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Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt speaks with his players during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Mountain West Conference men’s tournament Wednesday, March 9, 2016, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Shyatt, also a former UNM assistant, applauds the hire of Richard Pitino. (AP Photo/David Becker)
My first choice, John Wooden (proven winner), died in 2010. Details, details.
My second choice, Gregg Popovich, apparently couldn’t be pried away from the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. Warm and fuzzy with the media as he is, Pop would have been fun to cover.
My third choice, me, never got a call back from athletic director Eddie Nuñez. His and the program’s loss. My personal memories of the peach basket-and-ladder days could have proved invaluable.
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Minnesota head coach Richard Pitino directs his team during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Purdue in the quarterfinals of the 2019 Big Ten Conference tournament. The day after being fired at Minnesota, Pitino was hired to become the new head coach at New Mexico.
KIICHIRO SATO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. My first choice, John Wooden (proven winner), died in 2010. Details, details.
My second choice, Gregg Popovich, apparently couldn’t be pried away from the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. Warm and fuzzy with the media as he is, Pop would have been fun to cover.
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Charlie Villa, front row, third from left, poses with his 1948-49 St. Mary’s High School basketball teammates. Villa was the team’s leading scorer. He also excelled on the baseball diamond for the Cougars and later played both sports at the College of St. Joseph.
Courtesy of the Villa family
Charley Villa was a modest man, though never to a fault. If he’d had the back-in-my-day gene, what colorful stories about his athletic career he could have told.
He chose not to.
Villa, a well-known and highly successful Albuquerque restaurateur and concessionaire, died on Feb. 17 at age 90. The business career he built with his wife, Shirley, is in itself a remarkable story.