Note: How about something non-political for once? Or look at it this way: In many small towns, there’s nothing more political than football.
© 2008 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?” – Jim Bouton
Football is a New Mexico passion, much like green chile on eggs and driving five miles an hour over the speed limit. The fans include those who quote Bill Shankly: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.” Other fans stand up in the stands and shout, “Kick a homerun.”
I am of an age where I can honestly say I do not remember my high school football team ever losing a game. I also cannot remember where I put my car keys.
Here in Las Cruces our high school teams are legend in that stronger and larger teams do not often win against them. Coaching often makes up the difference in size. Legendary coach Knute Rockne contended, “Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders, but mostly from the neck up.”
Football is a learning activity for the players and over the years has become an enterprise involving thousands of dollars. In the college ranks it is millions of dollars.
But as the New Mexico State Aggies fear this weekend, without fans, the enterprise is imperiled. I will be there as I have season tickets and have enjoyed the season. But I am different than fans who come only for the thrill of the Aggie beating the cookies out of some other team. That does not happen often.
The Aggies have had an interesting season. The students have been entertaining, though the local students cannot get as wild as those in colder areas. Dave Barry contends, “Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.”
The NMSU Aggies have had a 40-year streak of bad luck. I have been in the stands throughout that streak. I was an NMSU freshman in fall 1968. It took a while for me to see the problem that has plagued the Aggies for 40 years: The opponents have always had significantly more financial resources, with predictable results.
Institutional identity
Both New Mexico collegiate and public-school football is more than competition — it is institutional identity. As an educational consultant I had an interesting moment recently. I was working in a small school district. During a break I asked what the community thought was the No. 1 problem in the school. The answer was trying to get back to 11-man football. Six-man football was killing the community. There were people trying to recruit families who had boys to try to get to the level of 18 boys in high school that is generally accepted as the standard to be able to play 11-man football.
I understood. A few years ago one superintendent disclosed that the problem was that of the five school board members, two had not graduated from high school but had the 43 votes it took to win election. And football was the alpha and omega of their concern.
Having lived some of my life in very small rural communities, I understand that the high school football team is the community identity. We agree with Don Shula when he said, “Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”
In the small communities are the really interesting coaches. Not that coaches in bigger programs cannot be goofy, but in the small towns everyone knows every detail of a coach’s idiosyncratic behavior. One time when I owned a small weekly newspaper I was all departments — editorial, sports, news and classified — so I was more than busy. I tried to keep up but did not have time to really investigate beyond just talking to the assistant coach. The head coach had a mortal fear of talking to me. The assistant coach said the home team was going to whip the opponent handily, and I put it in my weekly column.
Well, the fly in the ointment was that by halftime the opponents were ahead 35 to nothing and as each person walked by me they jabbed me with my prediction. I hunkered down, trying to get a photo of a home-team athlete to put on the front page: Leroy Jones runs in last Friday’s game. Couldn’t ignore the game and I did not want to even write the score. I had to live with the people and saw them at morning coffee face to face, and again several more times each day.
The game was in the last minute when the opponents fumbled and our player fell on the ball. Even though the score was 57-0 the assistant coach shouted, “Now we have them.”
That is small town football at its most entertaining. We all had to smile then.
This weekend
This weekend two of the three Las Cruces high school teams are in the hunt for another state football championship. Both are playing Friday night, Las Cruces High in the NMSU Aggie Memorial Stadium and Mayfield High School at the Las Cruces Public Schools’ Field of Dreams. It is possible that more fans will be in the Aggie stadium Friday night than Saturday at 2 p.m. when the Aggies play Louisiana Tech for pride.
I will be there Saturday in my regular seats. Hope to see you there. Go Aggies!
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.