For the first time in 13 years, the New Mexico Activities Association voted to add a high school sport.
Without disagreement, the board of directors of the NMAA voted Wednesday afternoon to make powerlifting an official sport beginning in the 2023-24 school year.
A creation born out of the pandemic, powerlifting has been more of an activity than a sport for the past two school years.
It will remain an activity in 2022-23.
This year’s state championships were recently held at Rio Rancho High. The first official season of powerlifting as a sport will run from January to April 2024.
The last time the NMAA Board of Directors voted to allow a new sport was December 2009, when Spirit (cheerleading/dance) was promoted from activity status.
The first national competition in spirit – as a sport – took place in spring 2011.
At the recent state powerlifting event, medals were awarded in 12 boys and 12 girls weight classes.
Among the boys who earned the first-place medals were Cleveland high running back Josh Perry and soon-to-be Boise State bronco Roger Carreon of Jal.
Rio Rancho and Cleveland went 1-2 in the boys’ championship. Lovington and Cleveland were the top two girls teams. Points were distributed to teams based on individual placements. A first place finisher was worth seven points for his team, second place was worth five points, and third (three), fourth (two) and fifth (one) places were also worth points for the team.
A total of 22 boys’ teams and 19 girls’ teams took part in the competition, according to the NMAA.
Wednesday’s board meeting was the last of the 2021-22 school year and the board listened to a busy and diverse agenda.
Among the other action (vote) items, the Board considered:
- The number of 8-man football qualifiers will be increased from six to eight starting next season;
- All-Star events continue to be played throughout the academic year, with the exception of baseball and softball, which take place immediately after the end of the year.
Buster Mabrey, executive director of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association, said athlete participation was estimated at a healthy 95% this most recently completed school year;
- There will be a major overhaul to the NMAA’s tie-breaking criteria: the strength of the schedule will be used to break a tie if one exists AFTER the NMAA’s six criteria points have been applied.
Head-to-head remains the first groundbreaking measure, but if two schools don’t meet, the schedule for strength will now be next – instead of MaxPreps.com’s overall ranking.
Up for discussion
There were several interesting points discussed on Wednesday that could eventually become points of action.
One of those articles was about state football. The NMAA, Executive Director Sally Marquez told the board, is consulting with schools on how to proceed regarding the dates and location for the six championship games.
The University of New Mexico complex, which played title games in Classes 5A, 4A and 1A-3A last November, will be unavailable for the first week of November.
This is usually championship week for the high schools, but the UNM women is scheduled to host the Mountain West Conference tournament this week, November 1-5.
The choice for the NMAA member schools is as follows: play the state finals on November 4 or 5, but play them at an artificial-turf venue — Cleveland High was mentioned as the location, and Cleveland will have a new turf this year — or maybe push the entire pre-season football calendar back a week if UNM’s pristine grass pitch would be available in the second full week of November.
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