Baca: News on AD Search Confirms What I Knew All Along — There Was Never a Plan On January 2nd, 2025

While I Will Remain Neutral, Yesterday's News Was Cheap and Unnecessary

Hello Everyone.

Here I am again with a special commentary on this news of the day in NM State Land…. Nick Coppola of the Sun News published a story that confirmed all the chatter we had all been hearing, which was NM State University is doing a national search in order to find a permanent AD, meaning as speculated on in my column I published yesterday, that the end of FY2025 would see this search happen.

Now, it’s funny. I did write my column yesterday with the assumption that something was going to be coming out soon, but I didn’t think that it would be 5 hours from that moment. I mentioned I don’t like to listen to chatter usually, but there was enough for me to address it in this column.

I’m no super-duper-expert. All I do is listen to people.

It’s not necessarily my knowledge of NM State University that told me that, but my knowledge of workplace politics which was my content online for the better part of a decade. I love talking about it, because no matter who you side with on everything, we can all relate to hating things that happen at work.

I am not a fan of what happened…not a fan of a lot of it, to be honest

This will be a brief commentary on my feelings on it all.

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Baca: News on AD Search Confirms What I Knew All Along — There Was Never a Plan On January 2nd, 2025

So, let’s get down to it. I know there are some people who were upset about Mario Moccia’s termination. I know there are some people who will email me after reading this trying to assert to me that his termination was for cause. I know there are some people who made it their mission the last couple of years to tell me and others what was wrong with NM State and what needed to be done.

Well, there is a few of you that have run into workplace issues of your own, asked for the benefit of the doubt when people are trying to roust you out of where you were working and/or got replaced by someone on the account of favoritism, nepotism, politics, or just at the whim of a leader/boss that just felt like stirring s*** up for no reason. Some bosses like to do that. Chum the waters because if people see the sharks underneath start to circle, maybe they will collectively swim faster and work harder.

As mentioned yesterday, many expected Valerio Ferme to fire Mario Moccia upon his arrival to Las Cruces, and within 1-2 hours of his first day there, he did just that. I still remember having a face full of shaving cream responding to 20 texts that morning. That’s how I kind of knew I was plugged in.

I have often said if Ferme fired Moccia on January 16th after two weeks of working together and then purporting to want to move in the right direction from the past after trying to make a go at it, I think the move would have been less controversial, even to some who supported Moccia, because it would have at least had an air of “this man is trying to build bridges, not blow them up unless he has too.”

But they were blown up, and you know what? In the sake of everyone moving on, I could understand it. But a couple hours in was mercenary-like. There was no mistake that the move was pre-ordained weeks before.

Do you think Amber Burdge was not aware of the potential to replace Moccia until 10am on January 2nd? Of course not, workplace politics say that these things happen behind the scenes, but in plain sight. When did she know? Who knows? It doesn’t matter. I am glad she got the opportunity, and again, nothing but good things to say about her here.

But when the press conference happened the next day and it was stated that we will see in 6 months where we are at, I already knew this day would come.

There was a whole Disney movie based on this notion that “Maybe in a few months, we can all be a family again.”

That movie was Angels in the Outfield, starring Christopher Lloyd and Danny Glover, where heavenly Angels come to help out a bumbling baseball team through the interactions with one pre-teen boy who sees them in plain sight. The story is comingled with another story about him being a foster kid, and his dad, a noted deadbeat, making a promise that he would come back for the kid if the Angels win the pennant.

It was noted in the movie that this would be nearly impossible given the perception of said team.

By the way, it always bothered me the dad said, “When the Angels win the pennant.”

Why not the World Series? Why did he set the bar that low? How would his emotions be different if they won the pennant but lost the World Series? Anyway…

Well, the Angels keep winning, and the kid, Roger, played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, sees his dad in court one day, and is excited to tell him about the Angels success, but what he didn’t know is that his dad was there to sign away his parental rights, and he is left heartbroken, and not wanting to believe in Angels or want to believe things are going to be ok anymore.

Long story short, there’s a happy ending in there, but 3/4 of the movie is built like the last 6 months at NM State. It’s built around the childish notion that if things get better at NM State in the six months since the move, then we have stabilized the athletics department with this 6 month trial run of Burdge as AD.

Ferme and Burdge were on the dais talking about this 6-month period. The vibes taken from that were keeping the department stable. At least this is one that we can ascertain. The second was an instance of it being an “audition’ of sorts for Burdge, who was brought in by Moccia, spoken of highly by Moccia, to do the work at a high level, as she had done with some of the hazing policies implemented in the last year plus.

I was all for those ideas, but deep down, the ex-banker who before he wrote about NM State athletics talked about the day to day stresses of workplace politics just never saw this having a smooth landing at the end of June and early July.

