New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame to induct five in Albuquerque

Five athletes and coaches from four sports will be inducted into the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame at The Clyde Hotel in downtown Albuquerque on Saturday, June 27, putting a statewide sports institution squarely in Bernalillo County. The induction gala begins at 5 p.m., and the weekend also includes a charity golf classic at 8 a.m. Friday, June 26.

The class reflects the range of New Mexico sports history the Hall of Fame says it exists to preserve. Its mission is to honor the state’s most outstanding athletes, coaches, teams and other contributors to sports, and its selection process has been open to public voting since 2014. The Hall of Fame says the nomination process started in 1973 and has drawn more than 100 new candidates since the online system began, making it one of only two statewide sports halls of fame in the country that uses public voting.

This year’s inductees bring together track, basketball, golf, coaching and football. Courtney Frerichs, a two-time Olympian and the silver medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2021 Tokyo Games, gives the class its international reach. Anita Maxwell, New Mexico State’s all-time leading women’s basketball scorer and the first player in school history to have her jersey retired, anchors the state college game. Miles Watters, who coached basketball and track and field at Clovis and Clayton, represents the long influence of high school sports across eastern New Mexico, where he won more than a dozen state titles.

John Fields adds another New Mexico connection. The Las Cruces native was a former UNM All-American golfer before building a coaching career at Texas, where he became a three-time national coach of the year. Landry Jones, a standout quarterback at Oklahoma, rounds out the class and brings football into a group that stretches across several eras and levels of competition.

Tickets are available through the Hall of Fame’s website, and the banquet is being sold alongside sponsorship packages and table sales, underscoring that the event is set up as a public gala rather than a private awards dinner. For Albuquerque, the ceremony turns downtown into the meeting point for athletes, families, fans and sports administrators who see the city as the place where New Mexico’s sports memory is formally kept.