AGGregator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Hello, Everyone.
As always, thank you so much for reading AGGregator, the ONLY NM State coverage in the Las Cruces area. It sounds hyperbolic saying this, but I picked up a newspaper today at CVS, and went to the sports section, and everything in the paper was at least two day old news, with nothing current, nor current outlook for anything local.
I actually picked up the paper to see the coverage of the tragic accident inside Savers Thrift Store on Tuesday. Funny enough, I had just passed by the store minutes before the crash happened. 15 injured, 1 passed away. So incredibly tragic, and my heart goes out to the family of Pamela Kaye Nelson, who perished in the incident.
My wife, friends, and even myself go to Savers every now and again, and knowing how big that space is, to see so many impacted because of the accident hurts my heart.
As someone who focuses on how much the media locally isn’t covering the sports side of things, I wrote a column in my other blog, Consumer Beast about the lack of the local newspaper covering the tragedy. It’s a long oral history of what happened Tuesday and how TV stations shined and the local paper couldn’t bother being at the scene. Viewer Discretion Advised. I’d appreciate a follow though, as I talk about consumer issues, media issues, and more importantly the things that impact us daily besides sports.
Click Here to Sign Up Free to Consumer Beast
Now let’s get to sports. Been waiting to post a column, hoping some incoming transfer portal folks would flood the social media timelines of many, but we did have an incoming player announce his intent to come to NM State!
AGGIES Land DT Cole Schnettgoecke
The New Mexico State Aggies football team landed DT Cole Schnettgoecke this week. Schnettgoecke was a standout at Division 2 Quincy University in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Cole is 6’2” 295lbs, and I joked on Twitter being exactly the same height and weight as Cole that I can tell from personal experience how athletic he is on his game tape. To be fair, I am now 41 years old, and my playing days are long behind me.
Schnettgoecke enters an Aggies Defensive Line that was hit hard in the transfer portal, but this young man was a 4-year starter at the D2 level, so he certainly has a ton of reps at a decent level of football.
He was 3-time all conference in the GLVC and enters the program with a single year of eligibility left.
When I do these columns, I try to deep dive on who the players are as human beings. It can sound lame to some I know, but the term student-athlete means something to a lot of us, and it is neat to see players develop interests and skills outside of the sport.
I stumbled onto an article about Cole last year at Quincy where he was part of something called the College Works Painting Program. From the article, which I will link to below.
Schnettgoecke, 22, is operating his own business through the College Works Painting program, whichpaints more than 3,000 homes a year in 11 states. The organization teaches university-level students how to build and manage their own professional house painting business.
Cole is quoted in the article as well:
“I was solely focused on direct marketing — door to door, trying to offer free customer estimates on interior and exterior painting,” he said.
He’s pretty sure what his toughest challenge will be.
“Everyone’s having a hard time finding employees, but I feel like I can offer them a good wage,” Schnettgoecke said. “If I can set a good wage for them and maybe give them some benefits on the side, that might just make it more enticing to work with me.”
Developing relationships will be key. He learned that from the CEO Club.
“Managing different types of people, learning how to be a leader,”Schnettgoecke said.“Learning the different ways to communicate with certain people. Understanding your customer.”
Link to article
I don’t know this dude, but as someone who writes about customer service, was a bank manager for 13 years, and I actually train people how to be better customer service folks, and customers to be better customers as a side gig, Cole has it figured out.
The hardest part about being great at customer service and running your own business is learning how to interact with the people you want to do business with. With this column, I am direct in wanting people to sign up for free, because it means I can go to businesses and say, “Hey, I got 2,000 sets of eyeballs on my column. Would you like to sponsor my content?”
This program that Cole was a part of obviously rubbed off on him, because he is learning the finer points of running a business at an age I wished I would have known more about it.
Plus, my wife and I painted many rooms in our home in the last couple years. It’s no picnic… hard work, so salud to that as well!
A lot of a person’s legacy is made by the footprints they leave online. It was such a cool story about a program I knew nothing about. While NM State may be 8 times the enrollment of Quincy, and Quincy Illinois is about 1/3 the size of Las Cruces, it is still a small town, and young dudes and ladies on the rosters of our teams are still able to shine bright in a big way as leaders. I immediately think of former Aggie Eli Johnson who transferred from Ole Miss to play one season here, and at age 24(!!!) he became the offensive coordinator for MVSU.