But I also didn’t want to believe that the search for a new AD, which will be with a search firm at a cost likely in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, would commence in July. One would have you believe that if this was the end result, it should have been happening concurrently with Burdge’s acting AD run of January-June.

While some would say that doing a search with her actively as AD would almost kind of usurp her power and make her a lame duck, you are now from the moment of the announcement last night until who knows when made her a lame duck at a very important time in NM State Athletics, where conference realignment, NIL/House Settlement stuff, and oh, yeah, actual students coming back and games happening in a month-ish as well.

The transition from Moccia to the next AD of NM State University will actually be rockier than I even thought, because assuming the search committee takes 30 days to interview multiple people, after spending days going over potential candidates, and the negotiating of the contract, signing of the deal, allowing the new AD to hire Mayflower to move all his stuff to Las Cruces, and all that, we are well into August, and soccer is playing, and football is about to play.

Having a search for an AD in March or April would have seemed impractical, but it made sense for NM State’s needs timewise. If Burdge, who was invited to apply for the AD job according to Nick Coppola’s story (more on that in a minute) applied in March, was told they were going in a different direction, could have stayed on and sunsetted out of the role by July 1 and new person could have been there next day.

I don’t know if there would have been a situation where she would walk the new person through the ropes of being an AD. If she were to do that, she’s a stronger person than me, because I could not write what I would be saying in my head if I had to train someone who would replace me.

Oh wait, I have done that before. It sucks so bad. It’s terrible, and although I didn’t know I would lose my job in banking, a month or two later, understanding that I trained this person to do everything like me, and then realizing that this “similar person to me” was making 25% less than me, which made me expendable, then it all made sense.

This tells me it was always about making some bold political statement first in firing Moccia and then asking questions later.

“Shoot first and ask questions later” would have been easier to write, and I just did, but of course, even tired cliche lines would be fodder for people who just want to see NM State fail by making a lazy gun-based reference. I am not here to see NM State fail. I cover a top-notch winning program, and this series of events disappointed me, regardless of what I feel about everyone mentioned. I just want what’s best for NM State.

Ferme and the powers that be behind it did not have an actual game plan despite 26 months of space from the UNM incident, 22 months of space from the Heiar firing and suspension of the season, and more than a year of space between the hiring of Burdge to help clean up the program and instituting these important safeguards for the school.

Although Ferme has stated that he made the Moccia move independent of anyone putting their two cents in, I simply cannot believe that a well-educated man like Ferme cooking in his role as President would not make rustic cuts, haphazardly using a knife to chop up ingredients. No… He would be one who makes precision moves, or at least I would think so.

In academia, everything’s in a constant state of flux — and college athletics is no different. That’s why I’ve never understood the hate for the transfer portal. College, by its nature, is built on change. Students switch majors, professors take sabbaticals, departments get reorganized. Why should athletes and athletics be any different?

But things like President of the school, AD, or heck, even head basketball coach are some of the things you expect to have some stability in, because those things being in a state of flux means that normalcy is not occurring.

It should be noted the the NM DOJ praised an improvement in the athletics department just shortly before Moccia’s termination, and there was a similar “let’s high five each other” by NM State recently in regards to improving the culture, which of course had Burdge at the helm for that.

So what does that tell any prospective candidate that if their department gets similar praise, it means nothing as it pertains to job stability?

You know how you get a future AD who sees this school as a stepping stone? You make it to where you let them know if you stand on this stone for an extended period of time, it will take you underwater. This type of heaping of praise and yet still moving on from someone is off-putting to even the most snake-like person looking to move their way up the food chain.

Culture is more than just rules and policies, don’t I know that from the banking industry? It’s having a team of people that have your back and will support you and your work every step of the way. When you don’t have that, work is no fun.

(Cue the people that say work shouldn’t be fun.)

No… work should be fun. When you are mastering your craft, that is fun. When you can work better at your role than anyone else, that is fun.

I am upset that Amber Burdge, unless she absolutely only wanted to be acting AD for 6 months, (and I hope she got paid a healthy differential in job title pay as Acting AD) was in the middle of this.

New Mexico State’s first female AD deserved better. While Nick Coppola said that Burdge would have every opportunity to apply for the job, honestly as a workplace advocate for the better part of the decade, to have to re-apply for something entrusted in you by the very person or persons who installed you is low.

That’s very unbecoming to treat a person like that. Regardless of whether you support someone or not, that’s low, and yes, I would say the same thing for someone I totally didn’t like either. I am a believer of procedure and decorum. This ending is not that.

Her work speaks for itself.

I spent the better part of Monday night planting grass seed and laying down soil in the hopes that the incoming rains would unleash the backyard of my dreams going forward and I got the scoop the second I came inside, and spent the next hour talking to people in muddy clothes and dirty hands from handling seeds and soil.

