Sports Writer/designer, Las Cruces, NM

Well, Las Cruces is a step up for the scribe in question. I'd cover NMSU over NMMI any day of the fucking week. I know Songbird liked covering NMMI because the beauty of Songbird is that he likes all kinds of things most people would hate. Either that or he was on so many drugs that NMMI just seemed like a fun school to cover. Or a combination of the two. Well, congrats to the Roswell alum. They must be proud over that the Daily Record.

 

Something about going into Cahoon Armory for a women's juco volleyball match and seeing bleachers full of male cadets dressed to the nine in their uniforms and branding shiny swords and unleashing male curiosity in the form of the crudest sailoresque verbose you've ever heard.

NMMI is one of the special campuses.

And yes, writing i, I enjoy doing the things most people would hate. Some days I had to make special trips to Chiahuita to get in the right state of mind, though.

 

I never covered anything but basketball during my extremely brief RDR career. The NMMI games I went to were miserably under-attended: A few pimply-faced cadets watching glumly and more or less silently as the home team got the shit kicked out of it. Clearly, I caught Roswell during a down time. And I was very sober in that town as well, which didn't help.

 

Did Felix Chavez (I think that was his name, I'm not very focused tonight) leave?

NMSU would be a decent beat in hoops, football and baseball. They've sunk some money into the athletic department lately, with the help of the state. Don't know how much they travel. It's a Gannet paper.

La Posta in Old Mesilla is at least worth a trip there for an interview.

 

The perk about this job is watching Las Cruces High and Mayfield High in football. Onate, which is the stepchild school of the city, isn't so bad, either. But I was at the Cruces-Mayfield 5A championship game at Aggie Stadium, packed cheek-by-jowl with 35,000. Great game, too: protoge's team beat mentor's team (mentor coached protoge at Roswell High).

 

Songbird - is this a good first job for someone? With good writing and hard, tough work, where can someone expect to be in 2-3 years? For someone with big-time aspirations, how does this fall?

I've heard good things, I just don't know if it's all true...

 

here's the deal: i'll get clean when you stop licking sack.

 

All I have to add about Las Cruces is the bars close at midnight on Sundays, no matter if Boise Fucking State is playing there or not. A real party killer.

 

Roswell? I'd encourage anyone ready to start in this biz to work in Roswell for a year or 2.

Las Cruces? I didn't work there but went there a handful of times to cover games. Yes, I'd say it's a good starting point, too. "Big-time" doesn't happen right away unless you're an effin' stud; maybe you are. For the first 2-3 years just enjoy starting low and working your ass off. It's a long journey to the top. Learn how to cover a 14-12 softball game that features 7 hits, 22 walks and 17 errors before you envision sitting in press row at the Super Bowl presser asking coaches if they're going to run the "Cover-2." Boy, howdy, how that must be fun.

 

Is this paper tied into the El Paso Times? I thought I heard the two papers share copy.

 

Yes it is. Not exactly sure of their working agreement, however.

 

Not a great product to be tied into. But the views to the north of Las Cruces are outstanding.