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Joel Hunt was born in Texico, New Mexico in Curry County and graduated from Texico High School. He attended Texas A&M University and was quarterback of the football team under Coach Dana X. Bible. Joel was named to the All-Southwest Conference team all three years. 
At Texas A&M, his teams had a combined record of 20-4-3 and were conference champions in 1925 and 1927. During his career, he scored 30 touchdowns, which was a school record for 63 years. He also played defense. In one notable game against Southern Methodist University in 1927, Hunt scored 3 touchdowns, punted for an average of 40 yards and intercepted 4 passes in the Aggies' 39-13 win over the Mustangs. He was 5-10 and weighed 162 pounds his senior year. Joel was named to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1967.
At Texas A&M, his teams had a combined record of 20-4-3 and were conference champions in 1925 and 1927. During his career, he scored 30 touchdowns, which was a school record for 63 years. He also played defense. In one notable game against Southern Methodist University in 1927, Hunt scored 3 touchdowns, punted for an average of 40 yards and intercepted 4 passes in the Aggies' 39-13 win. He was 5-10 and weighed 162 pounds his senior year. Joel was named to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1967. Following his exit from Texas A&M, Joel was head football coach at Marshall Junior College in Texas from 1928-1929, head football coach at Georgia 1938 and at Wyoming 1939. He then returned to Texas A&M where he was assistant coach from 1930-1932, assistant coach at University of Houston 1955, followed by positions at Louisiana State University from 1933-1936, 1940-1941 and from 1945-1947. He joined the pros as assistant with the Buffalo Bills in 1949, Baltimore Colts in 1950. In 1949-52 he served in the Army Air Corps, rising to the rank of Captain. In 1951-1953 he was a salesman for Wilson Sporting Goods. He also played professional baseball, mostly in the minor leagues, but reached the big leagues for 16 games in 1931-32 with the St. Louis Cardinals. Joel was undoubtedly an excellent all around athlete. It is said that some of the best compliments are those one receives from an opponent. Rice head coach John Heisman said of Hunt that he was "the greatest all-around player I ever saw." Hunt died at the age of 72 in Teague, Texas in 1978.
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Clayton, New Mexico is in Union County, in the extreme northeast corner of the state. The Yellowjackets have made 11 appearances in the state football championships: 2014, 2013, 2009, 2008, 2006, 1998, 1988, 1987, 1978, 1976, 1974, taking the title in 2013. They are usually in the chase for the title all season long.
The town itself was founded in 1887, a concept of a group of businessmen including U. S. Senator Stephen Dorsey hoping to buy land and build a town in the path of a railroad. It lay on the historic Santa Fe Trail that ran from Missouri to Santa Fe. Originally the budding community was named Perico, but it was renamed Clayton for Clayton Dorsey, the eldest son of Senator Dorsey, in 1888 after the first train arrived on the new track. Senator Dorsey had come to Colfax County a decade earlier and built a cattle ranch southeast of Raton, running as many as 22,000 head at its peak. In addition to naming Clayton for his son, Stephen Dorsey named a town for himself, Dorsey, now a ghost town. Clayton Dorsey graduated from Yale University in 1890. He did not attend law school, but rather "studied law" under practicing attorneys, as was the tradition back then. He was admitted to the bar and practiced as an attorney in Colorado most of his life. In football, the Clayton Yellowjackets have gone 122-87 since 1995 and the last three years, they've had a record of 30-7. Clayton finished the 2014 season at 11-1 under new coach Collin Justiss, its only loss coming in the championship game to Estancia.  Trent Dimas is the final 2014 inductee to the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame to be profiled here. He was a Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics.
Dimas was born in 1970 in Albuquerque and is a graduate of Eldorado High School. At the time of his Olympic appearance he was a nationally and internationally ranked athlete having competed in the Goodwill Games and Pan American Games. He had won the American Cup and was the U.S. Men’s Vault Champion, Parallel Bars Champion and Horizontal Bar Champion. His Olympic moment came on the last day of the last event of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. The American team was languishing in 6th place. Dimas was next to last on the list of performers after being the final person selected for the team at the Olympic Trials in Maryland months before. Trent Dimas’ high bar routine lasted only one minute and is shown here in the YouTube link below. Trent Dimas Olympic Gold Medal Performance, 1992 The video only takes about 2 minutes to watch from start to finish and is well worth the time. It is an electrifying performance that energized his team and the crowd. Dimas scored 9.875 out of a possible 10. This was only the second time that an American gymnast had one a gold medal at an Olympics held outside the United States, the first being Frank Kriz in Paris in 1924. It is also believed that this is the first time that an American of Hispanic heritage had won an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport of gymnastics. This was Dimas’ only appearance in the Olympic Games. Before the Olympics, Trent and his brother Ted had entered University of Nebraska but Trent had left school after his freshman year to pursue his Olympic dream. After the Olympics he went on to graduate from Columbia University with a BA degree in Political Science and University of New Mexico School of Law. At this writing, he is living in Albuquerque and serving as Director of Development for the University of New Mexico Foundation. |
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We post articles of general interest about New Mexico athletes, coaches and sports. Some names will already be familiar to you. Others are perhaps not as well known, but we hope you enjoy them all. Archives
December 2015
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