Roybal retires as Melrose football coach

MELROSE — More than two decades ago, Jimmy Joe Robinson had a coaching vacancy on his boys' basketball team at Melrose. Robinson, who'd won two titles at Melrose, needed an assistant and eventual successor. There was only one catch; the person hired had to coach the football team, too.

Fair to say it's worked out pretty well for Dickie Roybal. Now, 21 years, nine titles and 186 wins later, Roybal is hanging it up as a football coach for the Buffaloes.

Roybal, who will stay on as high school principal and athletic director, said the decision was set in motion out of a promise to attend his daughter Kiki's volleyball matches and basketball games during her senior year.

"To be at every game," Roybal said. "I've got to give up football. It's a promise I made to her."

With a career mark of 186-56, he's 10th on the career New Mexico coaching wins list - and he's done it despite only coaching the shorter seasons of six-man and eight-man football.

The Buffaloes are on a four-year title streak in eight-man football, and also three-peated from 2008 to 2010. Under Roybal, Melrose also took six-man titles in 1999 and 2004.

"We've always said success breeds success," said Superintendent Jamie Widner, who has worked with Roybal for 23 years in various positions at Melrose. "When he started here, he built that. He helped establish the tradition of excellence we have here. He preached that to the kids.

"We had a ceremony this morning. We do that every time we win a championship. This year's seniors were third-graders when we started the last back-to-back-to-back run. I told (this year's) third graders to pay attention because this could be you. That's what he helped establish, he helped build."

This year's squad went 11-0, with only two wins not coming via the 50-point mercy rule — a 48-0 win over Mancos, Colorado, and a forfeit from Springer that ended the regular season. The team outscored the 10 opponents it did play 604-58, including a 76-22 win in Saturday's title game at Mountainair.

"The thing about this team is we didn't have a superstar," Roybal said. "I would call a play and I didn't know who was in. I let them sub how they wanted to. I called a play, and whoever was in there did it. We've had better teams, but I don't think we've ever had a team come together like that."

Widner said Roybal is the type of coach a kid would run off a cliff for, and his tenure as athletic director spread the winning culture throughout the athletic department.

Widner recalled several times teams just assumed they'd beat Melrose and instead got a rude awakening — whether it was the 1999 Roy team that had a 36-game winning streak snapped or top-seeded Mountainair in 2010. That year, Widner said, Mustang faithful showed up early and had their own tailgate party at Melrose.

"They brought the whole community," Widner said. "They intended to be the state champions. We beat them 22-20 because one of our kids made an NFL-caliber catch that set us up for a touchdown that made it 20-20. Then Dickie ran a trick play for the two-point conversion."

Succeeding Roybal is Caleb King, who has been the team's defensive coordinator and started to call more of the offense as the year went on. Roybal has never let another coach call the offense.

"Coach King will do a tremendous job," Roybal said. "If I didn't think the program was going to be left in good hands, I wouldn't have done it."

King will remain as girls basketball coach, but will give up the baseball coaching position following the 2018 season.