If there’s one thing new Mesa Vista High School cross country coach Raymond Chavez knows, it’s running.
Surprisingly, his knowledge doesn’t come from experience as a coach — as a matter a fact, this is the first coaching job for the 22-year New Mexico National Guard veteran.
“I’m familiar with running because that’s what we did a lot in the army,” Chavez said. “I’ve even run a couple marathons down in White Sands at the Bataan Memorial Death March.”
On the verge of retirement, Chavez was still interested in having his time filled.
“I was just looking for anything to do,” he said about why he applied for the job. “I’m getting ready to retire and I thought what better way than to coach and help out kids.”
Chavez said he was the only applicant for the job and the timing of being hired so late has put him a bit behind the eight ball.
He recently visited girls basketball coach Bobby Romero’s open-gym at Mesa Vista to meet some of the girls expected to come out for cross country.
“Some of the girls are on the fence,” Chavez said. “I’m not sure what kind of turnout we’ll get on the girls side.”
Senior Abrianna Griego said she will be back— and is coming off a first-place finish in the 400-meter dash at the 2018 state track championships. She is determined to return to form in cross county.
“My goals for cross country this year would just be to improve my times and see where that puts me,” she said. “I got close to placing (at state) my sophomore year, but my times were slow last year.”
Griego is optimistic about coach Chavez’s arrival, even though the roster is still uncertain.
“From my understanding, we won’t have too many girls, but I’m excited to see some new girls coming in,” she said. “It’s always a challenge getting used to new coaching methods, but everyone has the potential to do good and I’m eager to see what else we can learn from the new coach.”
Griego admitted to letting her mind become a distraction last year, but is set on changing her outlook for her final season.
“After I realized I wasn’t improving, my attitude toward the sport became really negative and I know that didn’t help either,” she said. “I only hope I can change that this year and see what results come from it.”
For the boys team, Chavez is stepping into a group returning plenty of talent from last year’s runner-up team at state for 1A/2A.
Brian Gollas is the only senior that graduated. His younger brother, Daniel Gollas, is entering his junior year and had the second best time at the state meet for Mesa Vista and finished 15th overall individually last season.
“Right now we can’t expect too much,” Daniel Gollas said about the upcoming season. “Me right now, I’m slowly working my way back (into training) but were gonna try to work our hardest to get there (again).”
Given they decide to run again, the rest of the boys team will return Damian Trujillo, Anthony Vigil, Alejandro Trujillo, Jose Trujillo and Adam Garcia.
Former coach Jennifer Espinoza had been with Mesa Vista since 2015, but moved out of the area and was unable to commute back in forth to Ojo Caliente, according to Daniel Gollas.
“We had a good bond with her and knew how she was and now that’s going to change,” he said. “We don’t know if training or going to be more intense or less intense.”
Coronado High School did not respond to emails and/or calls for information on their teams and athletes to formulate a preview.