could. It didn't matter to him at what level."
"When Dad died, Corey kind of had to step up and fill his shoes," Marco continued. "We're a big group of siblings, there's fifteen of us. We have two older brothers and an older sister. They were all already married with kids, so Corey was the only one who could step up. I was still in school, and he didn't have his own family yet."
So, Corey was dubbed the most fit to take over his father's ranch, even though it meant giving up his dream of baseball.
"I felt like I NEEDED to play just because I still had the opportunity to do it," Marco continued.
Less than two weeks after baseball season started, however, it ended. On March 14, 2020, Marco, Benny, and Oliver walked off the field in Cannkien after winning the Annual Panther Baseball Tournament. Two days later, they received news that sports wouldn't resume until April. By the end of the month, Marco Nieves found out his senior year was over.
"Honestly, it was a blur," Marco shared. "Even though I couldn't control the situation, I felt horrible because I wanted to play for them, and now I wasn't going to get the chance. I didn't even think about graduation or any senior antics. In the moment, it was, "I was playing for you, and now I can't."
"I felt bad for my brother," Colton Nieves, a sophomore at Elk Valley, shared. "We had to go to the office at designated times to receive our diplomas. (Marco) for high school and mine to enter high school. Our parents weren't even allowed to go in with us. We just went in, our diplomas were on a table, and we took them. The secretary, who was wearing a mask, took our pictures, and we left. We didn't even get to see Ian get his eighth-grade diploma because we weren't from the 'same household.'"
"That was our graduation," Marco nodded. "No special ceremony, no speeches, no cap and gown or tassels. Nothing."
Xiomara, Benny, and Oliver were juniors that year, Chris a freshman, and Eva a sophomore.
"Pa passing away, it hit (Xiomara) really hard," Benny recalled.
Xiomara, whose mother was her older brother's sole provider, was raised almost primarily by her grandfather. Her brother (Xilo's twin brother Xoki) passed away in 2018, and her mother began working to pay for the medical costs. Xiomara and her brother Xilo were often left to fend for themselves. It was 'Pa' who took care of them and introduced them to the sport.
"We're not a wealthy family," Xiomara explained. "We moved here about fifteen years ago. We used to live in a tiny fishing town in Mexico. There was a hurricane, and we lost mostly everything. That's when we moved (to Elk Valley). I can assure you it wasn't to make a name for ourselves. It was just to find somewhere safe and away from water for a while."
During the summer/quarantine of 2020, Xiomara took it upon herself to graduate early.
"I really lost all motivation for anything," Xiomara shared. "He was my everything. My motivator, my mentor, my father, my rock, best friend. I didn't see a point in trying anything."
According to nearly all of the cousins, as well as some neighbors and other family members, Arturo often considered Xiomara his daughter.
"She was his favorite," Corey laughed. "She'd never admit it or own up to it, but she was his favorite. He wanted nothing more than to see her graduate. He would tell us, "Once graduation comes, I'm done. I'm holding on for graduation."
Unfortunately, Arturo didn't get to see his 'daughter' graduate. Xiomara graduated one week after Marco received his diploma.
"I only needed two credits," Xiomara explained. "I emailed my guidance counselor and requested my transcript. It took some hassling, but I got it. I did the courses online, and a week later, I received an email that I was done. My diploma came in about a month later."
"I really wanted to go back and win it for him," Oliver muttered, returning our minds to baseball. "What better way to honor him than to win it all again for him? He had the best seat in the house for it. But we didn't get to."
Flash forward to Oliver and Benny's senior year; one of the boys almost didn't play baseball.
"Quarantine was rough," Benny admitted. "Anxiety and ADHD are both common in our family, and I think everyone here has both. There's a thing I do called 'out of sight, out of mind.' I know Corey does it, too. It's kind of where if something isn't the main topic, or if I don't see something every day, I don't interact with it, whatever, I won't remember about it. I didn't quite process that (Arturo) was gone until I had a question I really wanted to ask him or something I really wanted to tell him. To me, he was just at his house, watching an old western movie."
"When school started, I wanted him to see me off to my senior year," Benny continued. "And then I remembered, 'Oh, yeah.' Senior year was rough. I had Wes with me, but it was hard without Xiomara. She's my twin. We've always been inseparable. And all of a sudden, she wasn't there."
Benny's father, Jacob, is Xiomara's first cousin. However, she and Benny were born an hour apart at the same hospital. The two (who are a rare phenomenon: fraternal cousins) grew up together, playing sports, attending school, even going on vacations together, and were often mistaken for each other. They share similar features: coily, black hair (though Benny wears his short), hazel eyes, dark skin, and prominent cheekbones. They even have the same noses.
"I had really long hair growing up," Benny laughed. "I don't think that helped any. My dad saw her walk by one day and called my name. That's when I knew I needed a haircut."
"I think people were shocked when we told them we weren't even siblings," Xiomara added. "I've always wanted to tell people we don't know each other, but that would be mean."
