New Mexico School for the Deaf: Roadrunners field few players
Tour of Northern New Mexico school for the Deaf: Roadrunners field few players this season
August 23, 2014
By James Barron
The New Mexican
Robert Huizar has a numbers problem, but it’s going to get better — eventually.
As the head football coach at New Mexico School for the Deaf heads into his 16th year in that position, and his 20th as a coach at the school, he is watching his program toil in an unprecedented player drought. When two-a-days began on Aug. 4, there were no more than three players at practice.
The number rose to five the following week, then seven by the start of the third week of practice.
However, he hasn’t had more than five or six players at practice, with doctor’s appointments, injuries or other things happening to keep a full team on the field.
Huizar, though, is not surprised by these developments. He expected a decline in the roster size as his middle school program did not churn out players like it had before. He also points to the enrollment at the School for the Deaf, which is skewed more toward the elementary students than middle- and high-school ones.
“We have 70 elementary school kids and only 30 or 40 high school kids for sure,” Huizar said. “We have 130 kids [the School for the Deaf], but out elementary school is huge. The school is growing, but our high school boys are small [in numbers].”
Huizar did get some unexpected help in a transfer student from Capital who showed up on Thursday. He was so new, Huizar only knew his first name — JoJo.
If the Roadrunners can get through this season, Huizar has hope that his numbers will increase once again. He has about four eighth graders who can play at the varsity level, but only one, Deven Thompson, is big enough for Huizar to consider the jump.
Thompson, who is 6-feet-4, was nursing sore feet and sat on the bench during practice because he was not accustomed to the conditioning needed to play at the varsity level.
“He’s not used to running so much, so his heels hurt,” Huizar said.
With the roster so small, the School for the Deaf elected to cancel its season opener against three-time reigning 6-man champion Lake Arthur on Aug. 29. That didn’t sit well with his veteran players — wait, make that player.
Junior Eloy Garcia was disappointed that the game was canceled, but understood why it happened. Still, he let Huizar know he was ready to go.
“I feel ready,” Garcia said through an interpreter.
“Really?” Huizar signed in reply. “You feel ready?”
“Yeah, I feel ready,” Garcia retorted. “Just saying. We should have played it.”
Garcia’s enthusiasm is infectious, but it might wane in the weight of expectations for the 5-foot-10 junior. He will be the quarterback and running back for the Roadrunners, as Huizar wants him to touch the ball as much as possible because he is the lone returner.
However, Garcia was more of an apprentice as seniors Mark Chavez and Fernando Silva handled the bulk of the offensive load. While he is not as fast as Chavez or Silva, his size will make him hard to tackle in the open field. Even though Garcia will be a marked man by opposing defenses, Huizar said one player can do a lot of damage in 6-man football.
“Remember that guy from San Jon [Danny Shetters, who played from 2004-06]?” Huizar said. “He ran the team, and had all the touchdowns for the team. I don’t have the caliber of player like him, but it can happen. You can have a star player run the team.”
What can’t happen this season are injuries. That was an issue early last season, and NMSD had to forfeit a game against the Grady/San Jon co-op team because of a lack of players. Huizar said he considered perhaps fielding a co-op team with another Class A school that didn’t have football in the Santa Fe area, but couldn’t make it happen.
“I didn’t think about talking to Waldorf, so I didn’t take any action,” Huizar said. “I think we should have. Five of them there and five of us here, it would have made for a great team.”
All Huizar and the Roadrunners can do this season is hope for good health and wait for next year, because help is on the way.
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