NM Sports and Cultural Museum concept: Tech would allow patrons to interview prominent New Mexicans

Marty Saiz played basketball with distinction at Cibola High School, coached AAU hoops and is a two-time past president of the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame board.

Steve Davis was an all-state basketball star at Clovis, then played for UNM — where the late, iconic New Mexico broadcaster Connie Alexander dubbed him “Motorbody” for his relentless, physical style. He’s now the owner of Albuquerque’s ProView Networks, which specializes in sports programming.

So, yes, they’re sports guys.

Both men, though, make it clear: They respect, value and celebrate their fellow New Mexicans from all walks of life.

That’s why their initial vision for a New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame Museum has become an initiative to design and build something both more ambitious and more inclusive: a New Mexico Sports and Cultural Museum.

“What I really want to call it,” Saiz said during a recent interview at ProView, “is ‘The Dream Center.’”

Front and center in that dream is StoryFile, a remarkable technology introduced to most Americans on a CBS “60 Minutes” telecast in April 2020.

In that telecast, Holocaust survivors — some of them deceased — responded to questions from their experiences based on at-length interviews previously conducted. The StoryFile technology allowed the interview subjects to respond appropriately, their replies digitally pulled from those previous interviews.

For Davis, that “60 Minutes” telecast was beyond illuminating.

It was life-changing.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Davis’ ProView Networks had dried up.

“Sports was dead,” he said, “so I was out of business.”

On that particular Sunday, as he often did, Davis watched “60 Minutes” with his mother.

“So that (segment) came on, and it showed a remote production and it was basically the same thing we were doing (at ProView),” he said. “Computer, announcer, green screen, camera, and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, we can do it.’”

Davis had his ProView employee Marty Watts email StoryFile, saying “We saw your show, it was overwhelming, it was great, we have an idea for sports.”

When there was no immediate reply, Davis told Watts to keep trying.

Some 2 ½ to three months later, Davis got a phone call. “They said, ‘We’re just kind of overwhelmed, we had 65 million people watch (the “60 Minutes” segment) and we’re just returning the phone calls on this,’” Davis said.

ProView, Davis was told, “was the first company in the United States that saw the value of where this could go.”

Davis and others from his ProView team then flew to Los Angeles, where they acquired the technology and the licensure to use StoryFile.

As for StoryFile’s application for the proposed New Mexico Sports and Cultural Museum, Saiz noted that, too often, museums are a one-time visit because the display doesn’t significantly change.

“You saw it once, and there was nothing else,” he said.

StoryFile, Saiz said, would be game-changer in that regard as museum visitors could “interview” the New Mexican of their choice, asking different questions each visit.

ProView has already conducted StoryFile interviews with former Albuquerque High boys basketball coach Jim Hulsman and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

Responding to questions from a Journal reporter, Hulsman reminisced digitally about his relationship with the late Hobbs coach Ralph Tasker. Johnson responded to a question about his long and successful career as an endurance athlete.

But if you’re going to have a Dream Center, why not dream big?

Saiz ticked off the names of New Mexicans he’d love to have on StoryFile for museum-goers: Jeff Bezos, Albuquerque-born; Lauren Sanchez, Bezos’ fiancée, and a Del Norte High School graduate; Demi Moore, a Roswell native; Steve Loy, a Sandia High School graduate and a 2024 New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame inductee, who is one of the nation’s most successful sports agents; “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin, who lives in Santa Fe.

“I’m a sports guy,” said Saiz, who runs a successful insurance business. “… But we want to highlight the positive things and the successful people (from New Mexico) and hopefully have kids say, ‘Hey, we can do this, too.’”

Toward that goal, state Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said he plans to request $700,000 in state capital outlay for the project when those requests are made later this month.

That sum, Saiz said, would constitute seed money for planning, design and feasibility for a project that could cost as much as $20 million. Both public and private funding, he said, will be pursued.

Saiz and Davis said they’d like the museum to house other, smaller museums as well. He mentioned the African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico, currently on 4th Street Northwest, and the New Mexico Holocaust & Intolerance Museum, housed two blocks west of ProView Networks on west Central.

Several sites for the museum, Saiz said, are being considered.