THE MOLINA WAY

McCAMEY In those mornings when Ronnie Molina stepped foot on campus at Monahans High, he was not the Ronnie Molina with an alcoholic dad or the Ronnie Molina from a poor home or the Ronnie Molina who did not even know what a college was until he was in seventh grade. 

He was Ronnie Molina, the starting receiver and cornerback on the football team, the catcher on the baseball team.

He was Ronnie Molina, the straight-A student.

He was Ronnie Molina, bound for Sul Ross State on a full academic scholarship.

He loved these mornings. Like the rising sun, the Molina name could break the plains with the delivery of the newspaper sports page, shoot up past the horizon as a teacher gave him his graded test, glow on his teammates in a practice’s first drill, and come full circle with a home run or a touchdown.

By the time Molina graduated in 1988, every day became an opportunity. Life’s potential, limitless.

“When you’re in a small town and your family name is infamous for other things,” Molina said, “you want to change it. Sports and making all As was a way to be known for something other than being an alcoholic’s son or coming from a poor family.”
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He looked forward to these days. Because each one involved a discussion with a coach.

Like Arcadio Rivera, Molina’s baseball coach and position coach in football.

“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here,” Molina said. “He has told me since the first time I met him when I was 13 that I was gonna be somebody. I try to tell these kids all the time. I was like you, I was that turd. Until a coach told me.

“It was the first time I had ever seen a Hispanic in power. This was 1983.”

Molina said his father was a “great guy,” but the bottle won the battle often times.

“Like I tell my kids, every bad thing that’s ever happened to me and my family was due to alcohol,” Molina said. “I try to stay away from it and push them away from it.”

Molina’s mother was a hairdresser, the breadwinner. To this day, she is the person he admires the most. She did many good things. Held the family together, encouraged him, let him pursue sports.

Trusted his coaches to raise him away from home.

It was Rivera who gave him focus.

“I was a class clown, thought I was George Lopez before there was a George Lopez,” Molina said. “(Rivera) said, ‘You don’t have to do that to get attention.’ You can do it athletically. Most of all, he said, ‘Compete in the classroom like you do out here.’ I graduated fifth in my class. I went from nothing to one of the top students at Monahans.”

Rivera thought Molina had a future not just because of his play, but because of how he played.

Harness that energy, Rivera would tell him, and you have a chance.

“He was my player, a fiery one at that,” Rivera said. “I tried to tell him to tone it down. He would frame a pitch and if he thought it was a strike and the umpire called ball, he would bounce it off home plate.”

In the end, Molina pulled back just enough.

He was out to prove to Rivera and every coach and teacher who put confidence and trust in him that he could be successful.

Along with the scholarship to Sul Ross State, Molina was recruited to play football and baseball. He played for one year, then left school to go into private business. But he found the 9-to-5 work boring. Being a coach, like those who had mentored him, did not seem like work.

Five years later, he enrolled at Angelo State, graduated cum laude in two-and-half years. He is the first in his family to graduate from college; cousins followed, including one who became a university mathematics professor.

Molina began his coaching career relatively late, at 28 years old.

He loved coaching any sport, any age, Little League or pee-wee football. It did not matter.

Molina’s first football job was an offensive line coach at Eldorado. Then receivers coach at Ballinger, offensive line at Kermit, offensive line at San Angelo Central and running backs at Permian beginning in the 2006 season.

He picked up new things at every stop, remembered how his former coaches inspired him and tried to pass it on.

Last season, Molina worked with Permian’s Sherard Ray as the running back rushed for 2,224 yards, the second-highest single-season total in Panthers’ history.

This offseason, Molina threw his name into the hat for several head coach openings.

He hoped for a program with tradition, near the Permian Basin, and willing to trust that a coach with no coordinating experience could carry the load.

On March 3, the day Molina was hired at McCamey, he said it was “the proudest moment of my coaching career so far.”

Molina called Rivera, like he had for every new job, and got to work quickly.

He had to embrace a new tradition. The Badgers have gone to the playoffs in nine consecutive seasons and reached the Class 1A Division I state championship game in 2006.

When he was hired, Molina talked about doing things the Permian Way.
Attention to detail. Accountability. Working toward greatness.

But the first-year head coach is developing the Molina Way, shaped by his upbringing, his former coaches and the tendency to treat a player not just as a wide receiver, but as a person.

“Me saying, ‘I love ya’ in practice might be the first time they’ve heard that in weeks, in months,” Molina said. “We had a parent meeting last night and I told them that as coaches you spend a lot of your time trying to get that kid that doesn’t do right to do right. We neglect the good kids, to tell them we care about them. I make it a point, it’s one of my mission statements: I’m gonna take care of the good kids.”

In the mornings when Molina walks into his office at the Badgers’ fieldhouse, checks the time on his orange watch, looks at the team’s schedule — weightlifting, coaches meetings, practice — and plans his day, he is Ronnie Molina, head coach.

“He’s tough,” senior quarterback Ethan Richardson said. “He’s very demanding. Last year, a bunch of us were lazy and didn’t want to work for anything. This year, he’s pushing us to do more than we’re capable of doing.”

Ronnie is still developing the Molina Way, sticking to what works, ditching what does not and admitting he made a mistake.

At the conclusion of the team’s first workout on the second day of summer two-a-days, Molina got the players together like he always does before letting them off the field.

He apologized.
He had been riding them pretty hard for little mistakes, perhaps being too nitpicky.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Molina told them. “But I’ll always admit when I’m wrong — I love you.”

Maybe in this bunch there is a player who does not feel like he is expected to do anything special in his life.

Maybe he is already seeing the different paths his life could take, the same paths Molina has seen, including the one that could have crushed his dreams before he even realized he could reach them.

“But Coach Rivera and those guys showed me another way,” Molina said. “And that other way has allowed me to be a great husband and a great father and that allows me to be a good coach today.

“I don’t know if I’m a great coach. I do know this: I care about my kids and my coaches and try to take care of them. I think if you do that, they’ll take care of me on the field whether it’s wins or losses.”

The Molina Way begins here.