One conversation I had was with someone close to the situation, and I discussed the “She’s invited to apply” bit of the news.

Let me set the stage for my analogy.

I am old enough to remember the game show Let’s Make a Deal with Monty Hall (RIP)

I know there’s a more current version out on TV that I can’t watch, because the host annoys me, as does the contestants.

Well, the idea of the game is people are dressed up in costumes and they compete for cash and prizes. There’s an element of zaniness to it, and one of the big parts of the game is the inevitable trade-off for what you know you got for what’s behind door numbers 1, 2, or 3, or what’s in the box.

Sometimes, when you make that deal, you get a prize that’s better.

Sometimes on the game show, you get a Zonk, which is a gag gift, like a barnyard animal or an oversized towel to cry in.

What the magic of TV doesn’t tell you is those people who lose, still get parting gifts, like small appliances, a year’s supply of coffee or something to that effect.

(Note, I have a friend who won $2,000 on Let’s Make A Deal 9 years ago)

Through this silly game show, something called THE MONTY HALL PROBLEM (PARADOX) came to fruition. It was first discussed in 1990 by Marilyn vos Savant (The Genius Lady in Parade Magazine… Anyone over 45 remember her?) and funny enough, this is something that is talked about in college and even on Tiktok.

Anyway, the hardcore element of the game show is to deal… Do you take what you have and what you know you have (stability) or do you take a chance with something else in the hopes that it can be better? Does it behoove you to make a move now?

The Monty Hall Paradox: NM State Edition

You're standing on the turf at Aggie Memorial Stadium during halftime of a big game. Pistol Pete grabs the mic and says:

“You’ve got three lockers in the locker room. One has a full NIL deal with all the perks: tuition, gear, free burritos for a year. The other two? Nada. Just an old pair of socks and maybe a workout towel.”

You pick Locker #1. Pistol Pete, who knows what’s in all three, grins and opens Locker #3 — empty, of course.

Then he says:

“Wanna switch to Locker #2? Or stay with your original pick?”

Most Aggies would think:

“It doesn’t matter, it’s 50/50 now.”

But here’s the trick: you should switch. Why?

When you first picked, you had a 1 in 3 chance of being right. That means there was a 2 in 3 chance the prize was in one of the other two lockers. When Pete shows you one of those two is empty, the full 2 in 3 probability shifts to the locker he didn’t open — Locker #2.

So switching gives you a 2 in 3 chance to win. Staying? Only 1 in 3.

NM State and Valerio Ferme are in the Monty Hall Paradox now, and while inviting Amber Burdge to apply, the simple math and science of the “Monty Hall Paradox” tells us that there will be a change and there will be a new AD.

If Burdge is rehired, then one can complain about the cost of hiring a search firm, another excess of corporate-like spending for absolutely nothing in a University always looking to save money.

While the odds tell you it’s the right move in this case to switch, the problem is, you got rid of the first female AD in NM State history after 6 months because you didn’t have a long-term plan beyond firing Mario Moccia.

Inviting her to apply for the chance to be what she was already is a slap in the face, and I am not speaking for her, nor do I even know her, but I know workplaces, and if she had any desire to keep that job long-term, I am upset for her to be put in this situation, and it just feels like NM State wanted to excise all the tissue that comes with moving on from a 10 year AD and basically sacrificing a year by making these moves rendering the day-to-day unstable.

That’s not to say we may not get a new AD that takes us to the next step, it’s the way it was done that sucks. NM State fans and Amber Burdge deserved better in these last 6 months.

I hope that if she doesn’t get the job, and she decides to move on, she finds an AD landing spot somewhere and thrives, because she was tasked in a no-win situation in my opinion, where even though the marks were good regarding the very thing she was brought in to fix, it seems like it didn’t matter how good or bad she was at all based on this end result.

Yes, I really talked about Let’s Make a Deal and Monty Hall with someone when I heard this news last night. My phone still has soil on it.

Finally, I wrote this long thing not looking to start a fight, nor did I write it looking to convince anyone of my beliefs. I see what I see, and my work and life journey has told me how to feel about things I see in front of me. I didn’t like the actions of January 2nd, and I don’t like the news of June 23rd any more, because it seems to me that both days’ news could have been handled in such a different way that I would never ever believe that I felt NM State athletics would still have as much instability as was purported in 2022.

Powers that be: Tell me when things will be normal again.

I sincerely hope the best for Amber Burdge and want her to dominate wherever the next steps are. Thank you for your efforts.

Truth be told, I get the politics of academia, because they are not dissimilar to banking. Maybe that’s why I feel why I feel. I don’t know.

Let’s just hope we aren’t going to be zonked another six months from now.

James Baca

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