'How do we become better partners?' UNM athletics director addresses NMAA board

Dec. 4—University of New Mexico athletics director Fernando Lovo spoke briefly to the New Mexico Activities Association at Thursday's board of directors meeting, saying his department desires to foster a strong and lasting relationship with the NMAA and, by extension, its member schools.

"How do we become better partners? It's on us," Lovo said, who added, "I'm committed to being better at interacting with the high school community. We want to push the envelope."

Lovo did not offer many specifics during his five minutes in front of the board. Last week, a social media post authored by Lovo stirred some prep football fans about the future possibility of centralizing some state championship games at UNM.

But that is far from becoming reality.

"It's gonna be what our member schools want," NMAA executive director Dusty Young said. "We've talked about this for years and years, and there's still a majority of our schools that do not want to centralize state football. Until that flips, we would really need a push from our schools to say that."

Here are few other noteworthy items, besides reclassification, to come out of Thursday's meeting:

COACHING VOTING: Based on feedback from coaches, Young floated the possibility that soon the NMAA may make public how coaches vote going into the postseason; those coaches' "polls" are one of the criteria points the NMAA uses to select and seed teams.

There is a common-held belief among many that some coaches attempt to rig ballots in order to help their odds of a favorable postseason matchup.

Making everyone's individual ballot public could help stamp that out.

THIS AND THAT: With a limited number of Class 1A schools playing baseball, Young said there is thought of combining 1A and 2A in the regular season, but still having a separate Class 1A state tournament. ... Starting next year, Class 1A will get its own state cross country races. It has been conjoined with 2A for many years. ... The topic of updating NMAA eligibility bylaws (specifically related to transfers) was brought up for discussion Thursday, and is likely a subject that will appear again on future board agendas. Other states, Young said, already have a so-called "one free transfer" rule in place. "We need to adapt," he said, adding that NMAA staff will "probably have a proposal to look at in February (at the next BOD meeting)."