Bloomfield's Sategña earns national recognition
by Darren Vaughan; Farmington The Daily Times
BLOOMFIELD — In 1978, Phil Sategña returned to his native Bloomfield to take on a coaching job at Mesa Alta Junior High, never looking beyond the next track meet.
Thirty years later, as the track and cross-country coach at Bloomfield High as well as its athletics director, Sategña has received the greatest honor of all. In honor of a career that began in 1974 at Park Junior High in Artesia and has since seen him named the District 1-3A Track Coach of the Year each year since the award's inception in 2003, Sategña will be inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association's Hall of Fame on June 28 in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Sategña said he was shocked when he learned he had been chosen for the honor.
"I got the letter in the mail, and I just kind of held it and looked at it for a little bit," he said. "I recognized what it said on there, but I was a little apprehensive about opening it. I opened it up, read it, and I was totally overwhelmed when I read it. It was a very emotional thing. My wife, Jeanne, was emotional about it. It was a great moment for both of us."
Beside his wife and their children, Phyllis, Mario and Dominic, Sategña chose to keep quiet about his award at first, waiting a month before he even told his fellow coaches at BHS. He choseto let the significance of his accomplishment soak in instead, but still hasn't fully grasped it.
"It's hard to put into words the significance of something like this, because it's not every day that something like this happens," he said. "I know (the New Mexico High School Coaches Association) nominated me, but to actually be selected is a pretty good feeling."
Sategña has become one of the most recognizable faces in the Four Corners, having grown up in Bloomfield and graduating from BHS in 1969. After learning the ropes from coach Joe Vigil during his collegiate career at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colo., he coached for five years in the junior-high ranks in Artesia and Bloomfield before taking over the BHS boys track program in 1980 — a post he has held ever since.
"When you start off coaching in junior high 34 years ago, these awards aren't even things you think about," he said. "You start having some success, and after a while, you go to those award ceremonies and you start thinking about how nice it would be to be considered. To be inducted into a national organization was a thought that honestly never crossed my mind."
During that time, he has been named the New Mexico Boys Track Coach of the Year three times, and was inducted into the NMHSCA Hall of Honor in 2005. He has coached five state championship teams in boys track and girls cross country, and is one of the co-founders of the New Mexico Track and Cross Country Coaches Association.
"Does this mean a lot? Yes, it does," he said. "The thing that means more to me is all the kids that I've coached and the relationships with them, as well as the excitement I've had from some of their accomplishments. You also have the super people that I've worked with, and those are the things that you remember most about your career.
"That says something about the kids that have come through little old Bloomfield, New Mexico, who have helped make me a success," he added. "You have to have the athletes to work with, and I have been very, very fortunate to have the group of hundreds and hundreds of kids that I've coached in my career."
Sategña also credits Vigil for helping him get to where he is as a coach. Sategña first started competing for Vigil in 1969, and by the time he left Adams State with his masters degree in 1974, the mark that Vigil had left on his life was indelible — and lives on even 34 years later.
"From my point of view, the person who has helped me get to where I'm at more than anyone else is Joe Vigil," Sategña concluded. "I patterned my coaching and my teaching after him, and he, without a doubt, had more influence on my life than anybody, ever. He is the man to me. I lost my dad when I was in high school, but Coach Vigil has been an inspiration to me. Right after I get that award next week, he'll be the first person I call to let him know that I got it."
