What’s old is new again at McCurdy as 2025 turns into 2026.
Bobcats’ former athletic coordinator and football coach Robert Nevarez is back after an absence of more than year and he already has a full plate in front of him.
“I’ve always been a fan of McCurdy,” he said. “I never completely left when I stopped teaching and coaching there. I’m still on the Friends of McCurdy Board and I never completely cut ties. I still had friends and former athletes at McCurdy that I kept in contact with. I just wanted to help the school out. I knew there were some challenges in the athletic department. I had a little extra time and I had the ability to help out. So I reached out and I just offered my services to see if I could get the athletic department heading back in the right direction.”
McCurdy School Director Sarah Tario said Nevarez was chosen from three candidates and it was a fairly easy choice just because of his prior connection with the school.
“Rob stands out because he brings a lot of experience to the role,” she said. “He not only knows sports, but he knows the students and community. He has been a coach and so he understands their needs and can provide support and guidance. He knows the (New Mexico Activities Association) and the school policies and he is committed to the goals of the charter school. He has a strong belief in student potential and he shares our focus on emphasizing that our athletes are students first. He is also someone that has done the AC job before, so he was able to get started right away, allowing for a smooth transition.”
First on his agenda will be fixing the football program, Nevarez said, starting with finding a new head coach.
“That is a big priority,” he said. “We have a reputation to rebuild. We have a black eye from what took place last season. A couple of forfeits (three), what happened in our homecoming game (a brawl among the teams). So we have a reputation to rebuild but that is one of my larger goals is to bring in somebody who can develop that program long-term. We started that search, the job is already posted. There is interest out there, but we’re going to give it a little more time to see how many other candidates are interested.”
A military veteran who retired and became a stock broker, Nevarez was recalled to active duty following the 9/11 tragedies and saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When he got out of the service again, he looked to fulfill another one of his desires by getting into education.
“It was a bucket list thing to do teaching and coaching,” he said.
But last year, Nevarez returned to his previous career in financial services, which he will continue to do while taking on the many duties of being the athletic/activities coordinator.
Among those duties is making sure the athletes understand the importance of not just their athletic pursuits, but also their academic achievements.
“One of my biggest things is the development of the student athletes not just from a physical standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint and an academic standpoint,” Nevarez said. “I believe that you cannot be an elite athlete if you don’t develop all three.”
With that being said, “my big focus was grades,” he said. “I believe that if you’re going to be an effective football player or basketball player, or track athlete or volleyball player, whatever sport you participate in, you have to develop mentally as well as athletically. So we will have an emphasis on academics.”
Several years ago, he noted, McCurdy had 21 inductees into the National Honor Society and 19 of them were athletes.
“I want to bring that same success level every single year to McCurdy,” Nevarez said.
He also will oversee the construction of a new basketball floor in the gym. The old one suffered rain damage from leaks, and while it was repaired enough to play on this season, as soon as the season is completed, the floor will undergo wholesale reconstruction.
Likewise, the football field has been an ongoing project that began before this season, forcing the Bobcats to play their home games at Española Valley High School. While the field is in good shape now, new bleachers are on tap, as is a rejuvenation of the overall facility, including the field house, he said.
Down-the-road projects include the possible acquisition of the neighboring baseball and softball fields and modernizing those, as well as new locker rooms in the gym, to bring all of McCurdy’s athletic facilities into the modern era.
Nevarez also wants to strengthen the school’s club activities with more support and to add more opportunities for the students, like a chess club and a business club.
It’s all in keeping with a vision that Nevarez and Tario share.
“I would love to see our athletic program continue to build and flourish,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of success, with several teams and athletes performing at a very high level. I want to build on that success. It’s difficult to maintain a full athletic program as a small K-12 charter, but if we can build community support, I know that we can be competitive on the field, court and track, while also being fiscally sound and sustainable. I want all our athletes to feel like a part of a program that is focused on building them up to be successful as people long after they hit their last shot, score their last point, or run their last race. I know that Rob also supports these goals and will bring a commitment to the community and excellence into the role.”