This week some Aggies took a break from sprinting, leaping and jumping to do some walking in the Pan American Center. They are walking the aisle to pick up their degrees. Some are just finishing their competition like Chase Holbrook while others are wrapping it all up after some time away from the game.

Twenty-five in total have earned their sheepskin and that number grows every year. Ole Pete is happy to remind you that the Aggie student-athletes graduate at a higher rate than the general student population. Good study habits come from discipline and the self-control learned from good practice and game habits. This is the point of these student-athletes time on the Las Cruces campus. Some folks snort and snarl that a free education is being handed to these youngsters.

Hardly, studying on the road, making up work and tests when they get back to campus and juggling study time and practice time is a feat most couldn’t handle. Think about it. You leave on a Wednesday and come back on a Sunday through the basketball season and the work is there waiting for you to catch up. Most regular folks I know have trouble getting their work day work back to speed after that much time off.

Some of Pete’s favorites come to mind as we reflect on those who are enjoying their careers. Pete ran into a former football player who had a pair of stellar seasons in the Crimson and White, played some pro ball and now is teaching in Kansas City. Donnie Ross came to the Aggie basketball game in Lawrence, Kan., last week happy to greet all that were there. Former hoopster Brad Bestor is doing likewise in Milwaukee. John Cordova is a marketing executive with no less than Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Cordova is the man who told major league baseball to place advertising behind home plate so the TV camera would see it.  Dr. Wendy Ray is the veterinarian who patched up “Miracle” the horse who was mistreated and now has a good home. Tennis star Elke Blodeau is in marketing in her home land of Germany and one of her teammates, Jenny Petterson is teaching golf in between the snow flakes in Sweden. We could fill this edition and the next of this paper with the names of Aggies who are succeeding in life as they did in sport. Pete tips his ten gallon to them for their achievement.

LEST WE FORGET: The NMSU women’s basketball team put an Aggie style whippin’ on our good friends from forty miles away. The 77-67 decision over UTEP not only put Darin Spence’s team back in the win column but ended a seven-game losing streak to the Miners. This looks like the start of another streak, which puts wins in the Aggies satchel for years to come.