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Nusser leaves dream job as Ram baseball coach

Dusty Nusser came out of Portales High School, unlike a lot of graduates, knowing exactly the career path he wanted to follow.

"I wanted to teach and coach football and baseball," Nusser said.

He's done everything he set out to do when he was a high school graduate, has gone on to coach both sports at Portales High and teach Physical Education at Valencia Elementary.

And Nusser will continue teaching and coaching football. But he has decided to step away from his job of head baseball coach at Portales, wants to keep his springs open as he sets his sights on transitioning to an administrative position.

High school coaching resignations land on athletic directors' desks regularly at the schoolyear's end, and they did onto Portales a.d. Mark Gallegos' desk this past month. Yet, there was a certain resignation that jumped out at Gallegos.

"The one that came as a surprise was Dusty Nusser," Gallegos said.

Nusser had played baseball and football at Portales High School. He had attended Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. He was a lifelong Portales guy who wanted to coach baseball at Portales.

Stepping down as Portales baseball coach?

It was a job Nusser had done for Portales at the assistant level or higher in every year since 2002 - except 2007, when he was an assistant baseball coach at Bloomfield High School. He returned as a Rams baseball assistant in 2008, became Rams head coach, the job he always wanted, in 2014.

He had been an assistant coach on the Portales baseball team that won a state 4A title in 2012. And had been head coach on the Rams 2017 state championship team.

Stepping down?

"To be honest, I thought it was personally time for a change," Nusser said.

Just two seasons removed from the Rams' most recent state championship, Nusser decided it was time to go, after a bit of soul-searching.

"Definitely lots of prayers, lots of prayers," he said. "I think just kind of over the course of the year it's kind of worn on me. I always told myself when it felt like a job, it was time to step away. Baseball's too much fun to be a job.

"And I thoroughly enjoyed this year. Me stepping down wasn't anything to do with one year. I'm kind of to the point of my life career-wise where I'd like to advance to administative-type things and go that way. I still really enjoyed it but it definitely was a little more taxing on me this year."

Nusser was first a Portales High player in 1997, and first a Rams baseball assistant when he was a student at Eastern five years later. His father, Melvin Nusser, was coaching Portales and allowed Dusty to get some coaching experience on a volunteer basis.

"He had a big impact on me obviously getting into baseball in general," the younger Nusser said.

Nusser's first teaching job took him to Bloomfield for the 2006-07 schoolyear, so he worked as an assistant baseball coach there.

When Nusser returned to Portales, he served as an assistant under head baseball coach Arturo Ontiveros. Six years - including that 2012 blue trophy - later, Ontiveros wanted to move into an administrative position, so the head baseball job was there for Nusser's taking, with the OK of Gallegos and then-superintendent Randy Fowler.

"Honestly, being the head baseball coach was kind of a dream of mine," Nusser said, "and I was able to fulfill that, thanks to Coach Gallegos and Mr. (Johnny) Cain (the current superintendent), and Mr. Fowler."

The last six years have flown by faster than the previous six. And Nusser is now ready for new challenges, while he continues dealing with a couple of old ones - coaching football at Portales and teaching P.E. to Valencia third- and fourth-graders, which he calls "organized chaos".

Nusser will miss all that came along with coaching Portales baseball.

"Definitely the relationships with the kids and the coaches, that's a big part of being a baseball coach," Nusser said. "And then just the games. Baseball is a lot of fun to practice. I enjoyed being at the practices, I enjoyed being on the field working at the practices. All of it."

Nusser will miss the annual alumni game that he started. "That's been a blast for those guys to come back," he said.

Nusser will also miss matching wits with some of his area counterparts.

"The relationships I've been able to build with Coach (Richard) Cruce in Clovis and Coach (Ty) Thatcher in Texico," Nusser said. "We've built good relationships and that all stems from baseball."

Nusser will miss the support system, too.

"Portales is a wonderful community to be able to be a part of," he said. "Roosevelt County Little League, thanks to those guys. They've helped us produce baseball players."

It's a lot to give up. And it will be weird not having baseball to coach next year.

"Yeah, absolutely," Nusser said. "It'll be a lot different from January on. Really this summer, because we do a lot of stuff in the summer."

But Nusser knows he's ready. Now is the time.

"It'll be nice to do something different," he said, "and step in some other direction."

 
 
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