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Gridiron Heroes: La Joya Plays Jalisco For Fans

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LA JOYA – After every Coyote touchdown, the La Joya High School band plays Jalisco.

The fight song comes from the tune that was written for the 1941 Mexican movie, “Ay Jalisco, No Te Rajes.”

“What I tell the kids is we’re going to play at ranchera 144,” said La Joya band director Marco Gandaria. “That’s our tempo. It’s a nice pushing tempo. It’s got some nice melodies, some nice trombone sounds, and nice trumpet sounds.”

The Coyote band plays the fight song to pump up their fans and the football team.

“All of us like to play that because we all have fun with it,” said tuba player Michael Gonzalez. “We’ve been playing it since we were in middle school. We know it. We love it.”

“When we play the fight song, it has a lot of pride,” said flute player Giovanna Galvan. “We’re La Joya High School and we march with a lot of pride.”

Jalisco wasn’t always La Joya’s fight song. Back in the 1960’s, the school’s band director Alejandro Saenz came up with a marching band arrangement of the Mexican song. The football team liked it.

“The coach Mac Garza at the time enjoyed that song and felt it brought more energy to the crowd than their fight song at the time,” said Gandaria. “So they got together and this became the fight song.”

Since then, La Joya’s band has happily blasted the song at every football game. It’s a song that brings Coyote fans of all ages together.

“I would go to a football game and I would hear the band play,” said trumpet player Jorge Saenz. “I would hear the band play Jalisco and it was the best thing in the world because it just sounded so cool.”

“You think of La Joya, you think of Jalisco,” said Gandaria. “You think of Jalisco, you think of La Joya.”

The Coyote band has some musical chops. At this year’s Pigskin Jubilee, the band earned a division 1 rating.

“You learn a lot of life lessons like self-discipline and time management,” said drum major Desiree Ramos. “It’s been just a blessing to be part of this band.”

At the end of Jalisco, the band spells out Coyotes while the drum line plays. It’s another way the band shows their school spirit. Through music, they’re Gridiron Heroes.

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