Familiar face to head Elkettes

Rodriguez has long history with Pojoaque program

Joe Rodriguez was a part of the Pojoaque Valley volleyball program’s glory days.

Now, it’s his job to restore it to those lofty heights.

Rodriguez was hired earlier this month to take over as head coach of the program. He succeeds Joe Montoya, who was not rehired when the Pojoaque Valley Schools district opened the position for applications. Montoya was among four candidates to interview for the position.

Pojoaque went 10-11 in 2017 and missed out on the Class 4A State Tournament for the first time since 2003. In that period, the Elkettes won six Class 3A titles and were runners-up once.

Pojoaque will compete in Class 4A in August, in a district that includes Española Valley, Los Alamos, Moriarty and Taos.

While this is Rodriguez’s first head coaching job, he has extensive history with the program. He has been the Pojoaque Middle School head coach for several years and was an assistant under Joey Trujillo and Eric Zamora when those two guided the Elkettes to the last two of their run of five straight state titles from 2009-13. Rodriguez also coached club teams and is the co-director of the Santa Fe Storm volleyball club.

Rodriguez said his coaching tutelage under Trujillo, Zamora and Brian Ainsworth, considered the architect of Pojoaque’s dominant run, helped prepare him to take over the program.

“I’ve taken bits and pieces from each coach and see what works for you,” Rodriguez said. “With Brian, I learned

structure and discipline. With Joey, I saw how he handled that group, which was talented and had a lot of personalities. Zamora, he had to deal with the same thing and the expectations of the program and of following Brian and Joey.”

While Pojoaque has not reached the championship match since winning it all in 2013, Rodriguez said the expectations remain high. He added that the area is rich in talented volleyball players, pointing to the success Española Valley and Los Alamos have had over the past decade.

The first step, Rodriguez said, is to get the players to commit to working hard during the summer and the preseason. He feels he can connect with them because he coached many of them in middle school.

“This group can accept the challenge,” Rodriguez said. “We to have a lot of work ahead of us — like being down to practicing every day, five days a week. That is the mental and physical challenge before them. It’s going to be tough in the beginning because we haven’t gotten all the girls in the gym.”

To that end, he said the program will have open gym between 6 and 8 p.m. from July 2 through the start of practice Aug. 13.