Former Pojoaque coach, AD inducted into Hall of Fame
ALBUQUERQUE — The man who started his coaching career at Pojoaque Valley when parachute pants and Reaganomics were all the rage had a chance to look back on nearly three dozen years as a public servant on Tuesday afternoon.
Serving most of his 35-plus years as a teacher, coach and athletic administrator at Pojoaque, Matt Martinez is part of the latest induction class into the New Mexico Activities Association’s Hall of Fame. He’ll join Artesia’s Cooper Henderson and Lordsburg’s Louie Baisa during the official ring ceremony on March 8 in Albuquerque.
While some hall members had a clearcut path to the coaching ranks, Martinez had to fight his way in at Pojoaque. Initially turned down for the job as girls’ basketball coach, he parlayed a sub-varsity post into a shot with the big club a year after his hire in 1984. It began a career that saw him take three teams to the state finals and one to a state championship.
He followed that with a celebrated tenure as the school’s athletic director between 19992017, overseeing 25 state titles for a school that had won just three before he took over.
“A lot of memories and a lot of hard work but, no, I didn’t ever see it coming to this with me in the hall of fame,” Martinez said after Tuesday’s induction announcement at the NMAA headquarters. Flanked by Henderson and Baisa, he shared a
few stories from his past while addressing a small crowd inside the building’s hall of honor.
Henderson coached football for 27 years at Artesia and five at Ruidoso, winning 14 state championships and retiring as the fourth-winningest coach in state history with a 293-103-1 record.
Baisa won 187 games during his 27 years at Lordsburg, echoing the trajectory of Martinez and Henderson by spending the majority of his time as an athletic director.
Henderson credited the heavy influence of his father, L.G. Henderson, on his philosophy toward coaching.
“His emphasis was always on, ‘Your actions speak so loud that I can’t hear what you say,’ ” Henderson said. “That stuck with me throughout my life.”
Martinez’s actions speak volumes. The high school built a new campus during his time in Pojoaque and, along with it, Ben Lujan Gymnasium, a spacious facility that was regarded as one of the state’s best when it opened. Alongside it came a turfed football field with lights and a complex for soccer and softball.
While he hasn’t given up on the idea of perhaps returning to coaching in the future, he said he’s enjoying the fruits of retirement and the luxury of picking his next course of action.
“If I want to go fishing tomorrow, I can,” he said. “If I want to go watch the Lobos, I can. If I want to drive a team bus or sit in a gym watching any team I want, I can. That’s the best thing about retirement. I don’t have to deal with any schedule except my own.”
NOTES
There are now 105 members of the NMAA’s Hall of Fame. Excluded from that list of luminaries are some of New Mexico’s biggest coaching names, such as Ralph Tasker, Marv Sanders, Bill Gentry, Henry Sanchez and Ron Geyer, just to name a few.
The complete list of enshrinees can be found by visiting tinyurl.com/ya68w6av.
No more than four people can be enshrined every year and each has to have a minimum 25 years as a coach or administrator, at least 20 of which need to be with New Mexico schools.
The New Mexico High School Coaches Association has a separate Hall of Honor, which includes most of the familiar names people might recognize.
To view that list, visit tinyurl.com/ycukewn4.