As Sam Sees It<br>

Within the pages of this Winslow Mail two interesting stories appear, though one not necessarily in the sports section. One deals with a former student of mine who played baseball and basketball at Pima College with Erubiel Durazo of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Nathan “Nate” Velez and Durazo became good friends and got reacquainted during the last series of the regular season.

Velez was a top quality athlete himself. There is no telling what he may have accomplished if not for a recurring knee injury. He had that special something that made him the player who wanted to take the last shot with the game on the line in basketball. He liked the pressure of being at the plate with the tying and winning runs on base or having the ball hit at him with the game in the balance. You can’t teach that and most athletes can only hope they have it.

One of my favorite memories was Velez hitting a half-court shot that sent Winslow to the state basketball tournament with a last second victory over Round Valley. If memory serves correctly, he was a sophomore that year. He played the same way for me in junior high even as a seventh grader. (The junior high had only one team then and he was one of the few players to start as a seventh grader.)

The other story will deal with the World War II career of Winslow’s legendary football coach Emil Nasser. Nasser was a flight engineer in one of the most dangerous air operations ever undertaken, the flying of supplies from India to China during that great conflict. Flying the Hump ranks among the great aviation feats of all time and played a vital role in the winning of the war.

Oddly, I first learned of Nasser’s part in this operation from one Sandy Garcia of Ashfork. I was working a vacation relief job there on the railroad in the early sixties. Garcia was the man I was to relieve and trained me for the job. He mentioned that he had served with Nasser in the U. S. Army Air Force in India. Of course, Emil has told me much more about his adventures over the years, including the material used for this article. He has a wealth of pictures from that era as well and some will accompany the story. I hope my readers will enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

The World Series is under way and the contenders are not what I would have expected. The San Francisco Giants got hot at the right time of the season and upset the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals in the play-offs. The Anaheim Angels are making their first appearance in the fall classic after ousting the New York Yankees (the best team money can buy) and the Minnesota Twins (the real Cinderella team of baseball). At least Commissioner Bud Selig was spared having to preside over a World Series with a team he wanted to consign to the trash heap as one of the contenders. (Too bad!)

As one who usually roots for the National League team, I am swapping allegiance and pulling for the Angels. The reason, oddly enough, is that they play the National League style better than the Giants do. The Angels were a pleasant and refreshing surprise.

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