Late coaching legends Shakey Rodriguez, Fred Foyo honored at Herald’s All-County awards
Shakey Rodriguez and Fred Foyo were both coaching icons in South Florida high school sports.
Rodriguez won five state titles as the boys’ basketball coach at Miami High in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then coached the FIU Panthers and Mater Academy before his death last year.
Foyo won a two state championships as the track and field coach at Columbus, in 2018 and 2019, before his sudden death in April.
Those two legends were both posthumous recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Miami Herald’s All-County Awards ceremony Wednesday and their teams were both presented with Leo Suarez/Walter Krietsch Courage Award.
After his father died of a brain aneurysm in the preseason, Eric Rodriguez took over as coach and led Mater Academy to its best season ever with 21 wins, its first trip to the final four and an appearance in the Class 6A championship.
“They got me back,” Rodriguez said in March. “I don’t know how long it would’ve been.”
Foyo was with his team at a district championship meet in April when he suddenly collapsed. He died two days later.
After Foyo’s death, the Explorers won another region title and finished in the top 10 at the state championship.
“Coach died watching us do what we love,” Columbus thrower Sebastien Laraque said in April. “We just want to dedicate the rest of the season to him and win for him.”
Rodriguez’s death at 67 came after one of the most storied basketball runs in the history of Miami, at any level.
His Stingarees teams went to six state-championship games in seven years with five state titles, and then he left for FIU and almost immediately turned around the program. The year before Rodriguez arrived, the Panthers went 11-19. By his second season, Rodriguez turned FIU into a winning program for the first time in four years. In his third year, Rodriguez led the Panthers to a 21-win season — a program record that still stands.
“I walked into Miami High as a troubled youth in 1985 and Shakey took me in,” said Jose Ramos, who played for Rodriguez in high school, then worked as an assistant coach for him at FIU. “He helped so many people, but he never took any credit.”
Rodriguez also coached at Dr. Krop and led the Lightning to a final four in 2010, was a fixture in the AAU coaching scene and helped turned Mater into a local power before his death.
Foyo’s run as one of Miami-Dade County’s premier coaches dated back to 1988, when he took over the Explorers’ track and field program, and started to build it into a powerhouse until his death at 64.
Foyo was born in Canada and adopted by Cuban parents, and fled Fidel Castro’s regime in the 1960s to settle down in Florida. He played football at Columbus and was an all-county guard, and later returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach in both football and track.
In 2009, he finally guided the track and field team to new heights as the runner-up at the state championship. The Explorers were runners-up again in 2010 and 2017, before winning back-to-back state titles in 2018 and 2019. He also remained Columbus’ offensive line coach and helped the Explorers win their first football state title in 2019.
Foyo’s favorite song was Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” and his favorite line was, “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?”
“He told us he hoped he would be remembered when he was gone,” said Fernando Foyo, the legendary coach’s son. “Always being humble we had to remind him that of course he would be. The lyrics were his way of encouraging us to live in a way to be remembered after you’re gone because that’s what life meant to him.”
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 5:22 PM.
