Detour

When I didn't get the job at Ruidoso I still worked for the cable company but knew I wanted to find a job where I could use my degree. My memory isn't good enough to remember the circumstances but I found and interviewed for a job as a District Executive with the Boy Scouts of America. I had been involved in scouting from the time I was in elementary school all the way through high school. As a matter of fact the summer after high school I was working at the San Gabriel Valley scout camp in the San Bernardino Mountains as the camp's commissary director. It was while working there that I received my Eagle Scout award along with friend and former high school track and cross country teammate Don O'Brien.

Summer 1966

I got the job with the Scout Council that was headquartered in Roswell, New Mexico and served all of Southeastern, New Mexico. The unfortunate part was that it didn't include Ruidoso and was going to require us to move. I took the job and we sold our home in Ruidoso and bought a new home in Hobbs.
A requirement for the job was that I attend the National Executive Institute in Mendham, New Jersey for training. The course was several weeks long and covered all areas necessary to be successful as an executive with the BSA.

I remember that we had a lot of classroom time while we were at NEI and we also had a lot of outdoor activity and competition. We lived eight to a cabin and the competitions were held between cabins.

I've often wondered how many, if any of the guys made a career of scouting. There were certainly a lot of positive things about the job and even many things I learned that certainly carried over into my preparation as a coach. The negative part was that there was so much administration involved. So much of the job involved being a politician and selling the program to businesses and organizations.

While I was in New Jersey my wife sent me a new article from the Hobbs News Sun talking about the average salary of teachers in Lea County. Hobbs was in Lea County. I still have that article somewhere among my papers. The money wasn't the primary motivation but the article reinforced my desire to be a teacher and coach. I finished my NEI training and returned to Hobbs where I started organizing scouting activities, recruiting leaders, trying to start new packs and troops, worked with organizations to see about starting Explorer Posts, etc. As I said, it was pretty much all administrative.

In addition to doing my job I was sending out resumes and filling out applications for every school district in eastern New Mexico and west Texas that was within driving distance of Hobbs. I didn't hear anything from any until one morning my phone rang. We were still sleeping when I got a call from the principal at Central Junior High School in Lovington, NM eighteen miles north of Hobbs. He wanted to know if I was still interested in a teaching job and if I was willing to coach basketball. I told him that I definitely was and he scheduled me for an interview later that day.

When I went for the interview it was for a social studies position, my license was for social studies, and for 8th grade boy's basketball. The 9th grade boy's basketball coach was involved in the interview. I mentioned that I knew more about track than basketball and would rather coach track if it was available and I was told in no uncertain terms that the basketball position was their primary concern. It was amazing how fast I decided that maybe I knew something about basketball after all. I talked about my experience coaching in Ruidoso and I was offered the job on the spot. I had no clue about the quality of basketball played by junior high programs in that area.

The negative parts of taking the job were first, telling my boss that I was going to be resigning as District Executive. Needless to say he didn't take it well. He was angry about the money they had invested in my training; and second, I was told that if I was going to teach and coach in Lovington then I couldn't live in Hobbs. That meant selling a brand new home we had only lived in for about six months and finding and buying a house in Lovington.

So the first time I was hired specifically to coach was for 8th grade boy's basketball in Lovington, New Mexico. A long way from where I started as a runner in Southern California. It was the beginning of a long coaching career. I started in Lovington in the 1977-1978 school year.

This was the first team that I coached in Lovington. The 1977-78 8th grade boy's basketball team. Looking back through my notes we finished the season 8-8, 3-6 in the conference. In my notes it said, "The highlight of the season was the victory over Tatum. We were behind the whole game. With 1 second on the clock, Isfrain Gonzales had a 1 and 1. He missed the front end which could have tied it but Daniel Jordan got the rebound and put it in for the win". Obviously I kept detailed records from the very start of my coaching career and it's a good thing because if I had to depend on my memory to share this story, I couldn't do it. An example of my obsessive record keeping are these stats that I still have. Our season total points 791, opponents 806. Our Average points 49.4, opponents 50.3. For the record, the kids knew more about playing and coaching basketball than I did.