Eldorado’s Sanchez in Hall of Honor
NMAA awaits decision on its new tri-op bylaw
The New Mexico High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor grew last week by three.
Eldorado boys basketball coach/athletic director Roy Sanchez, longtime Texico basketball coach Richard Luscombe and new Cleveland High AD Matt Martinez joined the club during the NMHSCA’s annual conference last week.
Sanchez, a 1982 Los Alamos graduate, has proven himself to be one of New Mexico’s great basketball coaches of the last quarter century.
The burnt orange has won three state titles with Sanchez: 2004, 2005 and 2012. He just passed his 25th anniversary with Eldorado, and next season should reach the 400-win plateau.
The University of New Mexico graduate became Eldorado’s AD 2½ years ago.
Luscombe began coaching at Texico in 1989. He has been a basketball coach for 35 years.
At Texico, he has won almost 650 games coaching the Wolverine boys and girls. That includes seven state championships — three with the boys and four with the girls.
He also coached Texico’s baseball team to a blue trophy in 2005, the first title for the school in that sport.
Martinez retired from Pojoaque Valley last year, but he resurfaced last month as the Storm’s new AD.
The 1976 Mora graduate and 1981 UNM graduate started coaching girls
basketball at West Mesa in the early 1980s. He later went on to a productive career coaching girls basketball in Pojoaque, including an undefeated state championship season in 1998.
He is a former NMHSCA board member and a past president (2006 and 2011). THREE IS BETTER
THAN TWO: The New Mexico Activities Association last month decided in a special board of directors meeting that it would adjust one of its bylaws in order that schools — rural schools in particular — could create a tri-op arrangement.
Now this decision awaits a confirmation vote (or rejection) from the member schools.
If it passes, bylaw 7.6.26 would relate only to Class 1A and 2A schools. This board meeting in late July was taken largely to accommodate San Jon High School on the eastern plains of New Mexico.
San Jon representatives at the board’s June meeting pleaded with board members to help them overcome a lack of athletes, particularly in volleyball and basketball. It is believed that San Jon wants to join forces with Grady and House in those two sports.
San Jon already has a co-op agreement with Grady in football (6-Man) and baseball. In football, other existing coops include Escalante/ Coronado (2A), Springer/ Maxwell (6-Man), Roy/ Mosquero (6-Man) and Fort Sumner/House (2A).
In boys basketball, Evangel Christian and the still relatively new Oak Grove Classical Academy in Albuquerque will pair for the upcoming season. Mosquero and Roy also
have co-ops in boys and girls hoops, plus volleyball. Desert Academy and Santa Fe Waldorf co-op in girls basketball.
NMAA assistant director Dusty Young said the Roy/Mosquero co-op might be expanded in the future to include a third school, with Wagon Mound, Springer or Maxwell perhaps part of this equation.
STRIPES: The Albuquerque Officials Association continues to seek out men and women who’d like to join their ranks.
No experience is needed, and training will be provided by the AOA. For military veterans, “Battlefields2Ballfields” will pay the first three years’ worth of fees, plus take care of uniforms and equipment.
For more information, contact Ken Murphy at 385-4367