Pojoaque homecoming crowd subdued at game amid hazing allegations
Sep. 18—This is supposed to be a special weekend for senior Anisa Herrera and the Pojoaque Valley High School student body.
Friday kicked off homecoming at the school with the Elks' football game against Thoreau. Except, it felt subdued by Herrera's estimation.
The week had a quiet, eerie feel to it, she admitted, as the campus was rocked by the fallout from hazing allegations in the football program.
"It's definitely been tense here," Herrera said. "Yeah, tense is the right word."
It started Monday with an anonymous allegation that a group of seniors hazed freshmen by forcibly pulling their pants down and touching their "private parts," according to a Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office report.
By Friday, the guardians of two Pojoaque players won a temporary restraining order in First Judicial District Court that prevented the school from enforcing 10-day suspensions on them and allowing them to play in Friday night's 50-0 win over the Hawks. Pojoaque Valley School District Superintendent Sondra Adams elected to let seven suspended seniors play and go to school while the district prepares for a hearing Wednesday to determine the court order's status.
As for Herrera, not even her crowning as the school's homecoming queen could quell the bizarre nature of the week.
"It's kinda of a saddened moment, I think," Herrera said. "We all wanted this week to be great and fun because we didn't get to experience this last year [because of the pandemic]. I know all of our seniors were looking forward to it because we didn't think we were going to have a senior year — at least not a normal one."
Instead, there has been an uneasy buzz underneath all the preparations for the weekend festivities. Senior Daniel Lopez said it has been difficult because he sees some of the student body taking sides on the matter.
"Some blame it on the freshmen, and others say it's the seniors," Lopez said. "I've heard both sides of the stories."
Pojoaque Valley Principal Terry Burks said he felt that the school's atmosphere has been good for homecoming. Some of it, he said, stems from the fact that this is the first homecoming since 2019. He added, the students really want to get back to a sense of normalcy, and this weekend is a big moment for them.
"My leadership classes did an amazing job with lunchtime activities," Burks said. "We had a big pep rally — much different this year since we did it on the baseball field. We had a staff versus student dodgeball game, which went well. And we did our parade today, and I couldn't have been more prouder of the kids in the way they've handled themselves."
While the might have been excitement during the day, the energy from the crowd and the Elks on the field appeared somber. The cheers as the home team ran onto the field were tepid, and Pojoaque seemed sleepy as Thoreau moved the ball to midfield and took about six minutes off the clock on the initial drive.
It took just one play — a 78-yard touchdown run by senior Dominic Esquibel — before Jacona Field came to life. After that, the Elks scored 37 unanswered points over the next 17 minutes to take a 44-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Deymian Waters, a 2021 Pojoaque graduate who played football for four years, said he felt the incident is getting overblown. However, he noted the hazing allegations are all people in town want to talk about.
"They're asking me stuff that I know," Waters said. "Honestly, I haven't heard that much, because I'm not supposed to be talking about it. But no matter where I am or how old I get to be, these guys are always going to be like family to me."
When halftime rolled around, it was time to name the homecoming court, and Herrera was excited to have her moment under the moonlit night. She said she focused on garnering support from her classmates to earn the homecoming queen crown and credited her ability to shut out the tenseness from being a basketball, softball and soccer player. Herrera said she thoroughly enjoyed the walk to her place on the track facing the home side of the stands and hearing she won. But she also acknowledged that athletes at any school have a higher responsibility because of the attention they receive. "We're not more important than anybody else, but they're looked upon like, 'You need to do this,' or, 'You need to be like this,' " Herrera said. "It's a cookie-cutter form. But you just want to be yourself and have fun."
Fun was hard to find. Not even the Elks finishing off their night with a clinching touchdown moments into the third quarter to invoke the 50-point mercy rule could quell the burgeoning storm. After head coach Pat Mares talked to his team in a postgame chat, he had them run — not walk — to the locker room. Junior quarterback Adam Pacheco declined to comment as he ran toward the bowels of Ben Luján Gymnasium. Moments after posing for a photograph with some of his seniors, Mares and the remaining players sped off to the locker room.
Perhaps Herrera was right — the tension could be felt in every step the Elks took.
