It’s been over a dozen years since Northern New Mexico College introduced an athletic department and less than a decade that collegiate competition was brought to the campus and city of Española.
The returns to date are that many involved with the program believe that as well as things have gone, it may be time to expand even if the challenges loom large in doing so.
Northern launched its athletic program in 2005 and played in their first competitive men’s and women’s basketball seasons in 2009.
The program started with all but just 20 total student-athletes and since athletic director Ryan Cordova took over in 2009, he has successfully added mens and women’s golf, cross country, junior varsity basketball and cheer, all in addition to coaching the mens basketball team.
Northern president Rick Bailey Jr. was hired in October 2016 and said he’s seen growth in the athletics in his short tenure.
“Sports are really an interesting thing here,” he said. “You go to Española Valley High School basketball games and it’s packed. We don’t have the same following yet, but I have seen positive growth compared to my first year here and last year.”
Contrary to traditional athletic programs in the NCAA, Northern competes in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) — and based off the school’s location in Española, serves potential student-athletes differently.
“Seventy-three percent of our student-athletes are New Mexico kids,” Bailey said. “The athletic program at Northern isn’t designed to generate revenue, that’s not what we do. We have an athletic program that builds character in the students and provides a vehicle for students who may otherwise not come to college, especially local students. That’s what the program means to me.”
Girls basketball player Cheyenne Cordova is one of those locals, who competed and graduated from Pojoaque Valley High School.
“After high school, I went to Santa Fe Community College and then I moved to Albuquerque,” she said. “Coach Mandy (Montoya, assistant girls basketball coach) is my cousin and she persuaded me to come up here and play. This was my last chance to get back into it. I didn’t think I wanted to play after high school, but I really did and Northern gave me that chance.”
Ryan Cordova has a system he uses in recruiting that is set up to benefit athletes like Cheyenne Cordova who hail from the state that will never get looks from larger colleges, such as New Mexico Highlands University or Eastern New Mexico.
He aims to take advantage of New Mexico Lottery Scholarships and Pell Grants.
“We recruit blue-collar kids and financially-based kids,” Ryan Cordova said. “About 75 percent of our athletes are financially-based kids, which means they qualify for a Pell Grant — money they do not have to pay back. Then, New Mexico kids get New Mexico Lottery Scholarships.”
According to Ryan Cordova, these two scholarships can add up to about $8,000 for a student-athlete, per year — all money that he hasn’t touched from his scholarship budget.
This is crucial because the Eagles only have what amounts to two full scholarships for both women’s and men’s basketball.
“Two scholarships are broken down to about six kids and they each get a little bit of money,” Ryan Cordova said.
Expansion dreams
Now, his vision of the future includes the additions of other sports that Northern can accommodate accordingly, based on their budget and facilities.
“If we want to expand, we have to focus on programs that are inexpensive,” Ryan Cordova said. “It’s strategy because it’s cost-effective, but most importantly, because those are what we can accommodate with the facilities that we have. If I had money right now to start a program it would be men’s and women’s soccer. With the absence of a soccer facility, we’d have to have an agreement with the public schools to use one of the high school fields. Right after that, we’d do volleyball and soccer.”
Bailey said since working alongside Ryan Cordova, it’s very evident that expanding is on the minds of all within the athletic department.
“The idea of a football program at Northern, we know we’re not going down that road,” Bailey said. “But, I can see a future, and a near future, where we start looking at expanding and I would defer to the leadership in the athletic department because they’ve hinted at it, but volleyball and baseball or softball or wrestling (is realistic).”
Cheyenne Cordova believes additional sports would change the future for a lot more high school graduates in Northern New Mexico looking to continue competing.
“It would be nice because there’s still a lot of kids out there who want to continue to compete at the next level, but the competition is tough out there,” she said. “If we could get volleyball and the other basic sports it would be great. There is a lot of talent in the Valley and this would provide that next step for those who want to keep playing.”
Budget
Northern receives the least money for athletics out of all the four-year universities in the state of New Mexico from the Department of Higher Education, which makes expansion a towering obstacle.
For Fiscal Year 2018, which ran July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018, Northern received $246,600 for athletic funding, in comparison to $1,968,700 that New Mexico Highlands received.
According to Bailey, the state legislature gave an extra $100,000 to the four comprehensive four-year universities for Fiscal Year 2019, which will increase Northern’s athletic budget to $346,600, but there is a twist.
Bailey said, in orders from the Legislative Finance Committee, Northern is to take a $51,187 athletics budget cut (reported by The Rio Grande Sun in April), stemming from Northern’s past behavior of supplementing athletics with money from its Instruction & General fund, which Bailey said has taken place the last “seven years.”
“That 100 (thousand) extra was more than just help,” Bailey said. “It helped us save the athletic program, the way it (currently) is. If it wasn’t for that, Ryan would have had to take a $151,000 cut rather than just $51,000. ”
Ryan Cordova said a budget of $500,000 per year is what would be needed to add two more sports.
Any revenue raised in-house only comes from ticket sales, guarantee games (games where money is paid to the university to compete) against larger schools, student athletic fees and fundraising.
Fundraising is most critical, especially because there are no limits on the efforts the athletic program can put forth.
“We’ve brought in about $50,000 a year in fundraising and guarantee-games since I’ve been here,” Ryan Cordova said. “It’s a big help and huge impact on funding for the travel budget, which is $20,000 for men’s basketball and women’s and about $5,000 a year for other sports.”
Fundraising efforts mostly come through sports camps, tee shirt sales and miscellaneous events, like car washes.
Hindering growth
The closest NAIA school to Española is the University of the Southwest in Hobbs. The geographical isolation is another roadblock in the way of expansion.
Because of the seclusion, Northern competes in the Association of Independent Institutions, but Bailey and Ryan Cordova both agreed that the absence of residence halls on campus is the biggest issue.
“Dorms on campus and meal plans are two areas where the college is really missing out on revenue,” Ryan Cordova said. “Most of our players live at the Las Lomas Apartments, which is a tax-credit property, so it matches our recruiting philosophy of financially-based kids.”
Augustus Cuch is entering his senior year at Northern and competes on the men’s basketball and cross country teams — he is one of the athletes that resides at Las Lomas, often having to walk or find rides to get to campus before he had a vehicle.
“I usually walked because I didn’t want to ask people for rides because I didn’t have gas money to give them either,” Cuch said.
Aside from the commuting troubles, Cuch has had a direct negative experience from the absence of residence halls.
“Meal plans too (would have been a benefit), because when I got here, it was hard to get food here,” he said. “My mom had to send me money like every week or every two weeks. Once I got food stamps everything was better.”
Northern is currently the only four-year university in the state without residence halls on campus. Although the idea has been experimented in the past, Bailey does believe it can become a reality.
“It’s not insurmountable,” he said. “I think within the next year or two, we may be in a position where we are actually building residence halls on campus and that changes everything.”
Bailey said there are private investors in the area that are interested in building on the campus.
“That makes it a public-private partnership,” he said. “I’m not going to have to go to the state, asking them for $12 million, ‘cause they’ll kick me in the face.”
While there are certain visions and expectations for the program to grow, the reality is that Northern New Mexico’s program is still in the embryonic stage.
“We’re going to be OK,” Ryan Cordova said. “Whatever hurdles we come across, we’re either going to jump over them or knock them down — and in the end, I think we’ll have a pretty good program and continue to grow.”