Rodriguez seek his first state crown
Well-respected head coach installed a new offensive scheme at Cibola
If this is finally Leonardo DiCaprio’s year, then maybe it’s finally Ray Rodriguez’s year, too.
On the eve of the 2016 boys state basketball tournament, Rodriguez, often a bridesmaid, brings his Cibola team to the party with a serious chance to give the veteran coach his first championship after so many years of excellent service with both the Cougars and at Highland.
That includes three losses in the title game — two with the Hornets in 1992 and 1993, and one with Cibola in 2004.
“When you get close — and you know how hard it is to get close — it is frustrating,” Rodriguez said in a lengthy interview earlier this week. “But not a focal point to where it’s distracting. The championship is the gravy on the top. But it’s not the turkey dinner.”
In his 29th season as a head coach, both here and in suburban Seattle, the only
thing Rodriguez’s résumé lacks is that blue trophy.
“He was coaching when I was playing (at Albuquerque Academy), and his teams still compete at the highest level,” said Volcano Vista coach Greg Brown. “Everyone knows he’s as good of a coach as there is in New Mexico.”
Cibola is the No. 3 seed in this year’s Class 6A tournament. The Cougars face No. 14 Las Cruces tonight in the first round.
A handful of Rodriguez’s contemporaries inside Albuquerque Public Schools have logged double-digit seasons as a head coach in APS and have won at least one state championship. That list includes La Cueva’s Frank Castillo, Eldorado’s Roy Sanchez, Valley’s Joe Coleman and Brown, who won a title with Manzano before moving to the West Side.
Rodriguez has put in more years than anyone who doesn’t yet have a title, and has more experience than any of them as a head coach except for Castillo. Rodriguez spent seven seasons at Highland, moved to the Pacific Northwest to coach for four seasons, and is in his 18th season at Cibola.
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The Journal spoke to Castillo, Sanchez, Coleman and Brown about how a state championship by Rodriguez would be received, if this is indeed the year.
“He’s a great coach. Everyone knows that,” said Coleman, who finally got his first ring two years ago with Valley. “But he’s so much more of a better person. He’s somebody any coach can look up to and want to be like as a person.”
Indeed, Rodriguez is revered among his peers, both inside and outside of Albuquerque. But the fraternity inside the city limits is a close one.
“I’d be so happy for him,” said Castillo, La Cueva’s longtime coach who once coached Cibola to two championship games in the mid-1980s. “He’s had some unlucky breaks along the way, but this is the first time in a long time that he has everything in place to make a run at the title.”
This is arguably the best team Rodriguez has taken to state since that 2004 group. Cibola appeared primed for a title in 2005-06, but the Cougars lost their best player, Kasey Cunningham, to a terrible knee injury midway through that season and were never the same after that.
And while age and maturity have liberated the 56-year-old Rodriguez to the point that he can appreciate the finer, less public details of running a program, he also acknowledges the difficulty of this particular pursuit. As can his peers.
“(If he wins it all) we couldn’t think any more of him,” Brown said, adding that Rodriguez has been a mentor to both him and his brother, Highland coach Danny Brown. “We all know what kind of a coach he is. But he’s regarded so highly.”
This year’s team and its shooting fiends — Rodriguez has never had a Highland or Cibola team with this type of perimeter depth — has been extremely problematic for opposing coaches.
Hence Cibola’s 22-5 record and co-regular-season championship of District 1-6A. Only Oñate won more games (23) this season in 6A boys than the Cougars.
“I’m definitely pulling for him,” Sanchez said. He and Rodriguez have been running partners in the past. “He’s a great friend.”
The journey
Rodriguez, a Highland High and New Mexico Highlands graduate, coached the Hornets for seven seasons before leaving for Eastlake High in Redmond, Wash. He returned to New Mexico and started at Cibola in 1998-99.
Much time has passed since his days as a brash young coach at Highland. His hair then was far more pepper than salt, but his energy and passion for coaching have not diminished.
“When you’re young, your ego is wrapped up in coaching,” he said. “It didn’t resonate then (how tough it is to get to a championship game). … You don’t have the perspective I have right now. Now that I’m older, I see that I was kind of a jerk (as a young coach).”
Rodriguez’s team this season has been worth the price of admission. What sets this team apart is how the Cougars have done it. Rodriguez stepped outside his comfort zone as he installed an offense that would maximize their shooting talent.
It was 180 degrees from the motion look that was his staple.
“In motion, the ball looks for other people,” Rodriguez said. “In this offense, the ball does something and everyone else reacts.”
The change was so radi- cal that Rodriguez, in jest, confided this to his assistants before the season: “I’m gonna need therapy when this year is over.”
By Christmas, the changes had taken hold. Cibola was 10-1, and nerves were calmed.
Whether Cibola will take flight tonight and into next week remains to be seen, but everyone fears the Cougars.
Valley was one of the other two teams, along with Volcano Vista and No. 2 Cleveland (three times), that beat Cibola this season.
“As soon as you get knocked out, Ray is a guy you want to root for, for sure,” Coleman said. “He’s a good guy who’s always done the right thing.”
“He’s a good dude, man,” Brown added. “And everyone thinks of him that way. Whether he wins a state championship or not.”
Rodriguez won’t cop to being consumed by a state championship, and in fact he doesn’t even know how many games he’s won in his career. Doesn’t care. He remains low-key.
“I don’t think (winning a state championship) changes anything,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve never been a guy that says, ‘I want to be in this group of guys who have won it.’ I’ve never been that. So I don’t know what it would mean. But I don’t think it will change anything for me.”