New Mexicans Dooley, Mabrey inducted into national high school coaches hall of fame

Mount Rushmore was just a few miles down the road. So maybe it was fitting that two of New Mexico’s most important contributors to high school athletics should become Hall of Famers so close to the actual monument.

Frank Dooley and Thomas “Buster” Mabrey of New Mexico were among the 39 inductees late last month into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association in Rapid City, South Dakota, during the group’s national convention.

Neither man was in attendance to receive his honor.

Mabrey died unexpectedly on Dec. 30 at age 58. He was the popular executive director of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association, and his wife Lori was there to accept the award on his behalf.

Dooley, a frail 92, was a longtime and successful head basketball coach in New Mexico, most notably in Deming and Alamogordo. A Dooley family delegation traveled to South Dakota to accept the award and bring it back to him.

Mabrey, his wife said, was the only HOF recipient to receive a standing ovation at the ceremony.

“I think Buster would have been really humbled by it,” said Lori Mabrey, the head girls basketball coach at Rio Rancho High School. “I don’t think Buster was big for those kind of awards. He just wanted to work hard for coaches. He almost would have been embarrassed by it, to be honest.”

Lori Mabrey said the evening was even more bittersweet for her than delivering her husband’s eulogy at his memorial service in February.

In a bit of crossover irony, Dooley, in his later coaching years, served as an assistant girls coach at Cibola, under both Doug Dorame and then Lori Mabrey.

“Coach Dooley was a tremendous teacher,” said Dorame, who is now Cibola’s athletic director. “He was meticulous in all of the little details. Every drill in practice had a purpose in the game. He had every special situation in the game covered. He taught me so much about coaching, leadership and the game of basketball. I will always cherish our years together.”

Said Mabrey of Dooley: “You know, God works in mysterious ways. I thought it was really cool he and Buster went in at the exact same time.”

And Dooley, she added, was always an example setter, and she relayed, with a chuckle, this line:

“That man,” she said, “was knocking out pushups when he was on my staff like there was no tomorrow.”

Dooley, a Deming High graduate, coached four Deming boys teams to state basketball championships in the 1970s, going 4-0 in the final, and in 1988 he led Alamogordo’s boys into the big-school final where the Tigers fell to Hobbs.

He long was a mentor to young coaches during his celebrated career, and also a highly revered math teacher.

He coached at Deming, Silver, Alamogordo, Mayfield, Cibola and St. Pius. His basketball career record was 446-215; he won 313 games at Deming alone, and earned multiple coaching honors. The Deming court was once named for Dooley. There was a sizable reception for Dooley last weekend at the NMAA office.

His granddaughter, Staci Drangmeister, said her grandfather wanted to express “his gratitude to the entire community of Deming.”

That includes his years of coaching, but also his decades as a teacher.

“Such a testament to his outstanding character,” Drangmeister said.

Buster Mabrey’s name and reputation extended far beyond New Mexico’s borders during his 16-year stretch as the leader of the NMHSCA. Lori Mabrey said several men who served in a similar capacity in other states sought her out to express their condolences about his passing.

“Buster was just a really humble human being,” Lori Mabrey said. “And he was a blue-collar guy, nose to the grindstone and do what is best for coaches. It was really that simple for him.”