Roanhaus steps aside as Clovis head football coach
His 343 wins are most in NM history
Eric Roanhaus helped transform Clovis football into a monster on New Mexico’s eastern plains.
But on Wednesday, the state’s all-time winningest high school coach, a titan among his peers, said goodbye to the Wildcats.
After 343 victories and 10 state championships in Clovis, Roanhaus submitted a resignation letter to Clovis Municipal Schools on Wednesday morning. It was not a retirement letter. “I don’t know if it’s the right time or wrong time,” Roanhaus, 69, said in a phone interview with the Journal, “but I’m just gonna lay out a year and examine my options after that. I think retirement is for old people, and I’m not old yet.”
At the very least, Wednesday marks the end of a spectacular era inside Leon Williams Stadium, the famous venue where Roanhaus stalked the sidelines for the last 39 seasons as Clovis’ head coach.
The 2015 New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame inductee compiled a record of 343-141-5 and is one
of only three men, along with Bill Gentry and the late Jim Bradley, to have compiled at least 300 career victories in New Mexico. Roanhaus is the only one of the three to win all of his at one school.
And 10 of those 343 wins were in championship games — including one of the most remarkable stretches any school has ever enjoyed in this state, when Clovis won five straight big-school titles from 1981-85.
“You look back, and it seems like a lot bigger accomplishment now than it seemed like then,” said Roanhaus, who will turn 70 in March. “Our kids at that time were probably as good as athletes as there were anywhere in the state.”
The last of his 10 championships occurred in 2001, and astonishingly, he closes at Clovis having led the Wildcats to 62 playoff victories. His final game with Clovis was a state quarterfinal loss last month at Las Cruces, ending an 8-4 season.
Clovis reached the state final nine other times and lost, meaning the Wildcats participated in the last game of the season about half the time in Roanhaus’ career.
“You had to be at your best every time you played him,” said Sandia coach — and former Manzano coach —Kevin Barker, who tangled with Roanhaus many times in two decades with the Monarchs and Matadors. “I’m sad that he resigned. He is Clovis.”
Roanhaus was promoted in 1978, a year after Dunny Goode led the Wildcats to a championship before leaving for Eastern New Mexico. Roanhaus won state in his first season, beating Eldorado.
All totaled, Roanhaus spent 44 football seasons at Clovis High School.
Roanhaus also taught for several decades at Clovis but retired as a teacher a few years ago.
Roanhaus is the third bigname coach to step down this calendar year, following Artesia’s Cooper Henderson and Las Cruces’ Jim Miller.
“It’s a big loss for high school football,” Barker said of Roanhaus.
It was never hard to spot Roanhaus at a Clovis game, what with him constantly pacing the sidelines while wearing his headset. But with his self-deprecating manner and droll sense of humor, Roanhaus also separated himself as one of New Mexico’s memorably colorful characters.
“He’s famous for the one-liners,” said Henderson. “He can tell stories better than anybody I know.”
But, Henderson quickly added, Roanhaus’ reputation as a great coach was well deserved, and he said his longtime rival was probably the best-prepared coach he ever faced.
“He’s a great student of the game,” Henderson said. “Football in New Mexico is a better game for the number of years he put into it.”
Along the way, Roanhaus coached both his sons, Chad and John, and for the last couple of seasons, he coached his grandson, Sebastian, Clovis’ quarterback.
“When you start out coaching, you need a job and you like working with kids,” he said Wednesday. “But the longer you coach, the more it becomes a passion. And I have a tremendous passion for Clovis football.”
While Goode jumped to college straight from Clovis, Roanhaus said he was not fueled by such next-level desires.
“I liked working here with these kids,” he said. “I became a victim of what made us successful. Kids want to grow up and become Clovis Wildcats.”
He’s had a couple of athletes — most notably former New Mexico Lobo Hank Baskett — ascend to the NFL. But as he pointed out with a laugh, he also coached two kids who are now judges.
“After being here 44 years, it is a little bit emotional,” Roanhaus said of his decision. “I’ve been here at the right time and worked for a lot of good people. But I think it was the right time, and it was the right decision.”
Asked what he will do with himself as he faces the first year of his life in nearly half a century without a coaching gig, Roanhaus responded as only he could:
“Maybe they’ll put me out to pasture,” he said jovially. “I know thoroughbreds, they put them out to stud. But at 70, that’s totally out of the question.”