Hoops coach had deep S.F. ties
Sweeney was star player turned coach at St. Michael’s College, UNM; school named for him
David Sweeney will remember his dad for a lot of things, but one of the memories that will survive the test of eternity will be the way he refused to take the easy way out.
Once the head basketball coach at the University of New Mexico, Bob Sweeney had an opportunity to bring in one of the best players in the country so long as he bent a few rules and looked the other way on a few questionable demands.
“My dad was a lot of things, but he was always an ethical, honest man,” David Sweeney said this week.
Robert “Bob” Sweeney died at his home in Albuquerque on Thursday morning. He was 93.
Born and raised in Santa Fe, Sweeney also served as the men’s basketball coach at St. Michael’s College (later the College of Santa Fe) and as the athletic director at CSF. In between he spent 18 years on the city’s school board, serving 12 years as its president.
He was also a longtime educator and high school coach. Sweeney Elementary is named after him while the former Sweeney Convention Center, since rechristened as the Santa Fe Convention Center, was named after his late father, Raymond Patrick Sweeney.
Bob Sweeney will always be regarded as one of the great sports personalities the city has ever known. He was a stellar athlete at Santa Fe High, recruited to play football at Notre Dame after graduating in 1947 and playing college basketball at Colorado.
He returned to his hometown and was named the basketball coach at St. Michael’s College, then took over UNM in at 31 prior to the 1958-59 season.
It wasn’t easy; his first season saw the Lobos finish 3-19 and at no point did he win more than six games in his four seasons as head coach. It was part of a brutal eight-year run in which UNM never had more than seven wins in a season.
His departure in 1962 led him back to Santa Fe and prompted UNM to hire Bob King, who quickly ushered in the modern era of Lobos basketball that led to The Pit’s construction in 1966.
“I think my dad would have been a whole lot happier if he’d been more successful at UNM, but he left there knowing he did things the right way with what he had,” David Sweeney said. “Just for the sake of winning a few extra ball games, he wasn’t going to make himself and his family look the other way, or anyone look bad.”
Sweeney’s run at St. Michael’s helped the school through the identity change to CSF. His tenure as the athletic director saw him hire Lenny Roybal as the basketball coach, and it was Roybal’s 1982-83 Knights team that had an incredible run to the NAIA quarterfinals with David Sweeney as one Roybal’s assistant coaches.
“My dad was so proud of that team, so proud of the school,” David Sweeney said.
Four years later, CSF broke the city’s heart by eliminating its athletic programs. Sweeney eventually retired, spending the last couple of decades spent fishing and playing golf. Until a recent stroke, David Sweeney said, Bob Sweeney was a sharp-minded and active person who took pride in knowing he impacted tens of thousands of lives as a coach, teacher and administrator.
In between were years speckled with things like a barnstorming semipro basketball and baseball group from Santa Fe, as well as the time he was ordained as a Christian Brother in an honorary ceremony that paid homage to his years of service to CSF and, previously, St. Michael’s College.
“That’s one of the things he was proudest of, you know?” David Sweeney said. “As sad as it was for him to see the college dump sports, that was one of those things that really put a smile on his face. He loved that.”
Sweeney is survived by four children and his wife and, as David Sweeney said, “More people than we can possibly count, people he treated like family who now live all over the country.”