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Sam "The Rifle" Etcheverry was from Carlsbad (Eddy County), New Mexico. His father was a Basque sheep farmer who had emigrated to the area from France. Sam was an outstanding quarterback for the Carlsbad Cavemen and has been named to the Cavemen Hall of Fame. Sam graduated from Carlsbad High School in 1948. Etcheverry signed with the Pioneers of the University of Denver, playing from 1949 to 1951, where he set longstanding records for passing offense. He is the career leader in passing and rushing plays (594), most yards gained in a season (2,662), most pass attempts (392), most completions (198) and most passing yards gained (2,510). Following his college career, he signed with the Montreal Alouettes of the Interprovincial Rugby Football League which became part of the Canadian Football League in 1958. As the Alouettes' quarterback, he was voted Most Outstanding Player of the Eastern Conference and was named an Eastern All-Star six times. In 1954 and 1958, he was awarded the Russel Schenley Award as the most outstanding player in the Canadian Rugby Union. Etcheverry's single game CFL passing record of 586 yards set in 1954 stood for 39 years. He also set a season passing record in 1954 of 3,610 yards that was a CFL record and also surpassed the NFL record set in 1947 by the legendary Sammy Baugh. Etcheverry led the CFL in passing from 1954 to 1959. He became the first pro quarterback to pass for more than 4,000 yards in 1956 when he notched 4,723 for the season, a record that was not surpassed until 1981 by Deiter Brock and Dan Fouts.  Sam played in the CFL for 10 years before signing with the St. Louis Cardinals where he played another two seasons before announcing his retirement in 1962. Following retirement, he returned to the CFL where in 1964 he coached the Quebec Rifles of the United Football League which dissolved at the end of the season. Serving in the interim as an assistant at Loyola College in Montreal, he returned to the Alouettes as head coach from 1969 to 1972, including leading them to victory in the 58th Grey Cup Championship game in his first season. Later, Sam briefly served as General Manager of the Montreal Concordes and led an unsuccessful effort to bring the NFL to Montreal following the dissolution of the Concordes.
Sam was inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame in 1969. Etcheverry's jersey number 92 was retired by the Alouettes. He was an inaugural inductee into the University of Denver Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996. Etcheverry was chosen as 26th among the CFL's Top 50 Greatest Players in 2006. Sam loved New Mexico and had long expressed his desire to be buried in New Mexico. He was buried in Carlsbad following his death from cancer in 2009. ...
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 LPGA golfer Nancy Lopez's name is very familiar to golf fans of a certain age, because she was so dominant in the sport during her active career. She was born in Torrence, California and raised in Roswell (Chavez County), New Mexico where her father owned an auto repair business and her mother was a homemaker. Nancy began to play golf at the age of 8 using old clubs with shafts that had been shortened for her. Coached at first by her father, she won a Pee-Wee tournament at the age of 9 and by the age of 11 was beating her parents on the golf course. Domingo, her father, dug a big hole in her back yard and filled it with sand so she could practice hitting balls out of a sand trap. The following three years, she won the USGA Junior Girls Championshp (1974 and 1975), the Western Junior three times and the Mexican Amateur in 1975. Nationally ranked as an amateur in high school, Nancy led her otherwise all male high school golf team to win a New Mexico State Championship, Goddard High having no girls team. She notched championships in 1972 and 1974 in the U. S. Girls Junior Championship and gained national notice when she tied for second in the U. S. Women's Open in 1975. Following graduation from Goddard High School, she attended Tulsa University for two years during which time she won the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women golf championship her freshman year and and won the university's Female Athlete of the Year her sophomore year.