Eli is going to be a college head coach before he is 30. Those are leader traits and the little I read about Cole Schnettgoecke in his painting experience, I can see that as well. Good on him.
Looking forward to seeing you on the field 8-31 against SEMO!
Emma Bunch is CUSA Golfer of the Year
Player of the Year in any conference in any sport is a remarkable feat. While I got in late on the golf season with AGGregator, I have heard nothing but amazing things about Denmark Native and Aggie Golfer Emma Bunch this season. Winning 5 straight tournaments recently, it was without question that she was going to be named golfer of the year in CUSA. That became reality on Thursday as the NM State Sophom*ore from Lynge, Denmark was awarded the honor, one of many Aggies to be honored.
Senior Alison Gastelum from Chihuahua, Mexico was named 2nd-team all CUSA and sophom*ore Isa Laulhé from Buenos Aires, Argentina was named to the 3rd team.
Aside from winning the 5 tourneys in a row, here are some notable stats for Emma Bunch:
18-hole score of 69.7 over 30 rounds played
Scoring average reduce by 4.6 strokes per round from last year, which is astounding.
5 first-place finishes and 9 top-10 finishes while finishing inside the top 25 in every tourney entered.
Simply an amazing run by Aggies golf this season. She was the first ever Aggies selection to the Arnold Palmer Cup, and she will be competing individually at the upcoming NCAA Regional in Cle Elum, Wash., which is set to be played May 6-8 at Tumble Creek Club.
Congrats! I will be giving you a report on the regional next week!
“Mr. April” Keith Jones
The month ended the way it started for Aggies baseball: Keith Jones absolutely destroying the baseball in every park he played in.
The Aggies were down 8-2 against heated rival UNM at Presley Askew Field on Tuesday, when the team rallied back in the 9th to tie it up, and then Keith Jones steps up to the plate and… well, I rarely post local news clips on here, but it’s worth it to see what he did.
Courtesy KTSM:
Can you believe it?
Jones has had an epic month as the Aggies have stormed back from the bottom of CUSA to play highly competitive baseball the last month.
Keith Jones is lighting up the national leaderboard in a lot of categories
According to NM State Stats, Jones is:
T-6th in the nation in Hits
T-8th in Total Bases
9th in RBIs
T-18th in Runs
Impressive stuff, and here’s hoping we hear his name called in the upcoming MLB draft. Aggies Baseball continues to churn out great pros, and Jones is certainly another one.
Ron Tiavaasue Getting Pro Football Love
Last column I wrote had the breaking news of an Aggie Devlin Kirklin getting an NFL mini-camp invite. A couple hours later, it was noted that Ron Tiavaasue, the BIG TE originally from New Zealand got an invite to Jacksonville Jaguars rookie mini-camp happening soon.
Of course, this is the first of many steps to make the show, but it is a big step nonetheless, and his skill-set was vital to NM State last year during their run.
The next morning, the Canadian Football League came calling, and Tiavaasue was named the number 4 overall pick in the CFL global draft by the Calgary Stampeders.
What’s great about that is this gives Ron options. If the NFL doesn’t work out, the CFL season is a month away, so he can get on the field as a pro somewhere, and Canadian Football is a very tough sport. I still believe it is the preeminent second league even though other leagues have popped up.
Plus, they have cool rules like the “Rouge” worth 1 point, the penalties “No Yards” and “Procedure” (False Start) and the whole 3 downs thing. It is an enjoyable alternative and many Aggies have found success in Canada, with Chris Williams being the most notable one.
Anyway, salud to Ron for his success with the Aggies and now taking the next steps in his pro career. You deserve it.
Femi Odukale signs with Minnesota
If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you may not have heard where Femi Odukale landed. Well, he is in Minneapolis to play for the Golden Gophers of the B1G.
Odukale had 10.7 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 3.0 assists for the Aggies in 23-24 under Coach Hooten, and he is a welcome addition to a Minnesota team without an identity since Richard Pitino left the program.
Thanks to Femi for his year in Cruces. Good luck to him!
Ok, I am done for now. I owed you a long one, and you got it. Will see you in a day or two when the transfer portal players start landing!
AGGregator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
