Small-town football is fighting to survive

Most of you probably didn’t notice, but the 6-Man football playoffs began Friday night. For the record, first-round winners were Springer/ Maxwell and Carrizozo.

In the picturesque mountains of western New Mexico, you can bet the people of Reserve noticed.

It was barely a year ago that Reserve High’s Mountaineers met Animas in the 6-Man state final.

And now, nearly 12 months later, Reserve isn’t a part of the 6-Man playoffs. Why? Because the school was forced to drop football last summer.

“It’s definitely been a hole,” said Reserve athletic director Melissa Lengstorf, who was born and raised in Reserve. “And it’s definitely been missed.”

This is a program that once was revered as one of New Mexico’s small-school 11-Man titans. But today’s Reserve looks nothing like the Reserve of 30-40 years ago.

And if you want to pinpoint ground zero in this journey, people like Lengstorf will tell you that you should acquaint yourself with the Mexican spotted owl.

Without going into the full, encyclopedic version, in essence what happened was the country’s Fish and Wildlife Service had to designate over 2 million of acres of lush New Mexico property, including the mountains where Reserve is nestled about 200 miles southwest of Albuquerque, as a critical habitat for the preservation of the spotted owl on federal land.

This development put a major dent in the logging industry in the area, and consequently, the economy as a whole. No surprise, then, that Reserve’s populace began slowly bleeding families.

“There used to be logging trucks going through town all the time,” said Tammy Richards, a former AD at Reserve and now an assistant director of sports for the New Mexico Activities Association.

The high school’s football team felt the pinch as much as any entity over the years, as the Mountaineers first dropped to 8-Man, then eventually to 6-Man.

And now, no program at all.

Of the 13 players who competed in last year’s state final against Animas — another town and high school where football used to be king but which suffered an economic hardship, causing it to eventually drop to 6-Man — only five were due to return to play for the Mountaineers this fall.

Which, of course, wasn’t enough. So last summer, Reserve had to cancel the 2018 season. Three of those returning five players moved to another school, Lengstorf said. Another dropped out of school.

Which leaves just one Reserve boy at the school who played in the championship game last season. (Lengstorf said there are only 72 total students in grades 7-12).

Reserve’s story — and that of Animas, a school that once appeared on the cover of Life magazine because of its amazing football team — is not unique, generally speaking.

Other schools in New Mexico are struggling to maintain the numbers, or the interest, necessary to sustain this sport.

Questa (last week) and Laguna-Acoma (this past weekend) both began the season with teams but fell short of the finish line, creating some forfeits for opponents at the end of the season. In Laguna’s case, it was supposed to play No. 1-ranked Hope Christian this coming week. That is no longer happening, which is not the way the Huskies wanted to reach a 10-0 record, I would imagine.

Jemez Valley, Dulce and To’hajiilee all bailed before the first game, although Dulce said it was hoping to add a couple of 8-Man games before the end of the season.

As for Reserve, where it has only two varsity sports now — basketball and track and field — all is not lost yet. Lengstorf said the school hopes to bring varsity football back in 2019. The junior high team had four 6-Man games this fall.

“You can walk down the hallways and say, ‘OK, there will be enough boys for football,’” Richards said.

Lengstorf is doing a head count already and plotting a schedule for next year. It’s far too early to say whether Reserve will be able to come back next fall.

“(But) if we go two years without it,” Lengstorf said, “we will struggle to get it back. We’re doing everything in our power to recruit and encourage these kids, to revamp the program.”

Could Reserve possibly enter into a co-op agreement with someone? That’s a long shot simply because of the geographic challenges. Quemado is a hike, almost 55 miles. Richards hinted that maybe Cliff might want to start a football program. But Cliff is nearly 70 miles from Reserve.

The challenges are immense. But hope remains.

“We’re not ready to douse the flame,” Lengstorf said.