'History of New Mexico Soccer' four years in the making

Although many New Mexico United supporters may believe that the USL Championship League team has marked the birth of soccer locally, the sport actually has a long and storied history in the state.

Fans of the beautiful game can now read about it in a local author’s collection of anecdotes and personal memoirs.

Thomas C. Renfro’s “The History of New Mexico Soccer and Related Stories,” (Amazon, $18.99) was four years in the making, he said.

“First, I looked in the internet to see if anybody had done a history of New Mexico soccer. Of course there’s nothing,” he said. “No. So I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to just start writing down names.’”

Within minutes, that list reached 20 names, providing the framework of the interviews Renfro would conduct — eventually amassing information from 70 personal sources that included former players, coaches, administrators and even referees.

In writing the book, Renfro said he was struck by the influence of other cultures on the sport’s development here. This is represented on the book’s cover, where the flags of the nations mentioned within are pictured.

“I went back and I listed all the countries I mentioned in the book. Look at how many: 57,” he said. “So I made the frame out of all those countries’ flags because that’s what made us so good. We had these incredible international soccer players here early, just out of luck. Well, it (was) just because of the geography of being a crossroads of the continent, and then some killer things happened in (the) 1960s.

They happen then that the Pelé effect, then you had all the international students being able to get visas here. So this flood of international students, and then the international club started and so they had a chance to get together. And bingo, the fire was lit.”

Renfro’s apartment is a veritable time machine of soccer lore, both local and international — he spent two decades living and coaching in Guam, building national programs virtually from scratch. He also was a part of the University of New Mexico men’s program as it transitioned from club to varsity status.

He coached high school, club and Olympic Development Program soccer in New Mexico.

So Renfro lived a good part of the history, as well, which was part of his motivation for doing the book.

“I wanted to know what my impact was on this thing because I’ve been living it,” he said. “I was born when soccer was born. I was born in 1959 four blocks away from where it was born in 1962, Johnson Gym field. I mean, that’s good enough just to write the book, because I’m paralleling the game almost to the day. So the first 10 years I didn’t know anything about so I had to go really research it. But I wanted to see my impact on it.”

He also wanted it on the record for those who have been instrumental in growing the game here and be recognized for what they have accomplished.

“Because if I don’t write this book, these people will never see it,” Renfro said. “Who knows if somebody in the future will ever write it? I don’t think anybody is positioned in such a way to do that as well as me because I took part in a lot of these things. I was in it.”

But bringing in others to tell their story was a key to the project.

“I just started interviewing all those people that I wrote down,” Renfro said. “And then they told me about other people and they turned into other people. I mean, some interviews gave me clues to other people to interview. And I realized that I didn’t want to write third-person accounts of stuff or second-person accounts of stuff.”

And that meant calling on their expertise on others who knew more about other aspects of soccer besides just his experiences.

“I was busy with the men, and playing and coaching and getting my licenses and all that,” Renfro said. “I didn’t know what’s going on with the women. I didn’t know what’s going on with referees, with the administrators. And so I relied on them to write their stories. So 20% of the book is written by other people. And I didn’t need to be the translator. I just asked them, would you just write down your story and I’ll put it in.”

Putting the book together became so much more than simply recording history, however.

“This is the best project I ever could have done, because look what I’m doing. I’m reconnecting with all these people that I know, which is tremendous for soccer,” Renfro said. “And everybody I interviewed, I signed and gave them a book. It’s like being Santa (over) 40 times.”