Two northern New Mexico High School baseball fields share a name.
The Pojoaque Valley field has a sign at the press box labeling Thomas McReynolds Baseball Field.
At McCurdy’s field, behind left field, the scoreboard has a sign labeling Thomas McReynolds Baseball/Softball Complex.
The man for whom these fields are named, Thomas McReynolds, a longtime storied northern New Mexico high school coach, died on April 30 at the age of 82. Coach Mac, as he was commonly referred to, coached many sports across schools for over 40 years. He was a football player in high school, but baseball was his primary sport as a coach.
At Pojoaque Valley, McReynolds led the Elks to state championships in baseball in 1973, 1982 and 1984.
McReynolds also spent several years as the athletic director at McCurdy. His coaching tenure included since-closed schools including Española High School, Tierra Amarilla and St. Catherine’s Indian School. While nobody could remember or find the exact years he was at each school, he impacted so many along the way.
He was inducted into the New Mexico Activities Association Hall of Fame in 1992, the New Mexico High School Coaches’ Association Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Northern Rio Grande Hall of Fame in 2005.
Coach Mac coached more than long enough to see fathers and sons move through his ranks. Among them were Ronald Garcia, who attended Española High School and played football, and his son Mario, who went to McCurdy for middle school and played with the high school baseball team.
“To know that this individual had similar impacts … across more than one generation, is pretty awesome,” Mario Garcia said.
McReynolds was hard but fair on students and athletes. Ronald Garcia said he treated everyone equally, while making the game fun for everyone.
“He had a booming voice, but it was never an angry boom,” Mario Garcia said. “It was always a welcome sound.”
Justiniano Valdez said McReynolds was a great leader when the two worked together for many years with the Northern Rio Grande Conference, and it was Mac’s idea to have the girls and boys play the NRG Tournament together. Similarly, Larry Lucero said that McReynolds made a big impact with NRG, and that Hall of Fame might have meant more to him than the others.
Valdez said his favorite memory was picking McReynolds’ brain, and leaning on him for advice.
Mario Garcia remembered how McReynolds would walk into the cafeteria on a given day and announce a birthday, and sing “Happy Birthday.” He also said that, of all the coaches he played baseball under, McReynolds was the best coach, while trying different positions and letting Garcia rest his arm.
Dee Dee Heffner, a longtime staff member at McCurdy, called him an “unofficial dean of students” given the way he could relate to children, even in his later years as an educator.
“Everybody in Northern New Mexico knew him,” Heffner said. “He was a true Norteño.”
Many who knew him though, like Lucero, mentioned stories that “I don’t know if that’s printable.”
Longtime McCurdy baseball coach Roberto DeVargas recalled one story: McReynolds became known for saying to a player who missed a ground ball, or otherwise was not paying attention, “What you doing with a mouth full of teeth?”
DeVargas never understood the idiom. Until one day, he was laid out on the coach for a nap, mouth wide open. Teeth on full display. He thought to himself, “Oh, mouth full of teeth. I get it now.”