Phill Casaus: Let the Aggie-Lobo series go silent for more than a year

Nov. 26—The sad part is, we'll all get over it.

Not the family and friends, of course. Can you imagine the gaping hole Brandon Travis' killing will have on those who knew and loved him? The absolute waste that comes with death by gunfight outside a dorm complex in the dark chasm between midnight and daylight?

The utter, incredible, regrettable needlessness?

Those folks, and I'm assuming there are many, will never be able to think about Nov. 19, 2022, and be whole again.

But the silly machine of college sports — the enablers, the money-makers, the fans, the players, the media, the coaches — will continue to grind away. Because, after all, this is an industry, filled with cogs and flywheels. And in any industry, collateral damage is the price of doing business.

More's the pity.

Universities love to sing pretty songs about how they mold and teach and influence, even through athletics, and to be honest, there are times when that's true. I used to cover the games young people played on a daily basis, and I saw it. I watched snotty, pampered, unbelievably coddled twerps mature over time, and become leaders and pillars.

In the wake of the shooting death of Travis, a 19-year-old University of New Mexico student, and wounding of New Mexico State forward Mike Peake, you have to wonder exactly what kind of "teaching moment" this kind of tragedy would offer both schools.

And the sad truth is, they've already answered, and answered predictably.

They're canceling — oh, the sacrifice — this year's men's basketball games. Beyond that? Thoughts and prayers.

So, what would I have them do? If I were running both universities, I'd ash-can the Rio Grande Rivalry next year, and the year after that, and maybe the year after that — in everything, not just men's basketball. Do something that says to both communities that there are big and lasting consequences when guns and bullets and lives and death collide.

Silly? Draconian? No. A university education is supposed to be about learning to think. Dropping the series would be a constant reminder to all of New Mexico, not just those on campus, that games are privileges and not inalienable rights.

Besides, does the world have to have a Lobo-Aggie game? It didn't during the COVID-19 crisis. No one died for lack of New Mexico playing New Mexico State in The Pit or Pan Am Center.

Don't worry: I already know the answer to this proposal. Buddy, we're playing again next year.

I would expect no less from either school.

New Mexico State already signaled how deeply shaken it is: Incredibly, Peake, the wounded junior forward, remains on the team.

Without casting judgment on his guilt or innocence in the incident — police say he was lured to campus in the predawn hours by Travis and other students, including a 17-year-old girl, so he could be attacked in retribution for a fight at the Lobo-Aggie football game in October — he nevertheless was carrying a weapon with him. In doing so, he broke all kinds of university policies and boundaries of common sense. Authorities haven't yet made a determination whether he violated the law.

Clearly, the whole of UNM can't be fairly judged by the actions of a few students. But to think the university is some kind of cloistered, gun-free slice of heaven would be silly. And any claim the Lobo athletic program might have to moral high ground belies its own history with athletes and guns.

If UNM administrators are telling themselves the truth, their first words are: "There, but for the grace of God ..."

Sure, Aggie-Lobo games offer an hour or two of relief to sports fans in a state where gun violence already is a crushing weight.

But in today's college sports industry, where players can transfer in and out like commuters changing planes in an airline terminal, not even the fans know who's actually wearing the school's colors. I'd be surprised if 100 New Mexicans can actually name the starting five for both basketball teams.

So this really isn't about the games, maybe because it's not so much a game as it is a transaction.

With all that as backdrop, it would be no onerous burden to press a long, deep pause on this contest. Let the enablers at both schools find other opponents, because if there's one thing we know, there's always another game. Let the yelps of disappointment within the fan bases fulminate, so long as each cry comes with the knowledge that a young man died and another was hurt, in part because of the "rivalry."

Let New Mexico and New Mexico State teach this state that guns almost never make sense, and nothing good ever happens after midnight.

As if we didn't already know that.

Phill Casaus is editor of The New Mexican.