RICKAROO - The New Mexico Sports Place

To paraphrase our president: If Brutus Buckeye shot  https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3b/ed/5d/3bed5dbfe98ea75d5b08b93308ba9879.gif someone on Fifth Avenue, I would still be an Ohio State football fan. In my case, however, love is not blind. Not quite, anyway. As a kid, I picked out teams from each region of the country as my football favorites: USC in the Far West, UNM in the Rockies, Texas in the Southwest, Georgia Tech in the South and Navy in the East. And Ohio State in the Midwest. Over the years, my rooting interest in USC and Texas — for no particular reason — waned. My chosen line of work as a sports writer, covering the Lobos has prevented me from rooting for UNM. How much that will change in my retirement is yet to be seen. My love for the Yellow Jackets, the Midshipmen and the Buckeyes, however, has flowed unabated. Not that, in the case of Ohio State, it has been easy. There was the Woody Hayes slugging incident. The Art Schlichter gambling scandals. Jim Tressel’s...

I’m not sticking to sports in retirement, but I’m not leaving it, either. Politics? Only on the periphery. That’s a morass into which I choose not to get sucked. But even the periphery is fascinating and alarming enough. Case in point:  https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-poll-43-of-republicans-want-to-give-trump-the-power-to-shut-down-media Obviously, Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media are in play here. (And yes, in my effort to stay unsucked from the morass, I acknowledge his supporters feel the “fake” media is getting what it deserves). Many years ago, though, my former Albuquerque Journal colleague Dennis Latta related to me a conversation he’d had with a state legislator of his acquaintance — a man who believed journalists should be licensed by the state of New Mexico in the same fashion as are boxers, beauticians, undertakers, etc. etc. Write a story that doesn’t meet the state’s approval, no license. Either he hadn’t heard of the First Amendment or disagreed with it....

Thank you, UNM Athletics for the honor you gave me yesterday.  Your kind words were humbling.  I will treasure my shirt always and if I can ever reverse time and actually play football, this is the jersey I will proudly wear!

I'll be going "live" in a while.  I'll keep you posted via Facebook!