High marks for Aggie athletics

As New Mexico State Athletics begins another athletic year I would remind our community of some incredible moments during the 2023-24 athletic season. Our student-athletes and coaches continued to perform at a championship level in the classroom and on the field of play.

Fifteen of our 16 teams joined Conference USA after nearly 20 dominant years in the Western Athletic Conference. Our soccer program helped us get off to a strong start as it earned its first-ever regular season conference title. In its first season in CUSA, the team put together an unbeaten record in league play. Our football program also achieved a historic feat, earning 10 wins in a season for the first time since 1960. This included impressive road wins over both New Mexico and UTEP in addition to a monumental win over Auburn to claim the program’s first win over a team from the SEC. The soccer, football and volleyball programs each reached their respective conference championship games after incredibly successful seasons during the fall semester.

We had tremendous individual performances as well, highlighted by Loma McNeese, who was named the CUSA Soccer Player of the Year; Emma Bunch, who earned CUSA Women’s Golfer of the Year honors; and Desirae Spearman, who collected recognition as the CUSA Softball Player of the Year. In total, 18 student-athletes earned first team all-conference honors. Additionally, Rob Baarts was named the CUSA Soccer Coach of the Year, Jerry Kill landed CUSA Football Co-Coach of the Year honors and Rick Pratt was named the WAC Swimming & Diving Co-Coach of the Year.

While the Aggies excelled in competition, our student-athletes continued to achieve success in the classroom. With a combined GPA of 3.12 in the fall and 3.25 in the spring, our student-athletes exceeded the 3.00 combined cumulative GPA mark for the 38th consecutive semester - a span of 19 years. Additionally, the Aggies landed 248 student-athletes on the CUSA Commissioner’s Honor Roll while 81 student-athletes were named Commissioner’s Academic Medal Winners.

This year, we also witnessed Head Men’s Basketball Coach Jason Hooten and Head Baseball Coach Jake Angier guide their programs through their first seasons. Coach Hooten led the Aggies to a 12-3 record inside the Pan American Center while the Aggies finished the season ranked first in the conference in average attendance (5,638). Meanwhile, Coach Angier led the baseball team to its highest win total in five seasons, including wins over Power Five programs Arizona and TCU. During the year, we also introduced former Aggie football player and assistant coach, Tony Sanchez, as the 36th head coach of the football program after Jerry Kill stepped down following two of the most successful seasons in school history.

Through our fans’ generous financial support, the Aggie Athletic Club pulled in an all-time record $946,459 from 992 individual donors, which is amazing considering we raised a total of $168,000 in 2015. 

Regrettably, we lost some great Aggie coaches, administrators and student-athletes last year. Our thoughts go out to the families and friends of Thalia Chaverria, Notie Pate, Linda Koch, Herb Wimberly, Bob Gaiters, Bob Jackson, Carl Dean and Greg Berry.

We have seen record crowds this season for our four home soccer matches and I would like to invite you to Aggie Memorial Stadium this Saturday at 7pm when Aggie football takes on Southeast Missouri State University.  We have $10 tickets in section TT (50 yard line) you can purchase this week through Friday at 6pm by visiting the Pan American Center box office or calling 575-646-1420, early bird concessions specials for patrons in the stadium from 5:30-6:30pm and post game fireworks.

I think it is the best deal in town and hope to see you for our home opening game.

Mario Moccia is the director of athletics for New Mexico State University.