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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
One Cowboy's Long Ride
By Toby Smith
Journal Staff Writer
The road to college basketball success for Roman Andrade has covered three states and four different schools.
But the former Cibola High School standout says the adventure has been worth it.
"It makes me appreciate much more what I've achieved."
What Andrade has done is become the starting point for a 12-5 New Mexico Highlands team that is one game out of first place in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. This only a season after the Cowboys stumbled to a dismal 1-28 record.
"Ro's been a big part of what we've been able to accomplish here," says first-year NMHU coach Joe Harge. "We've given him an opportunity that he hadn't had since high school, and he's been phenomenal."
When Andrade left Cibola in 2005, big things were expected of him at Lamar Community College, a JC in Lamar, Colo.
"It didn't work out," Andrade says. "I had differences with the coach." After one semester, he was gone. He returned to Albuquerque and attended CNM. He worked out in a gym and on basketball courts and he worked on his grades.
In the fall of 2007, he was off to Eastern Arizona College, a JC in Thatcher, Ariz., where he stayed for a year.
"That was a good experience. I played, but not as much as I would have liked because we were so talented. We ended up winning our conference in Arizona and we took fifth in the country."
His travels ended last fall when he landed in Las Vegas, N.M. Though he knew Highlands was coming off a year of monumental struggle and disarray, Andrade also knew a new head coach, Joe Harge, was coming in with a fine track record and a fine basketball pedigree.
Harge, who took the Highlands job for the challenge of "changing the culture of basketball" at the school, immediately let the team know the style of play he wanted: up-tempo. Way, way up.
Andrade, a 6-2 junior, says that to call preseason practices tough, would be an understatement.
"Coach would get us up each day at 6 a.m. We would work out on the running track or on the football field, doing sprints, running long distances, doing repeats and agility drills. I think it lasted about nine weeks. I never got sick, but I came pretty close many times."
The result is a fit team, which is important for Andrade at point. He is averaging 34 minutes a game.
When the season began, Harge told Andrade and Andrade's roommate Chris Dunn (from Hobbs, and another peripatetic Cowboy) that they were going to be the leaders of the team. With Dallas' Rashad Peterson, the three are Highlands' tri-captains .
Andrade leads the Cowboys in scoring with 19.4 points per game and is third in the RMAC. He is fifth in assists with 4.5 points a game and fifth in the league for 3-pointers.
"I want him to shoot," says Harge. In fact all five of New Mexico Highlands' starters are in averaging double figures.
But Andrade, an exercise science major, is at the top. "He's been given a responsibility now," says Harge, "and he's making the most of it."
That's what long winding journeys can sometimes do. Friday
Men's college basketball: Fort Lewis College at New Mexico Highlands, 8 p.m.
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