Euology
Vicente Francisco Arroyo Jr.
10-04-1925 to 01-16-2015
Vince: We’d like to thank each one of you who are here to honor the memory of Vicente Francisco Arroyo (Rocky) and support our family.
I am sure everyone here has very special memories of Dad as his love, kindness, coaching, teaching, and compassion were far reaching throughout his long and accomplished life.
Shortly after dad’s passing, a family meeting was held to decide who would be given the honor to deliver his eulogy.
As the oldest, I was given the opportunity and honor along with the youngest of the ten children, Stephany, who happens to be carrying the 59th member of what we call our immediate family.
We are here to honor a great man and his legacy but acknowledge that words are not enough to describe his wonderful, compassionate and loving spirit; nor are words enough to express the impact he has had on each and every one of our lives.
Perhaps the best place to begin is a brief review of who we knew to be simply our dad.
The youngest of 3 brothers, with a 4th to be added later, dad was born into a family that valued togetherness, sports, hard work and “strawberry sodas.”
My grandfather, (the first Vicente Francisco Arroyo) being wise beyond his years, took dad to work with him at the railroad yards in El Paso.
Dad had graduated from El Paso High School at the age of 16 (he double passed a couple of grades); Abuelito wanted to give dad an opportunity to have a career to support his future family.
After a week of hard labor and having watched a fellow railroad worker hurt, dad decided that perhaps a college education was a better avenue for him to follow.
He ended up attending the University of New Mexico in order to pursue a degree in electrical engineering but also lettered and exceled in 3 sports - football, basketball, and baseball.
This began what became a life long love and dedication to UNM and his LOBOS.
After graduating from UNM at the age of twenty with his bachelors of science, Dad began his fascinating and far reaching career which spanned various fields and industries.
He taught math, became an acclaimed basketball coach, worked at Sandia National Labs, refereed and officiated at the high school and college level.
He started numerous companies throughout his life and always sought out new opportunities and ventures to support his family. Throughout all of these endeavors, dad exemplified what he taught to his children: that whatever we did, we should strive to be our personal best.
Sports were always an important part of our growing up here in Albuquerque--on more than one occasion going with my father to games, my babysitter became the high school football or basketball game itself.
He instilled in all of us a love for sports and a love for competition. In fact, dads’ love of competition was historic—whether he was on the basketball court or playing a game of scrabble. He was a true competitor, even until the end.
He engaged those around him in conversations, discussions and sometimes debates, making a conscious effort to make them feel welcome and comfortable.
Many times, along with those conversations came well timed and perfectly placed teasing and bantering. For example, If you said, “I’m going to run to the store”, he would say, “You might want to drive the car.”
It is rare to meet a man who is humble yet powerful, serious and humorous, mild, yet persistent to meet the staggering needs of a continually growing and complex family.
Dad always said that he blessed with his family—and also blessed to have found two wonderful, loving women to love and marry at separate points in his life and to have loved so deeply.
Stephany: I never had the opportunity to meet Alice—dad’s first wife and the mother of their 7 kids. I know that she must have been a wonderful and strong woman—and that she clearly had good taste by picking dad as her husband.
Later in his life and after many joys and sorrows, Dad met our amazing mom, Lee. Their love and devotion to one another was an inspiration—they were true partners—in life, in business, as parents and friends. My dad noted that he was so lucky to have met her and even doubly lucky because with her came to beautiful baby boys.
As my brother Vince has noted, Dad had already lived an incredibly full and impressive life up to that point. He had achieved more than most as an athlete, a professional and family man. He had amassed an incredible number of unbelievable life stories, collected awards and accolades, endured unthinkable losses and touched many lives throughout New Mexico.
He, together with my mom, brought two families—her two boys and his 7 children—together. Then, they thankfully found enough room in their hearts and in their home for me, the tenth Arroyo.
Together, they formed and loved an unconventional but highly impressive and always entertaining family. Our family gatherings are large and loud, full of laughter, love, food and often have sports playing in the background.
We are all so grateful to be a part of this collective experience—and honored that we had dad as our role model and patriarch.
He stressed to all of us the importance of an education and did all that he could to help us excel as students.
He spent countless nights tutoring us at kitchen tables, helping with homework or guiding us through next steps in educational pursuits. I like to think that we have made our dad proud.
Of our siblings, there are 9 bachelor’s degrees; several have master’s degrees and one with a doctorate - each one of us receiving dad’s encouragement and support to achieve pursue our dreams.
He extended his high expectations and love to grandchildren and great grandchildren as well. He encouraged them, did what he could to support them and beamed with pride at their graduations, games and performances.
He shared engineering books with his grandson Rudy—who has followed in his footsteps as an electrical engineer; he picked granddaughters up from school and attended countless sporting events, many times coaching his grandkids from the stands and sidelines.
Although he had lived a life full of trophies, accomplishments and awards--to include most recently his induction into the NM Sports Hall of fame—what made him most proud was his family—his wife, his 10 kids, his 23 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren and 2 great-great grandchildren. We, as he said, are his greatest legacy.
He was and is proud of each and every one of us – and not necessarily for the awards that we hang on walls or the degrees we have accumulated, but for who we are as people, citizens and family members.
He would sometimes say that it is better to be lucky than good, and I think I speak for all ten of us when I say that I truly feel lucky to have the honor of calling him dad.
Thank you again for celebrating his life with us. There are of course thousands of anecdotes that we all could share as he impacted countless lives in his 89 years -- so in the spirit of dad, we challenge each and every one of you to meet someone new here today and share a story about dad in order to perpetuate his memory.
Vince: Our family is truly blessed to have had the opportunity to come together and to have one incredible man as our patriarch.
We are eternally grateful to Lee for the joy she brought to dad, the way she cared for him and for how she loved him until the very end.
American writer Ursula Le Guin says “It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
Dad is now resting, but as easy as that is to say, I never will be ready to say good-bye, rather I will say until we meet again.
I love you dad and I really will miss almost beating you at anything.
