Goodbye, Las Cruces

When I chose to retire this summer after 41 years at the Albuquerque Journal and eight as the Journal’s University of New Mexico football beat writer, I knew what I was giving up.

I was OK with that — at least, with most of it.

I was aware that in upcoming seasons, starting with last week’s game in Madison, Wis., the Lobos would be playing at some of college football’s most celebrated venues and compelling atmospheres: Wisconsin. Notre Dame. LSU. USC at the L.A. Coliseum. UCLA at the Rose Bowl. I would be passing up those opportunities.

I was OK with that. A press box is a press box, and when you’re covering a game, rather than watching from the stands, you don’t get the full flavor. And most if not all of these games, like UNM games I covered at Texas, Pittsburgh and Texas A&M, promise to be lopsided losses for the Lobos and not particularly pleasant to write about.

In two of every four years, as the Mountain West Conference inter-divisional schedule rotates, the Lobos would visit one of my favorite cities: San Diego or Las Vegas. They’ll do so in the future, starting with this fall’s game at UNLV, without me.

I was OK with that, too. Been there, done that. I’ll certainly get back to San Diego and Vegas, though football might not be involved.

Here, though, is what I’m discovering this week that I’m not totally OK with: for the first time in 20 years, when the New Mexico Lobos and the New Mexico Aggies tee it up Saturday night in Las Cruces I will not be there.

I will miss it, in both meanings of the word.

As Division I, FBS intrastate football rivalries go, ours is perhaps the least interesting and least respected nationally. Only rarely have both teams been good at the same time. Most of the time neither is. But it’s the rivalry we’ve got, and for those who grew up with it, like me, it might as well be Auburn-Alabama. 

OK, well, almost. 

I hadn’t realized until this week that I had that 20-game Lobos-Aggies streak going. But, out of curiosity, I went back into newspaper archives and found it’s true.

 Starting in 1998, a 28-27 NMSU victory in Las Cruces, I covered 12 consecutive games in the series as a columnist. 

I took over the beat four games into the 2010 season, and the first game I covered in that capacity was a 16-14 NMSU win — again, in ‘Cruces.

I’d by lying if I said any one of those 20 games truly stands out in my mind. But I’ve written in the past that in a series as lopsided as this one — 70-33 for UNM with five ties — it’s the Aggies’ victories, and their occasional pockets of success, that truly makes it a rivalry.

From 1938 through 1958, with a couple of seasons off during World War II, the Lobos beat the Aggies 18 times in a row. The series didn’t become a rivalry again until the Aggies, coached by a border-line genius named Warren Woodson and led on the field by a brilliant  running back named Pervis Atkins, beat the Lobos 29-12 at UNM’s Zimmerman Field in ‘59. 

No, I didn’t cover that one. But yes, I was in the stands.

In fact, the Aggies were a respectable 8-12 against their upstate rivals during my 20-game streak. I figure that’s a sign of the times, and nothing to do with my being there — or, on Saturday, regardless of the outcome, with my not being there. 

It’s not as if I won’t be involved at all. In my semi-retirement, I’ll be in the office Saturday night as a copy editor — following the game online and eagerly awaiting the stories filed by Steve Virgen, my more-than-able successor on the UNM beat, and by Aggies beat writer (and so much more) Ken Sickenger.

Lucky dogs.