Vision: The Latest from A.D. Eddie Nuñez

Lobo Nation, 

Happy 2020! I hope you enjoyed the holiday season with family and friends.  The past year provided plenty of welcome wins and opportunities, but also forced us to face some very tough losses and personal challenges.  All left us with a deeper sense of the value of life and our roles in encouraging and supporting one another.  

As a department, we have accomplished quite a bit in 2019 and I want to thank all our Lobo Club members, fans, faculty, staff, parents, and alumni for their ongoing passion and commitment to UNM. As we enter 2020, I would like to let everyone know how excited and optimistic we are on the future of Lobo athletics. Let’s take a moment to recognize the achievements of our student-athletes both on the field and off. They have represented our school, our state, and our communities well. 

2019 National Champion Weini Kalati

As we enter the new decade, I want to acknowledge some of our successes and remembrances from 2019: 

• A total of 267 student-athletes were recognized at our spring banquet for a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or better. Our women’s golf team led the nation in GPA, and the Lobo football team had its highest GPA in program history;  2019 Fall Graduates
• For the ninth consecutive year, every program was above the NCAA mandated mark for APR scores (five finished with perfect scores) and we improved our Graduation Success Rate (GSR) to 80%. 
• We pushed our streak of at least two Academic All-Americans to 16 consecutive years.  Over the last five years, UNM is seventh in the nation among all 351 Division I institutions in total Academic All-America selections with 28. With the assistance of our extraordinary academic staff at the UNM Student Success Center, Lobo student-athletes led the Mountain West in Scholar-Athlete selections for the eighth consecutive year with 135 student-athletes recognized. 
• UNM won team Mountain West titles in men’s tennis, men’s golf and women’s cross country. 
• The women’s cross-country team placed fourth at the NCAA nationals, marking its third top-four finish in four years.  UNM’s streak of 10 straight Top-10 finishes in the longest streak in the NCAA. Weini Kelati won an NCAA individual cross country national title, UNM’s second individual champion in the last three years in the sport.
• Our women’s indoor and outdoor track and field team had its highest finishes in program history, and for the second straight year finished as the top non-Power 5 conference school at the NCAA championships. Weini Kelati captured a national title in the women’s 10k.  We look forward to seeing what Weini and the Lobo team will accomplish in the future. 
• The Lobo men’s golf team MW title was highlighted by an individual win for Galven Green, who edged teammate Sean Carlon in a playoff for the individual MW championship. 
• The Lobo men’s basketball team capped the year with a perfect 10-0 record at home. If you haven’t been to a recent game at Dreamstyle Arena – The PIT, then you are missing out on a lot of excitement. Tickets are available and I look forward to seeing you there! 
• Lobo faithful are also enjoying a great start in our in-state battles with rival New Mexico State University. Currently, our Lobos have swept them in men’s and women’s basketball and cross country, and have bested them in football, women’s soccer and men’s golf. We hope to continue this streak into our spring schedule. 

Danny Gonzales

Off the field, we have made some department changes intended to better our position for future successes on it. We welcomed new head coaches in volleyball (Jon Newman-Gonchar), swimming and diving (Keegan Ingelido) and women’s tennis (Vicky Maes), and welcomed back a familiar face to our Lobo family, new head football coach Danny Gonzales. The excitement and leadership our coaches and teams are building will be a source of pride for New Mexico for years to come. 

We also welcomed several new administrators and staff members to the athletic department, and have partnered with a new sponsorship group, Outfront Media Sports (UNM Sports Properties), and a new ticketing system team (Paciolan), to help us better serve all of our constituencies. 

The Lobo Club also saw some positive changes in 2019 and also saw successes in fundraising. As part of the restructuring, we enhanced the Lobo Club staff to provide greater donor services, improve our fundraising efforts and increase our community presence. We are not yet where we strive to be, but our staff is working diligently every day to achieve our goals. We also incorporated the Alumni Lettermen Association within the Lobo Club umbrella and now we house the entire Lobo Club staff and administration directly under UNM athletics and one roof. 

Through our Lobo Club, we are able to provide our student-athletes, coaches, and support staff the resources needed to build championship programs. With donor and member support, the Lobo Club provides the resources to enhance mental health and nutritional programs and fund the world-class educational opportunities necessary to recruit and retain some of the best student-athletes in America and the world. If you are not a Lobo Club member already, you should acquaint yourself with their programs and opportunities. I think you will find it a unique way to support UNM athletics effectively and enjoyably. 

For all the accomplishments and highlights from 2019, the UNM Lobo family also suffered some great personal losses. We shared in grieving and in remembering the lives and contributions of many great Lobos. From former players, administrators, fans, supporters and especially two student-athletes, Jackson Weller, from the Lobo baseball program and Nahje Flowers, from the football program. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with their families and friends, along with our assurances that their losses are also ours, and that the lives and contributions of those we’ve lost will not be forgotten. 

The highs and lows of 2019 remind us of OUR unique role in the community as a source and a representation of the spirit, engagement, inspiration, support, and, of course, excellence. We are encouraged by the commitment of our student-athletes and our coaches on the focus to build and get better every day. On behalf of our student-athletes, their families, the state of New Mexico, and myself, I want to thank each of you for your interest and contribution to the Lobo program.  I truly believe the pieces are in place for an outstanding 2020!  

Thank you and Go Lobos!  

Eddie Nuñez
Director of Athletics