Corpus Christi High Schools have a long history of powerhouse baseball teams that have brought state championships to the city. King, Moody, Calallen, and Carroll have won state titles and established Corpus Christi as a great baseball town. But before any of those teams won a state crown, it was the 1965 Green Hornets of Solomon Coles High School that gave the city its first state championship.
Coles was in its last two years as a segregated high school, playing its baseball in the Prairie View Interscholastic League. Under third-year head baseball coach, John Clay, the Hornets swept the championship series over Gilmer’s Valley View High School in June of 1965.
Valley View had only lost one game in its 31-game season and was heavily favored to win the championship. However, Coles won the first game of the best-of-three series, 9-2. In the final game, Coles ace pitcher Gates Hardeman had 12 strikeouts and Clarence Jefferson had a 3 run homer to seal the 4-1 win.
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Although commended by the City Council for winning the state 3-A title, the team received very little recognition by the media. That all changed in 2015.
In February of 2015, surviving team members took part in a tree-planting ceremony in their honor on the grounds of Solomon Coles. Then, on June 4, 2015, exactly fifty years to the day after the state championship win, the surviving team members were honored in a special ceremony at Whataburger Field.
The Corpus Christi Mayor, CCISD coaches, and the Corpus Christi Hooks organization gave the team the long-overdue recognition that it had earned so many years ago. Ten members of the team were still living and eight of them were able to attend the ceremony. Each was given a state championship ring and the adulation of several thousand baseball fans on hand for the ceremony. Commemorative posters of the 1965 Hornets team were given to each of the fans at the ballpark, and Coles team members graciously signed their names below their photos.
Head Coach John Clay went on to become an administrator in CCISD. I was a teacher at Mary Carroll in the early 1990s when John served as an Assistant Principal. In the time that I knew him, this humble man never once mentioned his state championship win in 1965. But he was Carroll’s most vocal cheerleader at all of our ballgames. It was easy to see how he was able to inspire his Solomon Coles team to win it all.
Unfortunately, John Clay would pass away in 2009. He would have been extremely proud of the recognition his 1965 team finally received.
Robert Parks is a special contributor to KRIS 6 News. Parks was a history teacher at Carroll High School for 19 years and is now retired. His knowledge of Corpus Christi history makes him a unique expert in the subject.
