Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM

Rocky Long Finishes in Style

Hey All, I am a Lobos fan. I was a Rocky Long fan as well, and wish him well in his next step.
Actually, I wish Long would stay on as defensive coordinator for the team. I do have to disagree with his using the community, or the "damn fans" as his scapegoat.

Long should be happy with the progress he has made. There are a lot more fans in the stands these days than in years before (Mike Shepard days come to mind). I was at the final home game this year, and I was impressed with the turnout. I was thinking, this team is not the best we have had in the past years, but there is still a certain buzz in the stadium. The game was still exciting to watch. That says a lot about what Long has done, and it indicates the level of fan support that does exist.

There are a lot of competing entertainment choices in Albuquerque, which I find to be a very good thing. Its not some small mid-western town where all you do is go to sports games. Also, our community does have as much money as some others, so I think people pick and choose more carefully how they spend their entertainment dollars.

Perhaps Long should have pointed out the damn Mountain Network (MTN). Lets face it, people feel cheated that they have not been able to watch all Road games from their living room without paying for satellite TV. I would guess this has had a negative impact on fan support.

So, given all of the elements that make Albuquerque a unique market, a special place as Long recognizes, I would say the UNM fan base has come a long way. Lets wish Long well, and then welcome the next era in UNM sports tradition. Hopefully we will get somebody with a great respect for the damn fans that do show up.

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Permalink Reply by sophie on November 18, 2008 at 9:21am: Steve: You may wish to post a link to this from the two existing Rocky Long related blog posts.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rodney on November 18, 2008 at 11:33am: I think you may have your coaches/sports mixed up. Gary Colson was pretty successfull in The Pit. Luc Longley, Rob Robbins and a few other not so memorable names had good success here. But, they never won a WAC title, never played in the NCAA tournament. He was fired a year too soon in my opinion, by an AD (who turned out to be a crook) who thought he could get Gene Keady from Purdue, then Bobby Knight from Indiana.

Mike Shepard has the distinction of being the least successfull coach of Lobo football. He was (and is) an offensive genius, but his teams couldn't keep a YAFL senior division team out of the endzone. Losing 56-53 was common in those days (94-17 to Fresno State).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by SteveJ on November 18, 2008 at 11:48am: Yep, I meant Mike Shepard! Whoops....must be getting old! We need Mike Shepard's offense, and Rocky's defense!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robert S. on November 19, 2008 at 4:45am: yeah, and we'll (LOBOS) get stuck with Hal Mumme! ;(

Rocky is a great businessman - he inks the big new contract, leads the Lobos to one of their worst seasons under his helm, seems to slack off in recruiting (where were any good WR's to replace the two good ones we lost after last season? IMHO, it was like relying on Ferguson, Porterie and good defense this year to win). I suppose Rocky saw recruiting wasn't looking good, the Lobos will be bad the next few years, and decided to bail and get a nice around $250K payout for bailing.

The only place Rocky suffered is that his bailout pay is not as great as Mumme's will be ($350K are reports I've heard for Mumme's buyout).

Rocky should go run one of the 3 American automakers with his businessman sense. ;); ▶ Reply to This