Williamson: Guy Luscombe an area rock star

F or most players on the newly formed Dora girls’ softball team, Guy Luscombe is the name on the gymnasium that sits a couple of good outfield throws away from the freshly refurbished field where the team hosts its first home game on Monday.

But that very familiar name in eastern New Mexico sports and school history is also the father of the team’s coach (Paul Luscombe), grandfather to one of the players (Paul’s daughter, Allie), and one of the people who made it possible for girls to first play competitive sports in our part of the world.

Betty Williamson

A bit of good news

Guy Luscombe, now 88, retired from the Dora Consolidated School District in1990 after 28 years at the school, including 25 as superintendent. He was hired as the Dora principal in 1962, more than a decade before Title IX legislation gave us fragile girls the green light to have equal access to the sports our brothers had competitively played since World War II.

“When I came to Dora, girls could not wear jeans except for snow days,” Guy remembers. “Women teachers could never wear pants — only dresses and skirts.”

The state education department allowed girls to participate in unofficial “play days,” Guy said, “but any kind of organized sport was considered too tough for girls … too competitive.”

He said when his school started arranging opponents for its girls teams anyway, “we had kind of a black eye … we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing.”

While other forward-thinking coaches and administrators were also involved in the push to change the state department’s policies on girls’ athletics, Guy was a key player, one of many reasons he was inducted into the New Mexico Activities Association Hall of Fame in 1989.

Looking through old school yearbooks, Guy still regrets that his girls’ teams couldn’t compete beyond the local level until 1973, half a century after boys could vie for state trophies. “When I look at some of those early classes, I think, ‘Gosh, what a team they could have made.’”

Local female athletes continue to benefit from the Luscombe legacy. Guy’s youngest son Paul, a 1986 Dora graduate who works for Yucca Telecom and is chief of the Dora Fire Department, spearheaded the three-year community effort to reestablish girls’ softball in Dora. He’s contract-coaching this year. Earlier this month his older brother, Richard, a 1979 Dora graduate who has taught and coached at the Texico schools for 27 years, led the Lady Wolverines to yet another state basketball championship. They both rely on lessons learned at their father’s side.

“My dad has been my everything,” Paul said. “He’s pretty much determined how I do it all. I’ve found that I’ve patterned my coaching and management mannerisms after how I saw him handle things when he was superintendent. I still seek his advice daily.”

Richard agrees. “I never really learned how much effect dad had on sports in the area until I heard stories of his influence in the NMAA, and his work on the development of girls’ sports in our area,” Richard said. “Dad always told me that education was a rewarding occupation; just don't expect to get rich. I will have to respectfully disagree because I have become rich beyond measure with experience, relationships, and the common knowledge of what it took to make him such a great man.”

After 16 years of retirement, Guy Luscombe still gets letters from former students. When he showed up at last summer’s Dora All-School Reunion, he was greeted like a rock star.

“There wasn’t much money” in his career, he told me, “but this … this is the payback.”

Betty Williamson was terrified of Mr. Luscombe when she was in elementary school, but she got over it. You may reach her at [email protected].