LAS VEGAS, N.M. — Careful, Cowboys. There’s trouble underfoot at New Mexico Highlands University.
A March 13 memo indicates university and state officials were well aware of unsafe conditions at a track and field, which had led to multiple injuries, and the “potentially significant tort liability” those conditions posed for the school.
It notes the deteriorating track and turf surfaces had caused three broken ankles, one ACL wound and lower body injuries to 28 of 30 women’s soccer players.
“This is not a speculative hazard. These injuries have already begun,” states the nine-page memo, which The New Mexican obtained through a public records request. It’s unclear who drafted the document.
The memo — a scathing document written in response to the New Mexico Higher Education Department Capital Outlay Committee’s rejection of a privately funded project to remedy the dangerous conditions at the facilities — was never sent to state officials, according to correspondence between university administrators, and notes the “hazardous conditions remain unaddressed.”
“The next injury, whether another broken ankle, another ACL, a more catastrophic outcome, will not occur without warning,” the memo states.
It suggests there was potential bias among committee members and “fundamental disregard for student safety,” and points to the heavy impact of student athletes at the school — where some 425 undergraduates, a quarter of the estimated 1,700 undergrads enrolled, participated in university sports in the last school year. Highlands also serves about 1,100 graduate students.
The Higher Education Department contends, however, the committee denied approval of the project’s first phase at a March 11 meeting due to concerns about whether the school was ready to move forward with construction and limited information about financing.
Higher Education Department spokesperson Aurellia Ortiz said in a statement Friday evening the first phase was estimated at $8.5 million and “focused on the demolition and removal of the existing track and related track and field elements, visitor bleacher, a press box and the construction of a new Olympic-style track, stadium lighting upgrades, new track turf for football and soccer fields, and security fencing and sidewalks.”
Paul Grindstaff, Highlands’ former vice president for advancement and university relations, had told The New Mexican in October that Phase I was part of a larger, $85.5 million facilities overhaul and would cost about $5.1 million. Funding for the first phase was “largely in place,” he said. He envisioned completion by the Cowboys’ 2026 football season opener.
The Capital Outlay Committee’s decision and Highlands’ unsent response came ahead of an administrative upheaval in May that led to dismissals of Grindstaff and several other high-level officials at the state-owned school in Las Vegas, N.M. — including then-President Neil Woolf — as well as a string of lawsuits and probes by state agencies.
Email records show Grindstaff had sent the March 13 sports safety memo to General Counsel Doajo Hicks on May 4, — the same day Grindstaff was fired, according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the university in July.
“I wanted to take a minute to put some things in writing, most of which we’ve already discussed but making sure they’re on the radar,” Grindstaff wrote in the email to Hicks, which also notes concerns about the availability and competence of an athletic trainer and the use of a football helmet model “recently disqualified for use in competition by the NFL.”
Grindstaff writes in the email the sports safety memo was “circulated, though never sent” to state officials.
The committee’s denial
The March 13 memo wasn’t addressed to any particular person but requests action regarding the track and field safety improvement project, the overall capital outlay system and Highlands’ potential liability exposure due to injuries from several government agencies: the Governor’s Office, the Higher Education Department, the Legislative Finance Committee, the General Services Department’s Risk Management Division and the State Board of Finance.
“The Committee denied the request, stating that the project could not be advanced out of its priority order in the master plan or five-year plan, and could not leapfrog other projects in the queue,” the memo states.
While the document doesn’t note the proposed cost of the project, it points out the priority system governs state-funded capital requests — not privately funded projects — and notes the Higher Education Department’s regulations allow the committee to expedite emergency requests for safety projects, regardless of the funding source.
The memo doesn’t cite the source of funding, but Grindstaff’s lawsuit indicates it would be covered by the NMHU Foundation; he also served as the foundation’s executive director.
The memo cites other high-dollar higher education athletics projects that secured state funding while Highlands’ safety project was denied: “$18 million for a press box and luxury suites at New Mexico State University, and approximately $50 million for expanded concession stands and a concourse renovation at the University of New Mexico.”
It notes 165 or more of Highlands’ 425 student athletes are New Mexico residents, “a higher percentage of in-state student-athletes than any other institution in the state.”
“The Committee’s response to this information was to dismiss it with the observation that 165 is ‘not even half’ of 425. That response warrants examination,” the memo states. “One hundred sixty-five New Mexico student-athletes is not a rounding error … it is 165 New Mexico residents whose physical safety on a state-funded campus is at issue in this proceeding.”
