DAILY LOBO new mexico
Job got you down? see page 7
September 27, 2011
tuesday The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
Krebs regrets hiring Locksley Team sympathizes with former coach
by Nathan Farmer
sports@dailylobo.com
Mike Locksley won’t be coaching the Lobos any longer, but he’s still going to get their money. Locksley will be paid the rest of his salary for this season, $200,000, and $150,000 for the next two years for a total of $500,000.
by Nathan Farmer
sports@dailylobo.com
“If knew then what I know now would I have made a different decision? Yes.” ~Paul Krebs Athletics director Athletics director Paul Krebs said hiring Locksley was a mistake. “This was not successful, this did not work out,” Krebs said. “If knew then what I know now would I have made a different decision? Yes.” University President David Schmidly said that it was the right time to fire Locksley. “We work hard at UNM to integrate Athletics into the fabric of the University, and I believe the decisions made are in the best interest of the University, athletes and the football program,” Schmidly said. Locksley was fired after his team’s record reached 2-26, including Saturday’s overtime loss to Sam Houston State, for which UNM paid $300,000 to bring the Bearkats to University Stadium. Krebs said he was contacted by Locksley early Sunday morning
Dylan Smith / Daily Lobo Interim head coach George Barlow addresses the media on Monday during a press conference at University Stadium. Barlow was the defensive coordinator, but has been given the interim spot after Locksley was fired Sunday. about what decision would be made. “I got a call from coach Locksley Sunday morning asking me what I thought,” he said. Where were we and where were we heading? And at that point I told him I did not see any way it would end on a positive note for him.” Krebs suggested firing Locksley during a phone call Sunday morning with Schmidly and they both agreed it was the right decision. “President Schmidly and I talked … and I made the recommendation to him that we fire Locksley and fire him immediately, and he accepted the recommendation,” Krebs said. Krebs noted that the University was losing money from season tickets and that Locksley’s salary would not be paid off by student
fees or taxes from the state, but by money from Athletics. Between 2003-09 UNM’s average yearly revenue from ticket sales averaged $2.1 million. This year UNM expects to make around $1.3 million. Krebs said that after last season he and Locksley had a talk and they both said they expected improvement, but Krebs said he hadn’t seen any this year. “Not only were we not winning, but some of the mistakes, penalties, turnovers and intensity during the game after the first four, I frankly got to a point that there was no change and we weren’t any better,” he said.
see Locksley PAGE 2
Though former head football coach Mike Locksley might be gone, the football team is still around and shocked at his departure, players said. Junior tight end Lucas Reed said that the decision to fire Locksley wasn’t what he expected to happen after the loss to Sam Houston State last Saturday. “It’s always a surprise when something like this happens,” Reed said. “You never see it coming and we never expected it to happen, but it is a business. It’s very tough on the team, but we are just going to try and stay focused and positive.” Senior linebacker Carmen Messina said the firing came as a surprise to him as well, and that Locksley helped make him to become a better player and person. “I was definitely shocked,” he said. “He was able to take me out of my shell and has pushed me to become more of a vocal leader on the field.” Messina said that despite the team’s shock when they heard Locksley was fired, he understood why it had to happen. “Business is business, and I understand why they made the decision, but we just have to focus on what we can control, and that’s coming out here and practicing and going out on that field Saturday,” he said.
Mars rover to sport UNM-made devices
“I AM INNOCENT”
by Greer Gessler ggessler@unm.edu
Juan Labreche / Daily Lobo A depiction of the recently executed Troy Davis lays in Smith Plaza in front of Zimmerman Library. Amnesty International held a candlelight vigil for Davis last Thursday and asked students to sign a petition for the incarcerated Reggie Clemons.
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 116
issue 27
Senior kicker James Aho, who scored the final points in both of Locksley’s wins, said the two victories Locksley had in his tenure were team triumphs. He said he was just doing his part to help the team. “I wasn’t the guy that made those wins — it was the whole team that put in the effort to get me to that point,” Aho said. “It was just me who finished. I just did what I was coached to do and trained to do during my college career here.” Through the adversity, the team is using the game against NMSU this Saturday as something to focus on during this week’s practice. “We have New Mexico State, and that’s one thing we are focusing on and we need to stay focused,” Reed said. Messina said he is confident that George Barlow, former defensive coordinator and current interim head coach, will do a good job preparing the team for the rest of the season. “He knows how to push everyone to get better than we think we can be. He is one of those guys who is going to help us excel,” Messina said. Reed said that even though Monday was the first day of practice without Locksley, Barlow got everyone prepared and ready for the game on Saturday. “Barlow brings a lot of intensity and he tries to keep us focused and he does a good job at that,” Reed said. “We made a lot of progress on the field today.”
My body is ready
Chakra full of information
See page 2
See page 5
In 58 days NASA launches a new rover to Mars, and UNM professors and students have had a hand in creating and maintaining some of the instruments aboard. Among the many tools on the “Curiosity” is the brand new ChemCam instrument, developed by a joint US-French team led by Dr. Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and included UNM professors and students from the Institute of Meteoritics (IOM). ChemCam fires a laser at a rock or soil target and analyzes the refracted light to determine the rock’s chemical composition. According to the ChemCam website, the ChemCam cost around $12.5 million of NASA money to create and has taken at least 3 years to build and calibrate. Horton Newsom, UNM ChemCam senior research scientist at the IOM, said he is looking forward to working with the rover to study Martian soil, a skill aided by the rover’s size.
“Our job is to find exciting samples,” Newsom said. “The Curiosity is the size of a small car … the previous Sojourner rover that landed on Mars in 1997 can fit through the wheel of Curiosity.” He said NASA has made a number of advances since the last rover was launched, some of which IOM helped with. “Science has made leaps and bounds, and UNM has been at the forefront of the modifications made for NASA’s newest rover,” Newsom said. “The ability of these robots has increased and our ChemCam instrument can record 10-20 analyses per day, where the current rovers on Mars only collected one or two samples per week.” Penelope King, also a professor at the IOM, is a co-investigator for another instrument on Curiosity: the Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer. The AXPS is a device that analyzes the chemical element composition of a sample through irrigation and
see Mars
rover PAGE 3
TODAY
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