Mountain West Cross Country Championships — Fresno, Calif.
When/Where: Friday, Woodward Park, Fresno, Calif.
Women: 11 a.m. (MT) — six kilometers; Men: 11:45 a.m. (MT) — eight kilometers
Results: GoLobos.com, TheMW.com. Live Stream: Mountain West Network
By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
Dulce, N.M. is known for excellent hunting, outstanding fishing and also for an alleged battle between members of the human race and a pack of nasty aliens from parts unknown.
Lobo Graham Thomas is hoping that someday Dulce will be known for producing something else alien to those parts: an NCAA All-American.
“That’s kind of the dream,” said Thomas a member of Joe Franklin’s men’s cross country team. “There is a board in the track offices and when I look at the board and see Gabe Aragon’s name up there with the All-Americans, it pushes me to work at making my mark here.
“I didn’t want to be just another kid who goes through college and really doesn’t do anything. But leaving my mark doesn’t mean I have to be an All-American. It could be being part of a Mountain West cross country championship or maybe doing something at the NCAA Championships.”
The MW championship thing isn’t as far-fetched as aliens living in an underground base up near Dulce. Franklin’s men will be in Fresno, Calif., on Friday looking for their sixth consecutive Mountain West title. Thomas is in the pack of Lobos chasing that 2014 crown.
He has brought points to the Lobo cause before and he is expected to do it again at the MW run.
You could say Thomas is one of those fairytale stories of success. He comes from a tiny New Mexico town located on a Native American reservation. In high school, he never ran cross country. But Thomas says there is no fairy Godmother sprinkling Never-Never Land dust on his path to success.
“I’ve worked for it,” he said. “It’s not like there was a glass slipper that I slipped on. I had to put in the time and put in the work. I’ve always been the type of athlete who, if someone tells me how to reach a goal, I’ll go out and do it.”
At Dulce, Thomas did his thing on the football field, on the basketball court and in track and field. As a senior, Thomas played defensive back and wide receiver on a Dulce team that went undefeated in regular season. He said they lost 49-0 in the first round of the playoffs.
But Thomas – a Mountain West Scholar Athlete – also was smart enough to know that any success at the D-I level was not going to come on the football field or the basketball court. When he graduated with the second largest senior class in Dulce history (49), he stood 5-foot-9 and weighed 145 pounds.
But he knew he could run. He knew he had heart.
Thomas made a few phone calls over to UNM and finally reached a Lobo assistant who gave Joe Franklin’s phone number to Thomas and the connection was made. Franklin sent Thomas a workout sheet and told him he could try out for the team as a walk-on.
But first Franklin needed to see Thomas run.
“At first, I wasn’t planning to run after high school because I just didn’t think it was possible,” said Thomas. “Some people were telling me to give it a shot, but I kind of laughed at them.
“It was intimidating when I first got that workout schedule. I told some of my friends, ‘I can’t believe I have to go out and run eight miles.’ You run for a couple of hours like that and you are too tired to do anything else for the rest of the day. I had a few moments like that, but not too many kids come from Dulce and become college athletes. I wanted to jump into collegiate athletics at the highest level and see what it was all about.
“Cross country has kind of grown on me. It’s taken a couple of years. A couple of years ago it never even crossed my mind that I might be doing this. But if my career ended right now I would be completely content.”
For sure, the Lobos don’t want Thomas’ career to end anytime soon. As a redshirt sophomore, he is putting points onto the UNM total. He also is getting better with two more years in front of him.
“If you look at my history, my past times, I have never gone through a long period of time where my progress plateaued,” said Thomas. “As long as I keep doing the small things and keep putting in the work, I know I’ll keep improving.”
Thomas was born and raised in Dulce. He won the 800 in the 2012 Class AA State Meet and was runner-up in the 1600. He said being raised in a town of “around 4,000 people,” was “interesting.”
“There isn’t much to do there. Dulce is pretty much in the middle of nowhere,” said Thomas. “It’s easy to get bored and get into trouble. There were a lot of kids getting into alcohol or drugs. I focused on sports because I wanted to get out of Dulce and see the real world. When I left Dulce I had put in ten years of football and seven years of basketball.”
Thomas has his eye on the UNM All-American board, but he also has some immediate goals. The Lobos can take nine runners to the Mountain West Championships, but only seven get to run at the NCAA level. Thomas was No. 8 a year ago for the Lobos. He stayed home.
If you pay attention to the motivation and the pride in Thomas’ voice, you know that eventually he will be running for the Lobos at nationals. Maybe this year, maybe next year, but expect it to happen.
And as for that other goal, well, if space aliens managed to find Dulce, N.M., what’s stopping Thomas from finding his way onto that All-American board in the UNM track office?
Editor’s Note: Richard Stevens is a former national award-winning Sports Columnist and Associate Sports Editor at The Albuquerque Tribune. You can reach him at rstevens50@comcast.net.