Nancy turned pro in 1977, though1978 was her official rookie season on the LPGA Tour. 1978 was a stellar year for her as she won 9 tournaments, including a stretch of 5 in a row. She also won the Vare Trophy given annually for lowest scoring average, LPGA Rookie of the year, LPGA Player of the Year and was named the AP Female Athlete of the Year. She played shortened tours in years in which her three children were born, but eventually notched 48 career LPGA wins and 4 other wins in the Kraft Nabisco Championship and du Maurier Classic. Lopez retired from the tour in 2003, briefly unretired in 2007, but will always be remembered as one of the brightest stars in LPGA Golf. Nancy feels that she experienced discrimination at times during her upbringing. It has been written that her family could not join the local country club because of race, notwithstanding the cost, and she trained at a country club in Albuquerque, 200 miles away. However, as a result of her success against the odds, she is seen as a strong role model for women and Hispanics. Nancy is an LPGA representative for the Bayer "Strokes Against Strokes" campaign, supported by the Senior Tour and the American Hart Association. Roswell ISD has named an elementary school in her honor. Nancy currently is associated with Nancy Lopez Golf, a company that markets ladies golf clubs, bags and accessories and sometimes also does television commentary. Ralph Neely was a 2014 inductee into the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame. He graduated in 1961 from Farmington High School (San Juan County), New Mexico where he played football, basketball, baseball and was a shot putter on the track team. His family had moved to Farmington from Arkansas because his brother suffered from asthma. Ralph's father first worked for El Paso Natural Gas company and later was a contract pumper in the oil and gas fields of the San Juan Basin. His older brothers Larry and Jerry were athletes, and Ralph was likewise gifted and followed suit. The history of the Farmington team mascot may be apocryphal, but the tale is as follows. Prior to adopting the Scorpion as mascot, they were known as the Apple Pickers, derived from the agriculture of the local area. Sometime in the 1920s, the story goes, the Apple Pickers were playing a game either at Grand Junction or Moab when their big green school bus broke down, leaving only reverse gear in operation. So the driver, having only the one gear, backed up a big hill to the site of the game. Observers thought the bus resembled a big green scorpion, and the name caught on. Ralph made one appearance in the New Mexico state championship game in football his junior year in high school. The Scorpions met Clovis in the AA championship game, AA being the largest classification in the state at that time. Coached by Tommy Campbell and coming into the game undefeated at 9-0 against the Clovis Wildcats at 5-4-1, they were downed by the Wildcats 20-14. Ralph relates that he was also once a backup catcher on the baseball team. On a bus ride, he was horsing around with a teammate throwing a piece of candy. He caught it when it was his turn and tossed it back to his teammate who missed it on his opportunity. The candy went beyond the teammate, hitting and sticking to the front window of the bus in full view of the coach, who stopped the bus asking for the perpetrator to identify himself. At first no one replied but then Ralph raised his hand. At the end of the bus ride, the coach told Ralph to clean out his locker because he was kicked off the team. Ralph complied and later sought out the track coach who invited him to try out. At his first practice, a coach handed him a steel ball and requested that he throw it as far as he could, which Ralph did. He was informed that he had made the team, because he had just thrown the shot put further than anyone currently on the team. During his high school career, Ralph was an All-State tackle for two years and was recruited by University of Oklahoma. One day Ralph was sitting in class when an announcement was made summoning him to the principal's office. Ralph thought, "Oh no. What have I done now?" and walked down the hall only to find Sooner head coach Bud Wilkinson waiting for him. Wilkinson had flown to Farmington in a converted WWII B-25 from Norman, Oklahoma to invite Ralph to visit OU in view of receiving a football scholarship. Wilkinson told him there were no guarantees, but that he would have an opportunity to be exposed to one of the leading programs in the United States. Ralph accepted ("My father would have killed me if I hadn't.") and came to Norman, where he would remain the next four [not five] years under head coaches Bud Wilkinson and Gomer Jones (Wilkinson's offensive line coach who would coach the team for two years before suffering a fatal heart attack while in NYC on a trip). Neely played both offense and defense at OU and received the following honors: Big 8 Sophomore Lineman of the Year, All Conference (1963 and 1964) and All-American two years including being a consensus selection in 1964. While at OU, he also took the opportunity to earn a double major in Accounting and Finance. Immediately prior to the merger of the AFL and NFL, Ralph was drafted by the Houston Oilers of the AFL (round 2, 15th selection overall) and the Baltimore Colts of the NFL (round 2, 28th selection overall). The Dallas Cowboys later obtained his rights from the Colts. There was a contract dispute (1) between the Cowboys and the Oilers, the resolution of which was incorporated into the merger settlement agreement between the AFL and the NFL.  Neely joined the Cowboys in 1965 and immediately started at offensive right tackle, earning NFL all-rookie team honors that year and All-NFL honors the following four years. Ralph went on to have a 13 year career with the Cowboys during which he was an NFL First Team All-Pro three times (1967, 1968 and 1969) and was named to the Pro Bowl two seasons (1967 and 1969). He retired from the Cowboys following their 1977 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII. During his long career, he started in 19 of the 26 playoff games in which he appeared and was named to numerous other All-Pro teams.
