Dusty Giles remembers when his team first really made a mark. In 2012, the second year of his second stint as Escalante’s football coach, the Lobos were 2-0 when they traveled to the southeast corner of New Mexico to face Jal, at the time ranked as one of the top teams in the state.
“I had been taking a lot of grief for putting them on the schedule,” Giles said.
School officials didn’t want the team to drive eight hours “just to get whooped” by the team that Giles will coach starting in 2020 after leading Escalante to three state championships.
“And we didn’t get whooped,” Giles said.
In that game, the Lobos fell behind in the first half, and Giles decided to try something different. On the first play of the second half, quarterback Reynaldo Atencio ran 62 yards for a touchdown. On the next drive, Giles said, Atencio ran for a 68-yard score. According to Maxpreps, Atencio ran for 300 yards that game and accounted for six touchdowns in the 47-25 win.
That was just the beginning for Escalante. They went 14-1 in 2012, scoring 35 points or more in every game. That kicked off a run of three state championships in four years, going back-to-back in 2014 and 2015, and finishing as runners-up in 2017.
“Honestly, we’re the team of the decade,” Giles said.
Overall, Giles went 99-35 in 12 years at Escalante, split between two stints. In his second time as coach, between 2011 and 2019, he had an 82-24 record.
Now, at Jal, he has a chance to build a program that hasn’t had a winning record since 2013, but one that he sees with a lot of potential. Giles said he wants to do at Jal what he did at Escalante.
But Giles might not have the opportunity to get a head start at Jal. His wife is a teacher at Chama Elementary School, and has to finish the school year before Giles can move.