July 19, 2013
Lobo Football Season-Ticket Information
By Greg Archuleta
Assistant Director of Communications
The University of New Mexico football program held practice Thursday night. The three-hour session started off with a pre-workout meal, followed by a classroom session before an hour’s worth of drills on Branch Field in University Stadium.
This practice, however, included a lot of laughter, dancing, hugs and picture-taking.
The team hosted the annual Lobo Football Women’s Clinic, with proceeds from the event going to the Send-A-Kid Program, which pays for underprivileged youths to attend Lobo football games.
The 2013 event drew 211 eager participants, about 80 more than last year’s clinic. The women were treated like players – almost – getting an inside look of Lobo football, and members of the team were treated like rock stars.
“Each one of these things that we do in the community, our players get way more out of it than the people they interact with,” second-year coach Bob Davie said. “Last year was the first year for me of being involved with a women’s clinic. To be honest, I was a little skeptical. But after doing this twice, it’s turned out to be one of my favorite things.”
Attacking a tackling dummy is fun at any age. |
Offensive coordinator Bob DeBesse and defensive coordinator Jeff Mills showed the women some of the things they teach the team in the classroom, and the players demonstrated what the coaches were explaining.
The upstairs session concluded with a Q and A with the women, who asked some football questions and some non-football questions. One woman asked sophomore quarterback Cole Gautsche, “What do you do to keep in touch with your feminine side?”
Gautsche pointed to his flowing brown hair, which drew laughter, and then said he’s trying to learn to become a better cook.
The women also got a tour of the football team’s locker room, training room and weight room – the last location included a demonstration of how to enter, courtesy of senior offensive lineman Calvin McDowney.
McDowney whooped and hollered while doing a body shimmy for the audience, saying he was showing “a little juice,” a little excitement.
The women then spent the final hour on the field with the players and coaching staff, getting a taste of the life of a college football player.
“This was way better than I expected,” said Stephanie Kindred, a first-time Lobo Football Women’s Clinic participant who came on the advice of some friends. “This has been a wonderful experience. You get to come out here and talk to the players, touch the field, interact. It makes the experience real.”
Davie told the group his goal was for the women to get to know the players and staff on the team and see how the program is run in hopes of luring them in as fans and making them spokeswomen to others in the community about Lobo football.
He wanted them to be able to learn something about football that their husbands or boyfriends didn’t know. And he wanted them to understand how much he appreciated their help in the Send-A-Kid program.
“That’s the first thing, where the money goes,” Davie said. “Who knows? Maybe coming to a college football game and coming on to a college campus will inspire the kids we’re able to send to want to attend college, to get excited about college. That’s a no-lose situation.”
And for the first time this season, the Lobos were in a no-lose situation as well.
“I think the coaching staff did a great job,” Mercedes Ortega Kennedy said. “They found a way to relate to each of the participants through the players. The players really interacted with us and showed us what good people they are.”