Rio Grande baseball names first new coach in 30 years

Being a head baseball coach at Rio Grande High School is a little like being the head football coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Neither team changes head coaches very often.

Matthew Chavez, 39, a former Raven player himself in the mid-2000s, is the program’s new coach and the first change in leadership in the South Valley in over 30 years.

“It means a lot,” Chavez said. “I grew up in the program.”

He played for his uncle, Orlando Griego, who resigned last month after three-plus decades in the dugout leading Rio Grande.

“He taught me baseball,” Chavez said of Griego. Chavez has been a varsity assistant to Griego since 2014.

“This has always been a goal of mine to continue and elevate this program, whenever coach stepped down,” Chavez said.

The Ravens have been a consistently winning program; they finished last season 17-10. Chavez played for Rio Grande from 2002-05.

“Honestly, the things I picked up (from Griego) is understanding how to develop players and see things that other coaches couldn’t see,” Chavez said. “Down at Rio Grande, we don’t get 90mph arms every year, we have to find kids. … There’s talent down here, the big goal for me is to keep the South Valley kids here, especially with the new transfer rule.”

Chavez is also a teacher at Rio Grande. This is his first head coaching job.

MCCRAW RETURNS: Football practices around New Mexico begin on Monday; Ruidoso is going to open the season with its fourth different head football coach this decade.

Andrew McCraw, who has previously been a head coach at both Belen and Clovis, late last week was hired to take over the Warriors. McCraw, most recently an assistant football coach at Eastern New Mexico, became Ruidoso’s athletic director earlier in July.

And this new coaching task will look very similar to what he faced at Belen and Clovis, insomuch as he became the head coach at both of those schools very late in the offseason and had little time to prepare for the upcoming season.

“I’ve been the head coach three days,” McCraw said with a laugh on Wednesday.

Kief Johnson retired a few years ago at Ruidoso. His replacement, Greg Crow, was with the Warriors for a brief time before going to Cleveland. Shane Eidson coached Ruidoso last year, but just a few weeks ago departed to become the athletic director at Carlsbad.

This left Ruidoso with an urgent need to fill both its AD and football coaching vacancies, with the new school year rapidly approaching.

James Yodice covers prep sports for the Journal. You can reach him at [email protected] or via X at @JamesDYodice.

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