End of an Era

TONY BAKER/NMTXSPORTS.COM New Mexico Junior College women's basketball coach Drew Sanders talks to his team during a time out in Caster Activity Center this past season. After 41 seasons of coaching, including the last 13 at NMJC. Sanders announced his retirement on Wednesday.

Change is coming to the New Mexico Junior College women's basketball team.

After 13 years at the helm of the program, head coach Drew Sanders is retiring. The longtime Lady Thunderbirds coach had thoughts throughout the season that just ended about walking way, but was still undecided. He made his choice on Wednesday when he announced his retirement.

 "I still love basketball, but the overriding drive to be great, has to be something that is there all of the time," Sanders said. "I have felt like I didn't have that all of the time and I didn't feel like it would be fair to the school or the program if I wasn't giving 110 percent next year."

One year after making it all the way to the NJCAA national championship game, the Lady T-Birds struggled on the court, finishing the regular season with a 19-9, but still earned an At Large bid for the National Championship Tournament.

The Lady T-Birds were supposed to have at least one more game this season after having made the NJCAA Women's National Championship Tournament, but after NJCAA officials postponed the tournament to late April last week, those same officials cancelled it, and the rest of the junior college sports season on Monday.

"It's rough in the sense that we didn't get to play in the national tournament," Sanders said. "We would have loved getting to actually play in the national tournament, but it was still a good thing that we accomplished in getting there, and of course we had some quality wins this year that I was very proud of our team for."

During his 13-years tenure with the Lady T-Birds, Sanders racked up 298 wins against 115 losses. NMJC won five Western Junior College Athletic Conference championships and two co-championships with Sanders as the coach. His Lady T-Bird teams made the NJCAA National Championship Tournament seven times, including each of the last three years.

"I have been very fortunate. (NMJC) has been a great place to be," Sanders said. "It is the best place I have ever worked and I have had a very, very good experience here and loved every year that I have been here."

Sanders didn't just coach at NMJC though. He coached 41 total seasons with 21 seasons in the high school ranks. His final coaching record is 836 wins with 403 losses.

"He is moving forward," NMJC Athletic Director Deron Clark said. "When you lose 41 years of experience, it is going to be a huge loss and then to have 41 years of that much success, I don't think there is a real replacement factor and in my mind, I can't put that kind of pressure on whoever we hire next. It is going to be a tough hole and void in our program to fill and we have bee proud to be a part of the ride."

As Sanders heads off into retirement, the now retired Lady T-Birds coach said he and his wife have a bucket list of things to do and the first thing on his list involves relocating to Oklahoma.

"The first thing on my bucket list is to try to find a place that my wife and I can call our forever home close to our grandkids," Sanders said. "They are all in Oklahoma."

Clark said that if NMJC was not shut down because of the coronavirus, he was hoping to officially open the coaching position for interested parties on the internet today.

"We have already identified that we are going to have to do the interviews, at least the first round, by skype," Clark said. "It is just not going to be practical to think we can bring somebody to Hobbs."