Hector Santiago and Team Metro
Metro was around from the late 80's until mid year of 1996. This team was by far the best team that ever existed in Sport Karate History. The owner and Head Coach of the team was the great Hector Santiago, Sr.
Metro is responsible for changing the sport to where we know it today. His team was the first team to ever have players sign Contracts and the first team to have a list of "Team Events." Hector and Assistant Coach Jeff Goldberg's Coaching strategies are used today by today's coaches. Team Metro was by far the most professional team that ever existed. Metro also offered so many things to his players. He gave his players opportunities to compete and be Champions being that most of the team consisted of players that could not afford to travel on the National Circuit.
When you were on Metro you were part of an elite team and you were treated like an athlete. Every player had at least two new uniforms every year. They would also get the coolest new gear, shirts, jackets, sweats and bags every year. This is just the beginning, the team would eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together. They would send a crew to Mc Donald's and order like 300 cheeseburgers and fries or call Dominos and order 50 Pizza Pie's. The team usually occupied an entire floor of a hotel. Full Sponsorship, Spending Money, Bonuses for winning, this doesn't even exist in Sport Karate anymore. Metro single handily was changing the sport into a real sport. This team"Metro All Stars" so they were all Champions. Hector was also the first coach to start training competitors to be good at Weapons, Forms and Fighting. They had the best Forms, Weapons and Fighter's. They would dominate teams. I remember them having like 5 great teams at all the events. Possibly the best 3 Man team that ever existed was Metro with the Brady's and Mafia. In Forms and Weapons they had Mike Chat, Casey Marks, Jimmy Pham, Carmicheal Simon, Brian Ruth, Bernadette Ambrosia, Mike Bernardo just to name a few. No other team can come close to what Metro accomplished as a team.
Sadly Metro ended in 1996 because Coach Hector Santiago went to Prison. In my opinion he is a great man and a great person. What he did was wrong but good people make mistakes all the time and he is paying big time for his mistake's. Hector Santiago gets out of prison in Mid 2006 and has a great Family to come home to. My brother Manny Reyes Jr., a member of Team Metro and he has kept in touch with Hector for the last 10 years. Manny and Hector write back to each other like once a month. Manny asked Hector to write about himself and his accomplishments so we can put it up on the site. This is what the Great Coach had to say in a Letter from March 26th, 2005:
"I was a Champion on every circuit that was out their since the 60's, In those days Aaron Banks was King of the Martial Arts World"
"I did Full Contact Fighting on the original PKA and ISKA and was #1"
"The tournaments of yesterday were different than today! They were crazier, sweeps, takedowns, don't turn your back a lot of contact, now the rules of today cut down a lot of that stuff."
"I am Grand Master Hector Santiago Judan (10th Dan) of the White Tiger System from White Tiger Fighting Dojo Hall of Championships of NYC. I was a weapons, forms and fighting champion on all the circuits. I have competed in full contact and point. I have trained some of the best martial artist in the US and my school was full of Weapons, Forms and Fighting Champions. I will list some of them: Hector Santiago, Jr., Jennifer Santiago, JC Agostini, Peter AllendeSr., Jr., Joey Rivera, Pete Malino, Barry Gonzalez, Omar Hoskin, Philip Quinones, Jason Wright, Paul Edwards, Akin Williams, Jadi Tension, Diego Lopez, Ronald Brady, the list can go on but you see most of them are all Metro's."
"All tremendous fighting machine's and some excelled at all three."
"I was the coach of the biggest and best team that ever existed in Sport Karate History. I trained all the Metro Personally we were a hall of Fame Team and I became a Hall of Fame Coach because of the Metro All Stars International Karate Team. All the players on my team were Hall of Famers including myself! Our Junior team was the best junior team pound for pound that ever existed. We had the first ever senior competition team, my team could compete and excel at all levels of competition from juniors, to women, to men to seniors."
"I could go on with my accomplishments but they mean nothing NOW because of my conviction! To be in denial would mean I am lying to myself."
"I could go on with my accomplishments but they mean nothing NOW because of my conviction! To be in denial would mean I am lying to myself."
"The rest Manny you know because you were part of us!" "Tell your story as you seen me and as a Metro and maybe people can relate to your story better than mine's!"
"Metro II the new beginning will start when I get home. Our name will be the Metro All Stars II World Championship Martial Arts Competition Team!!!"
I Hope you will be there!
Love,
Coach Hector Santiago
Sherman Oaks National Karate Team
The Sherman Oaks Raiders were around from the mid 80's all the way until the late 90's. This team was the best west coast team that ever exsisted and in my opinion the best NBL team ever. The team was coached and owned by the great Bernie "Pops" Krasno. The team was one of the most feared and controversial teams, they were the "Bad Boys" of sport karate of their time. They had many famous incidents like a riot with Naska's Team JPM at the 1998 Compete Nationals. The most famous incident of all included a fist fight between Pops Kranoo and JPM's Gabe Reynaga in a local tournament. The incident was taped and distributed all over the country. Well to end a long story short the fight ended up suspending Bernie from Naska for a few events. As a team they were very constroversial but it does not take away from what they accomplished as a team. Over the years this team won several NBL individual and team titles in both Forms and Weapons with great west coast fighter's like Alvin Prouder, Barry Gordon, Dexter Brooks, Leo Creer and Ray Wizard. In forms and weapons they had Butch "T" and Michelle "Mouse" Krasno. It was a great west coast team but they did had a few fighters from outside the west coast like Jerry Fontanez, Manny Reyes Jr. and for a short time myself. As a team they won multiple NBL team fighting title's, but there biggest accomplishment as a team in my opinion is winning Ed Parkers Long Beach Internationals 16 out of 17 times. In one of those years, in 1985 they beat the great Budweiser team at the Long Beach Internationals. The team was around for over 15 years and made there mark on the sport as a true Dynasty.
An Interview with the Great Pop's Krasno will be up soon, so stay tuned!
Team United Professionals
will be up in a day or two
Stingo Garcia, ??, Fast Feet Fontanez, ???, Lori Lantrip, Manny Reyes Jr.
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