Ralph currently resides in Dallas, Texas and is active in the employee benefits business. Other: Ralph Neely's college football statistics from College Football at Sports-Reference.com, pro football statistics from Pro-Football-Reference.com. (1) Ralph relates that for many years, he received "fan" mail from law students because his case had been studied in their Contract Law classes. Longtime basketball coach Jim Hulsman is a product of New Mexico. His parents moved to the state in 1940 from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania for his father’s health when Jim was just 10. Jim attended elementary and junior high school in Albuquerque and high school at Albuquerque High School. Albuquerque High was a three year school at the time and Jim lettered in both track and football. Jim also played American Legion baseball and city league basketball. Jim graduated from Albuquerque High School in 1949. Jim then served in the military during the Korean era, enlisting in the US Air Force. Hulsman relates that the US Army needed pilots and Jim qualified for a program that allowed him to qualify for Officer Candidate School and pilot training because of his Air Force service. Jim earned his Second Lieutenant bars before the war ended in 1952. Resuming his education, Hulsman enrolled at St. Joseph College on the Rio Grande (later known as the University of Albuquerque), a Catholic school located at what is now the campus St. Pius X High School. Jim lettered in basketball St. Joseph in 1955 and 1956 despite not having played basketball at Albuquerque High School. He later transferred to University of New Mexico because it offered a degree in health and physical education and received his Bachelor of Science Degree in 1959. While still a college student, Jim served as track and cross country coach and an assistant coach in football and basketball at Highlands High and Albuquerque High. He then served as an assistant football coach from 1961 to 1968 at his alma mater, after which he took over as head basketball coach at Albuquerque High School, a position at which he was to remain for the next 42 years. His second season as head coach, his Albuquerque Bulldog team made it to the state championship for the first time since 1946, losing to Ralph Tasker’s Hobbs High School squad 123-90. Coach Hulsman remarked that the Hobbs full court press was a tremendous factor in the Eagles’ win. The two teams met again in 1971 with the Bulldogs prevailing 81-80 in a game that drew 10,000 fans to the UNM arena.  Coach Hulsman went on to achieve a career record of earning 660 wins, making 24 state championship tournament appearances and winning 7 state championships. During his tenure, AHS would achieve 23 consecutive winning seasons (1969-1991). 72 of his players went on to play college basketball, including Kenny Thomas who also played at University of New Mexico and for 12 seasons in the NBA.
During their long careers, Coach Hulsman and Coach Ralph Tasker led teams that were always two of the premier programs in the state. They met 12 times in state championship brackets and three times in the title games with AHS winning 7 of the 12 post season meetings while Hobbs had a 2-1 edge in the championship matches. Jim also has been involved in amateur and semi-pro baseball much of his career. He managed the Rio Grande Lumber Company team of the National Baseball Congress to back-to-back New Mexico Semi-Pro Championships in 1955 and 1956. In 1958, he managed the squad to a 24-8 record and the Albuquerque City Championship. In 1959 and 1960, Jim managed the Albuquerque Highland High School American Legion baseball team to tournament and league championships. He was a manager in the Ken Boyers Missouri Baseball Camp and under the direction of Territorial Scout Supervisor Bobby Goff and served as a scout for the Cleveland Indians for 8 years. Coach Hulsman has received numerous awards and honors over the years. He coached in the Denver/Albuquerque All-Star game in 1974 and the North/South All Star Game sponsored by the New Mexico High School Coaches Association in 1975. In 1988 he was chosen to coach in the 11th annual McDonalds All-American High School Basketball Game. In 1985 and 1989, Jim was Region Eight Coach of the Year by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association. He was named Coach of the Year at least 15 times by sportscasters and sportswriters in New Mexico. In 1983 and 1989 he received the Special Recognition Award from the Albuquerque Sports Hall of Fame. In 2003, Jim was honored by his induction into the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) Hall of Fame. Jim currently is retired and living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. |
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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
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