Meet Dusty Young, the new face of the New Mexico Activities Association

The dream was one Dusty Young believed was attainable.

After his University of New Mexico baseball career ended, he was eager to jump to the next level. This was a lifetime pursuit.

“It was me taking my baseball glove to Mile High Little League, and watching my brother play, and I knew I was gonna be a professional baseball player,” Young said. “There was nothing else I was gonna do.”

And he did, in fact, become a professional baseball player. There was no back-up plan. This was his ambition.

Following his career at UNM, Young played three years (2003-05) in the minor leagues in what was then the Florida (now Miami) Marlins organization, although he never got beyond the high Class A level.

And it was right about then that his life was about to pivot into something else, something more meaningful, even if he didn’t quite recognize what was coming. He was still locked into baseball mode.

“That was my dream,” he said. “I thought my dream had (a chance) at that point. Not even close.”

Early in 2006, Young had a conversation with a man named Mario Martinez, who was then an associate director at the New Mexico Activities Association. The NMAA wanted to offer Young a full-time job. He was working there already on a part-time basis.

“I remember vividly, we were in an office, which is now the copy room, and that was my first office here. … I had to make a decision. Am I going to go to spring training and try to keep the pipe dream alive — at that time I was playing independent ball — or should I start a career, and get a real job, so to speak?”

In March 2006, Young was hired as the NMAA’s operations manager.

“Mario told me, if you take this job, I promise you, you can make a career out of it and you’ll be here for a long time,” Young recalled.

On Nov. 1, Young, after nearly two decades filling other roles inside the NMAA offices, became its seventh executive director.

He succeeds Sally Marquez, who announced her retirement in September and whose last official day was Halloween.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what he does, but he is ready,” Marquez said. “He is very dedicated to the students of New Mexico.”

And the career that Martinez promised Young was possible has reached a pinnacle.

“To look back on that, now to be here, I’m just so humbled and honored and blessed to have the opportunity to lead this great organization,” the 44-year-old Young said. “Because to me, there’s not a better one in sports.”

Young graduated up the chain, first to assistant director in 2007, then to associate director in 2012 as he served as second in command to Marquez.

He is the face of the NMAA now — a job that is “a dream come true,” Young said. And it was those early days, he said, that helped him realize that this was what he was meant to be doing.

“As soon as I started working here at the NMAA, I knew education-based athletics were different,” said Young, a 1998 Manzano High graduate and 2003 UNM graduate. He also earned a master’s degree in sports administration from UNM. “I always thought after baseball I’d coach at the college level, or possibly the professional level, or work in a front office. I never considered high school athletics.”

The NMAA is the governing body for both high school and middle school sports and activities. It has roughly 160 member high schools.

“Spending time in this office, and seeing how passionate the staff was — and still is — it’s all about kids,” he said. “It wasn’t just work. It was having an impact on a great group of statewide individuals. And that what we do has a long-lasting effect on our future.”

As the NMAA segues at the top, Marquez and Young both say it is “in a great place.”

Young worked for the last two executive directors — Gary Tripp until September of 2012, when Marquez took over — and said their tutelage has been highly instructive.

“What is awesome is to have worked with both of them,” he said. “They’re very different when it comes to leadership style. Gary was more outgoing, a people person … and he was a very charismatic leader that made you feel welcome, made you feel like you were being listened to.

“Sally came in and she is very by the book, very strong, she is a leader who is probably the only person who could have gotten us through the COVID situation, because of her passion and her strength.”

Young’s cousin, Dana Pappas, was the NMAA’s former commissioner of officials and is now the NFHS director of officiating services in Indianapolis. She knows full well that promotion from within should serve Young well.

“Continuity, institutional knowledge, is certainly a benefit,” Pappas said. “One of the things I really love about Dusty is he is so open to new ways of doing things, and new ideas. He is so willing to listen.”

Marquez and Tripp shared an ideology about how to work with schools, Young said, something he emphasized was important to him as he slides into the executive director’s chair.

“From Day 1, both of them, they preached and promoted, we take care of all corners of the state. Doesn’t matter small or large school, rural, urban, we have to be there for them. … We need to make sure our schools all across the state understand that we are New Mexico, we are an organization that works for every school, and every single kid across our state,” Young said.

Young’s promotion, made official at the same September board meeting where Marquez announced her retirement, also includes overseeing other changes within the office.

Marquez is leaving. A longtime assistant director, Chris Kedge, is retiring at the end of the month. And the NMAA has to fill Young’s previous job, associate director.

Young said in the coming weeks he expects the NMAA to have at least one and possibly two new staffers. But Young said it is necessary to keep everything running smoothly, as he said the NMAA largely has been under Marquez and Tripp, the tumultuous COVID situation notwithstanding.

“There’s a quote I once heard that says, ‘To attain your own success, you have to allow others to succeed first,’” Young said. “Our association, our office, is a service organization. We need to prove the necessary support and resources to our member schools … so they can succeed. If they succeed, then the NMAA succeeds.”

Young, speaking about how things might look different with the NMAA, said he would take his lead from his predecessors.

“I think it’s my job to continue the success,” he said. “Doesn’t mean we can’t be better. We need to listen to our schools, and at some point in the near future, I’d like to reach out to our schools, and see what they think right now, see what the athletic directors and coaches are seeing in the trenches.”

During Marquez’s tenure, girls wrestling and powerlifting were added as official sports. What’s next? Possibly boys volleyball. Possibly girls flag football.

“Those two are definitely on our radar right now,” Young said.

Of course, the NMAA is nearly as much about activities as athletics, and, Pappas noted, Young’s foray into e-sports, chess and ROTC, creates a more well-rounded transition.

Something else that might be coming down the pike for the sports roster? Expanded seasons. Some metro baseball coaches, for example, would like the NMAA to expand to 30 games, up from 26, and have the season end near the end of May, rather than the middle of May. And to also have a later start.

“I would say we need to look at all of our spring sports, not just baseball,” he said. “We’ve talked with our superintendents and athletic directors for years about how short that spring season really is. In a perfect world, we would look to see if we can finish our spring seasons later.”

On that note, prep sports’ ever-shifting landscape is a wide-ranging topic that Young is keenly aware of as he thought about the next 10 years.

“Where is it going? I can only imagine,” he said. “The last 10 years have been a wild ride. With the changes at the collegiate level, especially with NIL and transfers and being able to go anywhere and everywhere you want, that stuff starts to trickle down. (Many people) want that one free choice (to transfer), and there are some states moving that way. We have to be ready to adapt, but at the same time we have to be ready to stick to our core values.”

One of the other items Young will have to face is one both Tripp and Marquez increasingly were forced to confront — the state of officiating in New Mexico, which is very nearly in crisis. Continuing verbal abuse of the men and women in stripes has long been cited as the primary reason states are unable to keep new — and more importantly, younger — officials to replenish the roster and eventually replace the older officials.

“What we see when it comes to numbers, it’s not a recruitment problem. Where the issue comes is those folks aren’t sticking around,” Young said. “Retention is where we need to place a lot of emphasis moving forward. We have to figure out how to get them past year two or year three.”

Pappas said Young had the right disposition to fill this job successfully.

“He’s very patient,” she said. “Steady, very fair. He’ll do what’s best for the greater good.”

Said Marquez: “He is very well equipped to take over.”

While there are sure to be some obstacles going forward, Young said the uniqueness of New Mexico reminds him of why he still finds his work so fulfilling. And why he still has so much energy.

“At the state basketball tournament, we pack the Pit,” he said. “Even our smallest communities, they bring their whole town, and that is phenomenal. I would put New Mexico high school sports up against anyone in the country, because of that passion.”