Highland High School set to induct first ever athletic Hall of Fame

Not only is Highland High School’s inaugural Hall of Fame a who’s-who of the school’s most illustrious athletes, it is a roster of some of the most prominent names in New Mexico sports history.

Three years ago, a group formed to discuss the formal addition of a Hall of Fame to the city’s second oldest public high school.

Nearly 75 years after Highland opened in 1949, there is now a Hall of Fame for its athletes and coaches. The first class will be inducted on Saturday afternoon at Highland.

“It’s been a long, tedious process, but we are very proud of our inaugural class,” said Ed Nuñez, the chairman of Highland’s selection committee.

And this first class is utterly spectacular.

It is headlined by Tommy McDonald, unquestionably Highland’s most famous athlete.

While McDonald is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame (inducted in 1998) and a two-time All-American at Oklahoma, his beginnings at Highland were brilliant. He scored 43 touchdowns in two seasons, and he also was a standout in basketball and track and field. He graduated from Highland in 1953.

There is an Olympian in this class: Cathy Carr-West (1972), who swam for the United States at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich where she won a pair of gold medals and set two world records.

She was also a multiple state champion in New Mexico and at one time held 32 different New Mexico state records. She is already a member of the Albuquerque Sports Hall of Fame, the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame and is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Legendary prep football coach Bill Gentry is also among this inaugural class, and Gentry is one of only three men who have won at least 300 games in New Mexico.

But Gentry is far from the only coach on the 2023 list. He’s got some elite coaching company.

Henry Sanchez, Highland’s longtime track and field coach (1959-83), led the Hornets to 10 state titles, plus three more in cross country. Hugh Hackett led Highland to state titles both in football (1954), and seven more in track and field. Mickey Miller was one of Highland’s original coaches in 1949, and was a head basketball coach, head baseball coach and athletic director. He already is a member of multiple Halls of Fame, and is a former AD for Albuquerque Public Schools.

The last of the coaching inductees is Elvira “Tiny” Vidano, who coached at Highland from 1949-80, and helped form and promote women’s sports in the state as one of its pioneers. She coached softball, hockey, field hockey and basketball.

There are five other athletes being inducted this weekend:

Lloyd McPeters (1965) was a three-sporter in football, basketball and track, and was superb in all three, and later played football on scholarship for Oklahoma State. In 1993, he became the first New Mexico official to work games in the NFL. He retired four years ago.

Terry “Tito” Landrum (1972) lettered in three sports — track, basketball and football — but is probably most recognized in New Mexico for being part of two World Series championship teams: the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982, and the following year with the Baltimore Orioles. Ironically, Landrum did not play baseball at Highland.

Bobby Newcombe was one of Albuquerque’s, and New Mexico’s, best-ever football talents and his list of honors and accolades in a Hornets uniform is immense. The 1997 graduate was a stellar player on the gridiron, and also on the track, where he still has a share of New Mexico’s 100-meter dash state record. He later excelled at the University of Nebraska. He played briefly in the CFL, and was a sixth-round draft pick of the Arizona Cardinals in 2001.

Jarrod Baxter, also from the Class of 1997, was a tremendous multi-sport athlete for the Hornets in football. He lettered four years at the University of New Mexico, was drafted by the Houston Texans in 2002 (fifth round), and played three seasons in the NFL. He, like Newcombe, is currently coaching football.

The last of the inductees is Art Gardenswartz (1960), who excelled as a runner on the track and on the cross country course. He later attended the University of Arizona on a track scholarship.

“It was a lot of work, and in dealing with Highland athletics going back to 1949, we (had) a whole lot of work to do to catch up and I absolutely think our first class reflects that,” Nuñez said.