If I had forgotten just how much high school basketball means to Northern New Mexico, I was vividly reminded of it while looking for a parking space for the championship game of the Northern Rio Grande tournament Jan. 10 at Pojoaque. I cruised down row after row of tightly packed cars before giving up and parking on the shoulder of an access road and walking several hundred yards to the gym.
And I was 30 minutes early for the scheduled start of the championship. I have no idea where the people who came after I did parked, maybe all the way out on the road to Los Alamos.
It just illustrates how tightly knit the communities in Northern New Mexico are and how basketball brings them together. There’s a part of me that is amazed that so many people don’t have something better to do on a Saturday night, but in the small communities that most of these teams came from, basketball is what fuels the conversation during the long cold winter days. What better way to forget about the deep snow and sub-zero temperatures than to be in a packed gymnasium filled with lots of familiar faces watching your sons, grandsons, nephews or friends compete on the floor. The communities of Peñasco and Ojo Caliente must have been practically deserted.
I thought about the lessons that athletes learn when participating in these games and hope that they are the ones worth learning. After all, there can be only one winner, but winning is not what it’s all about.
I thought back to how I felt when I went out for high school sports. I really didn’t care whether we won or lost, but I did care about being part of the team. I cared more about my participation than the result.
Let’s face it, life is going to kick you in the teeth somewhere along the line. Learning to deal with setbacks is just as important as learning to deal with success. Sports can be the vehicle that teaches you the lessons of trying to do your best, but sometimes your best won’t be good enough The rewards of teamwork and camaraderie are things that will last a lifetime after the cheers of the crowd have long since faded away.
So, despite a few misgivings, I embrace the fanaticism of Northern New Mexico high school basketball fans. It helps to tie families and communities together. I like knowing some of the history behind the faces I see in the crowd and hope that thread that holds Northern New Mexico together stays strong.
Still, I sometimes wonder that the tie that binds also can be the chains that hold us down. I see too many of the faces that I saw on the court not long ago just hanging out at basketball games. Rather than spread their wings and fly, too many of our young people are content to fold their wings up after high school is over.
I’d just like to see a sense of adventure from the young men and women I see participating in sports in the north. They seem to feel as if high school is the end of something, when it should be a beginning. Their athletic dreams may be gone, but they need to realize that there are new dreams to be chased after and other goals then a state championship to be sought. Sports can teach you how to dream, but it should not be an end to them once they’re over.