Bernalillo High School honors basketball coach on gym floor

Dedication was held Dec. 16, 2022, at Spartans’ first home game

The Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico is a coalition of over 50 Hispano/Latino partner organizations with more than 50,000 members connected to our coalition. Our mission is to seek the advancement of Hispanic Americans in all areas of education, employment, economic development, environmental justice, cultural celebration, civil rights and social justice.

On Dec. 16, 2022, a beautiful dedication took place at the Bernalillo High School gymnasium that was long overdue. This dedication would have never taken place had it not been for the persistent and dedicated efforts of star basketball player and team captain Mike Romero. Coach (Henry) Sanchez was the head basketball coach at Bernalillo High School from 1965-1983. The Bernalillo Spartans had never won a state basketball title in the entire history of the school. This would change when Sanchez created a true powerhouse of a program. In 1977, basketball glory was showered on Bernalillo High with its first state high school basketball championship in school history.

This same year, Sanchez was nominated and selected as the New Mexico High School Coach of the Year and National High School Coach of Year. His team leader and captain, Romero, was named New Mexico Player of the Year, as well as New Mexico’s High Point Scoring Champion, with an average of 32.6 points per game for the season. Romero was also nominated to the McDonald’s All-American high school basketball team, where only 40 players nationwide get nominated.

Sanchez and Romero shared a storybook bond that transcended time and space on and off the basketball court. Sanchez received numerous coaching honors through a lifetime of service. He was Coach of the Year many times; among other honors, he was inducted into the New Mexico High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor, the National High School Athletic

Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Highlands University Athletic Hall of Honor.

After retiring from coaching and teaching, the civic-minded Sanchez became an elected leader in the community of Las Vegas, serving as mayor from 2002-08. After his death in 2011, a group of friends gathered to name the basketball floor in the Pete Wilson Complex at New Mexico Highlands University after Sanchez.

Yet, Romero was determined to get him one more honor, to name the gymnasium floor of Bernalillo High School after him. Romero began his quest by attending many Bernalillo public school board meetings and asking to be put on the agenda to advocate for the dedication. He talked to every person who would listen to him, whether they lived in or outside of the town of Bernalillo. … After hundreds of meetings, phone calls, knocking on doors and doing everything he possibly could for his beloved coach, it became a reality on the night of Dec. 16, 2022, during the first home game for the Bernalillo Spartans. …