PIGSKIN PREVIEW: More than a game

Standing on the 50-yard line at Leon Williams Stadium, one can see paintings commemorating the 13 state championships the Clovis Wildcats have won in football.

For the Clovis Wildcats, who were inches away from a 14th title in 2007 and a scoring drive from reaching the Class 5A title game in 2008, the recent past also stacks up impressively.

But the present’s pretty good for football in the High Plains, everywhere you look.

To the west, the Melrose Buffaloes are celebrating an undefeated season in eight-man football. Further west, the Fort Sumner Foxes have a four-peat in Class 1A.

To the south, Portales is enjoying its first Class 3A championship since 1988.

To the east, Texico’s tops in Class 2A. And across the state line, Muleshoe is defending the gold football for Class 2A Division I.

The trophies speak volumes — this area is good. But why? There are plenty of reasons, and the importance varies based on the location.

Coaching

Eric Roanhaus is going into 32 years at the helm. Dickie Roybal’s entering his 13th season at Melrose.

And the new coaches aren’t really new. Portales’ Andy Correll, Fort Sumner’s Matt Moyer and Texico’s Ryan Autrey all spent time as assistants with their current schools.

Scot Stinnett, owner of the De Baca County News and de facto statistician for Fort Sumner High athletics, said it wasn’t always dominance. In 1992, the Foxes forfeited their final two games and were considering dropping down to six-man before Mario Martinez came in.

Before he left after the 2002 season, Martinez had coached the Foxes to five titles. Longtime assistant Dexter McDaniel took over. He won three straight, and Moyer — a former player under Martinez — extended the current streak to four.

Now in Fort Sumner, kids work every day on blocking sleds. Junior high kids practice with the varsity. And track is off-season football practice. The Foxes have taken on a toughness, Stinnett said, that matters late in game.

“You can talk tradition, yeah, we’ve got it,” Stinnett said .”You can talk talent, yeah we’ve had it. But that toughness that Mario brought here and McDaniel was part of (is the key).”

The Martinez example isn’t an isolated incident. Programs last for decades, even if the coaches change, and there are few surprises year-to-year.

“At most of these schools,” Roybal said, “the coach has been there, he’s established. The kids know what to expect.”

And coaches have an influence on everything that happens. A running scheme taught to a Wildcat was the same play he learned as a boy playing pee-wee football.

“Every coach does things a little differently,” Clovis assistant Darren Kelley said, “but everybody’s going to be using the terminology as what we call it up here.”

Dedication

There’s a thin line between a football booster, Stinnett said, and an over-zealous parent.

“I’ve been one of them for a long time,” said Stinnett, whose son Berry graduated from FSHS in May. “They do crazy things.”

But it’s the parents who make sandwiches for a booster club when the football team’s got a water break during two-a-days. It’s the community that brings the entire town to road football games. And it’s the family that schedules vacation and appointments around football games and camps.

“They sacrifice just like we do,” Correll said. “But a lot of it is, the kids want to be here.”

And that dedication is key in the spring as well. Kids don’t want to go out for track, Roybal said, but they do because they love football.

“I’ve been fortunate to have an uncle (Rafael) in coaching,” Roybal said, “and (he’s always said) to be good in the off-season, you have to run track.”

When kids are in track, they’re staying strong, and sometimes getting faster. Coaches jokingly call them “fat boy relays” and attempts to pick up cheap points at a meet. But Stinnett said lineman are competitive, and they’re going to do everything they can to not embarrass themselves. Then August comes around and linemen are faster than other linemen.

Isolation

Sometimes, football is the only answer when there’s the question, “What’s there to do?”

In Albuquerque, there’s a concert. Or a play. Or a movie. And a football game is played either Friday night or Saturday afternoon, depending on when either Wilson Stadium or Milne Stadium is available.

Not so on a Friday night in Clovis, Portales, Fort Sumner or Texico. That’s football time.

And the school’s football field is the place to be. Fans are there, and they’re not deciding which school they’re rooting for. There’s only one.

“There definitely are advantages to a one high-school town,” Kelley said. “Everybody’s in one group.”

And that isolation matters in the offseason too, Kelley said.

“We’ve got to travel a long way to go do something,” he said. A kid in Albuquerque can choose, say, numerous seven-on-seven camps in the offseason. A Clovis player is traveling 215 miles for an Albuquerque camp. So they’re choosing one. And their teammates are joining them. “That’s a bond that is tough to match.”

Proximity to Texas

Correll tells his New Mexico-raised assistants that Texas natives are the only reason eastern New Mexico wins ... then he laughs and tells them he’s kidding.

But it makes a difference, the former Knox City, Texas, resident said.

Portales faced Muleshoe last year, and gave the Mules a game despite a 63-35 loss.

“It exposed definite defensive flaws,” Correll said. “Our safety had three guys (to cover) without help.”

Correll said thanks to that loss, the Rams were able to avoid “track meet” style games.

The Texas influence spreads from Eastern New Mexico University, which recruits players from Lubbock and Amarillo by offering in-state tuition. Greyhounds become coaches, and take over New Mexico programs.

There’s no particular thing coaches could think of, but they admitted Texas football is just a little more intense.

“West Texas football is a thing that helps,” Texico coach Ryan Autrey said. “We’ve been fortunate to schedule west Texas teams we can play with, and it helps us play up to where we need to be.”