The committee’s “apparent indifference” suggests it “was looking for reasons to deny rather than engaging with the merits of the project,” the memo states, adding the use of the figure as a condition of approval is a standard that “exists nowhere in governing law.”
It also alleges one committee member told university officials he had made up his mind to deny the project before the hearing.
Ortiz said in a statement Highlands had submitted the track and field improvement project for review Feb. 6.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
Part of the agency’s review “involves verification of the project’s estimated budget and source of funding secured to cover the costs,” she said, adding, “NMHU provided several funding options to the NMHED, all involving the university foundation securing and funding the project.”
The Capital Outlay Committee “raised concerns regarding project readiness, limited documentation of funding structure and repayment strategy and the financial risk this project would have on the state, NMHU and the foundation,” Ortiz said. “Approval of a project this size without a dedicated funding source and structured repayment plan could add additional financial instability to an institution already on the NMHED’s Enhanced Fiscal Oversight Program.”
Dimensions and decay
The memo says the turf of the football and soccer field, under a manufacturer’s warranty for eight years and rated for a useful life of 10 years, has been in use 12 years and requires replacement.
The severely deteriorated track around the field at Highlands’ Sanchez Family Stadium, meanwhile, has not been used for competitions in years, interim President Kimberly Blea wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
Instead, student athletes train on undamaged portions of the track and at other university facilities.
Highlands’ cross-country and women’s track and field coach Bob DeVries said Friday the facility has never hosted a college meet and has only once hosted a high school event.
“I’ll put it this way, I don’t consider it unsafe,” DeVries said. “Our kids train on it and know to avoid the bumps in the turns. If we practice relays, we know we can’t use lane 4.”
Still, he acknowledged “if someone’s just out there walking around, they can easily hit a spot and go down.”
Former Highlands athletic director Ed Manzanares said the track, originally a deep shade of purple to match the school’s primary color, was the brainchild of another former athletic director, Joe Singleton, more than a quarter-century ago. It was installed in 1999, even though the school didn’t have a track and field program until 2011.
That once-purple track surface has faded over the years into a bleached lavender. Several large cracks spread in all directions, and small ridges have emerged where the surface has swollen and squeezed together.
Highlands’ women’s soccer team uses the soccer field at Memorial Middle School for training and competitions, according to Blea.
The Cowgirls have only occasionally played home matches on campus because the NCAA and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, of which Highlands is a member, have said in the past the field dimensions are too small.
“We are regularly assessing facilities to ensure student safety,” Blea wrote in the email.
NCAA and RMAC requirements call for a soccer field that is 70 to 74 yards wide. The Highlands field spans that width — but just barely.
The current configuration essentially makes the track too long in the straightaways. Any renovation would widen the curves and allow the turf field to expand outward at least a few yards in each direction.
The current outer edge of the soccer pitch is mere inches from the concrete lip that serves as a border between the turf and the track. It’s a tripping hazard, DeVries said, but something the athletes have learned to live with.
“It’s one of those Northern New Mexico things where they say, ‘We’ll just have to deal with it and figure things out on our own,’ ” he said.
Manzanares said he explored several quick fixes that never materialized due to a lack of funding, including rolling out extra turf to cover the concrete lip and a few lanes of track.
In the end, the university’s soccer team has played most of its home matches off campus. Some were played at the city of Santa Fe’s Municipal Recreation Complex, but most were at the nearby middle school made famous as a filming location for the 1980s movie Red Dawn.
“That’s such a terrible spot for a college soccer game,” Manzanares said. “I mean, come on. It got to where we just had to tell the RMAC we were going go play at home because the field was technically big enough. Barely.”
Actions never requested
Highlands officials who drafted the March 13 response to the safety project’s rejection were requesting several “immediate actions” from the state. Though, the requests never reached their destination.
Along with reconsideration of the project and expedited approval, it asks the Governor’s Office to direct the Higher Education Department to “issue written guidance” clarifying that the “five-year plan priority ordering system governs state capital outlay funding recommendations and does not operate as a precondition for approval of privately funded safety projects.”
It also asks the Legislative Finance Committee to seek a list of privately funded projects the Higher Education Department has rejected or delayed based on the priority ordering system.
Citing concerns about potential litigation over student injuries, it requests that the Risk Management Division open a “formal file on this matter,” and asks that the higher education secretary inform the State Board of Finance the safety project was blocked “so that the Board is not operating without awareness of the liability posture should this matter require further escalation.”
“These are not hypothetical harms,” the memo states, referring to student injuries. “They are documented and present harms that the institution identified, reported through proper channels, and attempted to remediate with a privately funded project. The Committee was told about these injuries. It denied the project anyway.”
