Looking Through Our History: Sports Back in 1947

Updated: January 7, 2023

The La Feria Newspaper is celebrating its 100th year anniversary and to commemorate the occasion we are digging deep into our archives each week to bring you images and stories from our paper’s colorful past history.

This piece below is transcribed from our
January 2, 1947 edition.

16th Annual Basketball Tournament Starts Wednesday Night

La Feria Draws Rio Grande City as First Entry; 28 Teams Entered

All is in readiness for the opening whistle in the 16th annual playing of the La Feria Lettermen’s club basketball tournament. Rather there wil be three opening whistles, as there are so many entries that three gymnasiums will b used for the opening round of play next Wednesday night.

At Harlingen, La Feria will tee off against Rio Grande City at 7:00 p.m. The first game at Harlingen will be at 6:00 with Brownsville playing Pharr. Other games there are: Mission vs San Benito at 8:00 and Harlingen vs McAllen at 9:00.

Games at Mercedes will see Donna playing Weslaco at 7:00 , Edinburg vs Lyford at eight and Mercedes vs Lyford at eight and Mercedes vs Raymondville at 9:00.

The first game at San Benito will be at 6:30 and will see Stuart Place playing Port Isabel. Other games are Wilson Tract vs Los Fresnos at 7:30, Rio Hondo vs El Jardin at 8:30, and Santa Rosa vs San Perlita at 9:30. Play continues Thursday afternoon at Harlingen and San Benio with the following schedule:

Harlingen Class A
3:30 p.m. Loser Har-Mercedes vs Los Mercedes-Raymondville.
4:30 p.m. Loser Pharr-Brownsville vs Loser San Benito-Mission.
5:30 p.m. Loser Don-Weslaco vs Loser Lyford-Edinburg.
6:30 p.m. Winner San B.-Miss.vs Winner La Feria-Rio G.
7:30 p.m. Winner Mer-Ray. vs Winner Lyford-Edinburg.
8:30 p. m. Winner Har-McAllen vs Winner Donna-Weslaco.
9:30 p. m. Winner Browns-Pharr vs Robstown.
San Benito Class B
3:00 p. m. Mirando City vs La Joya.
5:00 p. m. Sun Deen (Corpus) vs Winner Port Isabel-Stuart P.
6:00 p. m. Loser Santa R.-San P. vs Loser Mirando City-La Joya.
7:00 p. m. Win Rio Hondo-El J. vs Premont.
8:00 p. m. Win Santa R-San P. vs Flour Bluff (Corpus).
9:00 p. m. Win Wilson T.-Los F. vs Win Mirando C.-La Joya.
Full schedules are also lined up for Friday and Saturday. All
games will be played at Harlingen Saturday, with play starting at 8:30 a. M.
The finals will be played Monday at Harlingen.
Officials for the tourney are among the best in the Valley and include: Coleman, Schmalzreid, Counts, Smith Trav Wallace, Stevens, Chester, Lewis, W. B. Liles, and Curtis Shiflett.
Double Elimination Tourney
The tournament is a double elimination, and that means that the brackets for the last day or two of play cannot be determined until the day before. The brackets will be posted at the playing places. Loser bracket teams will probably have to play twice on Friday and three times on Saturday if they go through.
In addition to the trophies for the winners of first three places in the Class A and B, sportsmanship trophies will be awarded in each class. These trophies will be awarded on the judgment of the officials.
W.E. Hammett will be in charge of the tourney at San Benito and C.E. Vail at Harlingen.
Admission to the tourney will be 25c and 50c including tax.