"Baseball season was especially hard," Oliver recalled. "It was the last first scrimmage, the last first practice, all the lasts. They were hard. And Pa wasn't here to see them."
"(Benny) called me one night," Xiomara shared. "I was with Corey. We were hanging out with some friends, and my phone rang, and it was Benny. I could tell he wasn't okay, but I didn't know why. I figured he just needed to talk. We have that relationship, y'know? Where we can just talk. But this was different."
Xiomara described the feeling as something 'only they could share or understand.'
"I answered the phone, and he was crying," Xiomara continued. "He was saying he didn't want to play baseball anymore. He was so upset about letting Pa down. He kept saying, 'I want to do it for him, but I can't. I owe this to him, but I can't do it.'"
"I came really close to quitting," Benny remembered. "And she told me, 'Just give it one game. Give it one game to see how you feel. Because you're only practicing right now.'"
Benny gave it three games, all of which Xiomara attended. What Xiomara didn't know was that during practices, Benny was struggling to give it his all.
"After the third game, it was a pretty late start," Xiomara said, "he texted me from the bus. He told me that he was struggling in practices and that he'd lost his starting spot."
"He was super discouraged after that," Oliver recalled. "He would run the bases as a DH because that's all the coaches let him play as. I noticed the lack of effort from him in practice and he ended up losing his spot to a freshman."
"Actually, it was Colton," Benny laughed. "The only reason I didn't quit right then and there was because it was to you."
"If it helps any, I felt bad," Colton tried. "But I was stoked, too, because I felt like I was catching up to Corey."
Corey was a four-year varsity starter in the school's baseball program.
"Xiomara told me, 'Give it two more games. Maybe something will lighten up," Benny remembered. "She said, 'it's your senior year. I don't want you to regret anything.' She told me she didn't want me to regret quitting like she did."
"Probably one of my biggest regrets is quitting One Act Play and band to graduate early," Xiomara said. "Band especially. When you're in band, especially at Elk Valley, there is no such thing as a small part. My lack of presence was immediately noticed. No one else was there to play the quads, so for a year, they didn't have anyone to play the quads. They couldn't play three songs that had drum breaks because of me. And the cadences were pretty bad, too, because they were incomplete. I didn't want him to feel the same regret I did."
After three weeks, Benny still found no motivation. On yet another late-night bus ride home, he messaged Xiomara again.
"She told me it was my choice," Benny remembered. "I felt like I had no hard work left in me, and what little motivation I found to give the hard work wasn't enough. I felt like I was moving nowhere fast, and I was tired of it. I'm used to rushes, and I hadn't felt one in almost a year. I didn't think anything was going to change with me. And I knew I was the problem. I felt like I wasn't grieving right because there was another guy on the team who had lost his aunt. She was his rock, his best friend, his Pa. She was his Tia. And he was doing everything for Tia. I felt like a failure because I wasn't doing it For Pa."
Corey happened to be with Xiomara that night.
"He was the one driving," Xiomara said. "He was kind of half-authoring some of my texts, so he gets credit too. Benny told us it was his last straw because he felt like it was all for nothing because he didn't have enough to give. He told Benny to wait for us at the school, that we would pick him up with Colton."
"When they picked us up, Corey and Benny didn't get in the truck right away," Colton remembered. "There wasn't anyone else in the parking lot except for us. Corey took Benny behind the truck, middle of the empty parking lot, and took him to the back of the truck to where Xiomara and I couldn't see him."
"He looked at me and said, 'This is grief," Benny shared. "This is exactly what I went through with my dad, and it's not going to stop. You can be miserable your entire life because Pa died and because things aren't the same without him, or you can celebrate everything he used to love. The choice is yours. You can quit baseball like I did because it's too hard without him, or you can continue with this sport for the next four years just because he instilled it in you. You think your hard work is all for nothing or that it's not enough, but I can promise you, it's enough until you quit. That's when all your hard work, not just from this year but from all these years you've spent practicing and playing and busting your butt, that's when it doesn't count anymore. When you quit, your hard work stops paying off. It's when it is for nothing. Once you quit, that's the only time there is a 100% chance there will be no change.' It's been well over a year since he told me that, and I can still hear it clear as day."
"We're a family," Corey smiled. "It makes me feel better knowing that I've done something to help you guys."
The 2021 Elks baseball team finished their season just one run shy of advancing to the state championship, losing to the eventual state champs, the Eightinville Lions.
“I was upset,” Oliver admitted. “I was frustrated and upset and scared. That game was the absolute last straw before adulthood. And I was mad I didn’t get to go back to the state tournament for Pa.”
“I was upset that we lost to Eightinville,” Benny agreed. “Pa always told us not to lose our heads playing them. Not to be too confident. And that’s what happened. We were ahead, someone bobbled a ball and overthrew, and they won.”
“This is payback for the last eight years,” senior Isaias Palau stated. “We shut them out last week. The future is you guys.”
“The next eight years, the headlines aren’t going to say, ‘Lions Knockout the Bucks,’ or whatever the cruddy joke is. It’s gonna be ‘Bucks On Top Again.’”
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