Jason Binion, who played football and coached at Escalante High School, was the athletic director at Coronado High School, and most recently athletic director at Cuba High School, died on Sept. 17 at the age of 44.
Binion grew up in Tierra Amarilla. At Escalante, he was an all-star football player. He coached football at Bernalillo High School and later at Escalante.
“All the small schools knew who Jason was,” Adair said. “He’s been an advocate for small-school football and small-school sports in New Mexico for many years.”
Binion always enjoyed talking about his time at Escalante, said former Cuba football coach Gilbert Dominguez.
While the athletic director in Cuba, Binion also took on the role of teacher in physical education, health, and weights, in addition to also being the football team’s defensive coordinator.
His 20-year-old son, Robby, who also played two years of football at Escalante, was also an assistant on the staff this year, and will take on some of the roles his father had with the team.
“Big shoes to fill for me,” he said. “It was good to spend some extra time, and I got to see a different side of him. A little more willing to joke around. It was fun. He taught me a lot in just the few months I’ve been working with him.”
Binion had suffered tragedy in his life. Older brother Bobby died in 1996 at 24. And Ronald Binion died last October.
“He had an ability to make the people around him know that he cared about them,” said first-year Cuba head coach Joshua Adair. “I was definitely one of those people who felt that Jason cared about me to a large degree.”
With Binion, Adair held Cuba’s first summer football program in years, which paid dividends when they team started the year 2-1.
Adair said Binion was a great mentor and also assistant coach, who would help however he could without needing to push his own agenda. Though Adair also found himself in an awkward spot having Binion as both his boss as athletic director and his assistant on the football team.
“We had a joke between the two of us that we would say, ‘How am I your boss, but you’re my boss at the same time?’” Adair said. “It wasn’t necessarily a boss relationship, it was more of a friendship.”
Similarly, Gilbert Dominguez, the former football coach and now the principal at Cuba, had Binion as an assistant after previously being an assistant on Binion’s staff, and while having his assistant coach as his athletic director.
“He was great to work with,” the former coach said. “He was very calm, very understanding. Always listened, had an open-door policy. But when he made his decision, he stuck to his decision.”
Dominguez remembers one practice where Binion squared off in a drill as a quarterback.
“And he takes off running, and I’m like, wow, I haven’t seen Binion do this in years,” Dominguez said. “And I see this kid take him out. Just submarine chops him, and Binion goes down. And he gets up and tells the kid, ‘No, no, you’ve got to do this. We’re going to do it again!’”
Cuba won a district championship last year in Dominguez’s last year before moving into higher administration, and he said Binion was a big reason why.
Those close to him said he was influential not just in the school, but also in the community and with the Immaculate Conception Church.
“Just a really caring, caring individual, and a good person that loved football,” Adair said. “He absolutely loved football.”