Heading Home

New Mexico Junior College is losing another head coach as Jimmy Durham, skipper of the Thunderbirds' baseball team has tendered his resignation, effective at the end of his contract in early May.

The T-Birds' skipper said he started really feeling the need to return home back in the fall, well before the coronavirus started affecting sports and everyone.

"I need to get back down

(to the Houston area) to be with my kids and my dad who is 90-years-old," Durham said. "I just need to spend some more time with them. I think it is time for me to spend all the lost time I never got to spend with him and my kids."

Durham said he informed NMJC administration he was resigning about a month ago, but planned to finish out the season. The season was slated to run through May, but the NJCAA cancelled all spring sports, thus ending the T-Birds' season early.

This was Durham's second stint at NMJC. He coached under Hall of Fame coach Ray Birmingham and was on the staff when Birmingham guided the T-Birds to Western Junior College Athletic Conference (WJCAC) championships in 2002 and 2005 as well as winning the 2005 NJCAA national championship.

"I wouldn't have wanted to come back to any other place," Durham said. "I felt like this was my second home and the people in Hobbs are absolutely off the charts awesome. This was where I wanted to finish because this is what brought me some of the greatest moments in my baseball career as an assistant coach."

Durham came back to NMJC in 2016 as the head coach and guided the Thunderbirds' baseball team for four seasons, winning 125 out of 195 games for a .641 winning percentage. He skippered the T-Birds to two 40-plus win seasons, one WJCAC championship (2017-18), and one appearance in the 2018-19 Junior College World Series.

"As a head coach, (NMJC) has brought me some of my best moments ever," Durham said. "It was good. It was fun being back and it was really the only place I wanted to come to and I got that opportunity. I am very thankful."

His first year at the helm, the T-Birds went 35-23 and finished third in the WJCAC. The T-Birds made the Region V Tournament, but lost two of their three games and were eliminated by McLennan College.

 A year later, Durham's T-Birds went 40-17 and won the WJCAC championship, but were two-and-done in the Region V Tournament, and once again eliminated by McLennan College.

Last year, NMJC finished second in the WJCAC while finishing with a 42-17 record. After being eliminated by McLennan College the previous two seasons, the T-Birds ended the Highlanders season and advanced to the NJCAA World Series. Unfortunately for the T-Birds, they lost both of their games.

The T-Birds' skipper didn't have a great end to his tenure as NMJC played only 21 games in the 2019-20 season, finishing at 8-13. However, NMJC was 4-0 in WJCAC play when the season was ultimately cancelled because of COVID-19.

"I don't consider it a season since we didn't finish," Durham said. "But, it was a hard way to finish. I would have rather finished it out, but we kind of finished it out in that they (the NJCAA) just said that it was the way it was going to be for everybody."