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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Is There Anything This Guy Doesn't Do?

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
       Mountainair High’s Mathew David Chavez is the Mountain View Telegraph’s 2007-08 male prep athlete of the year.
    “Back in the old days, he would have been called ‘Mr. M,’ ” said Kevin Reese, the Mustangs’ boys track and field coach. “He was the best at everything.”
    Chavez — a 5-foot-10, 230-pound football quarterback and defensive linebacker and punter, basketball post and power forward, and thrower in track and field — was the man at Mountainair his entire high school career. Here’s why:
    n Chavez guided the ’Stangs to the 2007 state eight-man football title with a 38-26 victory over Animas on Nov. 24. It was Mountainair’s first state championship since it won the six-man crown in 1992.
    n Chavez had 136 tackles, 589 rushing yards and 1,329 passing yards to lead the Mustangs to a 12-0 record in 2007.
    n Chavez, in four years of work, the first two in six-man football, garnered a total of 384 tackles, gained 1,685 yards on the ground and threw for 3,682. Mountainair was 38-8 from 2004 through ’08, the ’Stangs did not lose a district game the past three seasons, and they advanced to the state semifinals in 2004 and ’05 and were the state runners-up in 2006.
    n Chavez was the all-state eight-man defensive player of the year his final season, and he was the starting quarterback for the winning West team during the all-stars game in Ruidoso on May 31.
    n Chavez won the Class 1A boys state title in the javelin throw as a senior, and he was the 1A state discus champ, get this, as an eighth-grader.
    n Chavez was the president of his school’s National Honor Society club, and to top it all off, he was the senior class valedictorian with a 4.0 grade-point average.
    “He’s smart,” Mountainair fourth-year football coach Robert Zamora said in August. “He knows what I’m thinking. He communicates that to the other players. He’s like another coach on the field. He just knows stuff.”
    The numbers don’t begin to encompass the impact Chavez had at Mountainair. He also led the basketball team in rebounds and was a drummer in the school band.
    “He did amazing things,” Zamora said last week. “When he was a freshman, he took on a leadership role, and he went on to start all four years at quarterback. He has set the standard high. … Then this year, he took on a different role. He eagerly shared the spotlight and was in more of a teaching role. It was like, ‘Here, I’m going to pass it on to you guys.’
    “He’d stay after practice and work with the kids that never got to play, like the kickers,” Zamora continued. “He’d say, ‘Let’s work on this.’ He’d be out there for 45 minutes after practice with them. Nobody told him to do that. It was natural leadership. It really was a privilege to coach him.”
    A number of college football teams showed interest in the 18-year-old. The programs included Princeton, Harvard, LSU, Army and Eastern New Mexico University.
    But Chavez, who lives in Manzano, has chosen to stay closer to home and said he will attend the University of New Mexico. He plans to major in engineering, and he fully intends to give it his best shot as a Lobo walk-on.
    “It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of dedication to walk on,” Chavez said during a recent interview at Mountainair’s Ancient Cities Cafe. “I’m just going to try. I don’t want to not try and later regret it. I’ve always wanted to play college football. I’m just hoping football and my classes won’t be so overwhelming that I can’t handle it.”
    Chavez credits the support he’s received from his family and his girlfriend of nearly four years, Kendra Aguilar, for his successes. He is the son of Paul and Juanita Chavez, and he has two sisters, Monica Chavez and Sarah Garcia, and a brother, sophomore-to-be Martin Chavez.
    “My parents were unbelievable,” Mathew Chavez said. “You couldn’t have asked for anything more or better from them. And Kendra, she’s always helped me out with my classes and homework.”
    Chavez, always the optimist, said he enjoyed every minute of his high school years.
    “I can’t think of a time I was really down,” he said. “I always had a great time. I always tried to enjoy everything I did. Next year, there will be some movement in the players’ roles. Some new leaders will have to step up.”ze=1>