NM SPORTS HALL OF FAME
Inductees are Frerich, Fields, Jones, Maxwell and Watters
A two-time Olympian, an all-time nice prep quarterback, a record-setting New Mexico State girls’s basketball participant and two legendary coaches kind the 2025 New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame induction class.
As introduced on Monday, they’re:
Former UNM distance runner Courtney Frerichs, an Olympic steeplechase silver medalist in 2020.
Former Artesia, Oklahoma and Pittsburgh Steelers QB Landry Jones, who led the Bulldogs to 2 state titles.
Anita Maxwell, nonetheless NMSU’s all-time girls’s basketball scoring chief 30 years after her remaining sport an Aggie.
John Fields, a Las Cruces native who has taken his New Mexico and Texas males’s golf groups to 33 NCAA Tournament berths and guided the Longhorns to 2 nationwide titles
Miles Watters, a 1973 Clayton High School graduate who coached the Yellowjackets’ women basketball group to 11 state titles.
The inductees are scheduled to be launched at a information convention on Dec. 27 and later that day offered to the gang on the New Mexico Bowl soccer sport.
The inductees (in alphabetical order):
John Fields
A Las Cruces native, Fields was an All-America golfer at UNM. Taking over from Dwaine Knight as UNM’s males’s head coach in 1987, he guided the Lobos to 3 Western Athletic Conference titles and 9 NCAA Tournament berths in 10 years. He was voted the WAC Coach of the Year 4 occasions.
In his 28 years (and counting) as head coach at Texas, Fields has guided the Longhorns to NCAA titles in 2012 and 2022. He was voted the nationwide Coach of the Year thrice (2012, 2016, 2022).
Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth, who between them have received seven main championships, are among the many golfers his UT program has produced.
Courtney Frerichs
A Missouri native, Frerichs got here to UNM as a switch from Missouri-Kansas City in 2013. As a Lobo, she positioned fourth as a person within the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships as coach Joe Franklin’s Lobos received the group championship. That spring, Frerichs received the NCAA title within the 3,000-meter steeplechase. In the identical occasion, she positioned eleventh on the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Frerichs received a silver medal within the steeplechase on the world championships and received one other silver on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Landry Jones
Jones threw for 7,013 yards and 89 touchdowns throughout his prep profession at Artesia, main the Bulldogs to New Mexico Class 4A titles for coach Cooper Henderson in 2006-07. In the 2007 Class 4A state title sport, a 58-31 Artesia victory over Roswell Goddard, Jones threw for 325 yards and 7 touchdowns.
Among essentially the most closely recruited prep gamers within the state’s historical past, he threw for 16,646 yards and 125 touchdowns throughout his profession at Oklahoma.
Jones went on to play 5 years for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Anita Maxwell
A Dallas native, Maxwell was a four-time first-team All-Big West Conference choice (1993-96) and a three-time honorable-mention All-American at New Mexico State.
She stays NMSU’s all-time chief in profession factors (2,601), profession steals (337) and single-season scoring common (25.4 in 1994-95).
“There will never be the next Anita Maxwell (at New Mexico State),” Aggies coach Mike Peterson stated in 1996. “She’s going to set a standard of play that’s not going to be matched.”
Miles Watters
A 1973 Clayton High School graduate, Watters returned to his alma matter in 1980 after a university basketball profession at Lubbock Christian and a short teaching tenure in Sudan, Texas.
At Clayton, Watters coached the ladies basketball group — the Jackettes — to the aforementioned 11 state titles, together with eight in succession (1983-90). He additionally coached the Clayton women to 5 state track-and-field titles.
Later, at Clovis, Watters coached the Wildcats to a women state basketball title in 2005.