Raton: After retiring from coaching last year, it didn't take long for Zack Romero to get the urge to return.

"I missed it more than I thought I would," he said.
The former Cimarron and Roy high school volleyball coach will return to the bench as he will take over as head coach of the Raton High School volleyball program.
"He's got a lot of experience and a lot of success," said high school Athletic Director Tom Vertovec. "He took a year off and he's excited to get back into the business."
Romero posted a 272-150 record in his 20 years of coaching volleyball. He coached the Roy Longhorns for the 1984-85 season, then took a few years off before coaching the team again from 1989 to 1992. Romero was then hired to coach volleyball at Cimarron, a position he held until 2008, when he stepped down.
Romero - who has regularly taken teams to the state tournament in the past - noted one of his reasons for stepping down at the time were to watch his daughter, Beth, play volleyball at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan. Beth will graduate from college in December, thus her collegiate volleyball career has concluded.
Additionally, Romero needed to take a year off to completely collect his retirement benefits, before returning in some capacity to school involvement. Romero will only serve at Raton in a coaching capacity and does not intend to return to teaching.
"One of the reasons I applied for the job was that they were not looking for a teacher - they were looking for a coach," Romero said.
A third reason Romero stepped down as Cimarron head coach was because he wanted to spend more time with his mother. But since taking the year off, "I missed coaching and wanted to get back into it."
"He's very knowledgeable and it will be good for the program," Vertovec said.
Romero will move to coaching a Class AAA team after spending most of his career at programs that played Class A or AA. "I'm sure it will be different as far as the number of kids involved," he said. "I look forward to seeing as many as kids participate as possible."
He added he coached against several coaches in District 2AAA when they previously coached in Class A and AA. Las Vegas Robertson head coach Raynee Trujillo previously coached at Class A Des Moines, Pojoaque head coach Brian Ainsworth was a former coach at Class AA McCurdy, and Andrea Seatha Chavez, the head coach at Santa Fe Indian School, was the coach of that program when the Braves previously played in Class AA.
Romero said he will also need to get acclimated to "a different school system" after spending so many of his years coaching at Cimarron.
He noted he watched the Tigers in three separate matches last year, those against Clayton, Pojoaque and La Junta, Colo., saying that "I'm not sure what they were missing, but they were missing something. They couldn't quite get over the hill," but added he never did see the Tigers in practice.
That being said, Romero said he wants the players to follow what he called the three B's: "Be competitive, be coachable and be good teammates."
The new coach has already planned a summer scheduled for volleyball players. Open gym will be held July 7, 9, 14 and 16 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. From there, the Tigers will go to a volleyball camp in Trinidad July 20-22, then plans are to hold a camp in Raton July 24-26. During the open gym, Romero said, players will get information about tryouts held in August.
"I invite any young girl eligible to play to give volleyball a chance, whether they have played it or not, and come to the open gym," Romero said.
Romero said he appreciates the work that former Raton coaches Joseph Sanchez, Gilbert San Roman, Ryan Knowlton and Olga Neurauter have done in the past, and hopes to be successful as well.
"I want to let all the people of Raton - the kids, their fathers and mothers - know that I look forward to working with them and hopefully we'll all do what is best to help the kids be successful in the sport of volleyball," Romero said, adding he looks forward to working with Vertovec, high school Principal Mike Sparaco and the high school staff.
"I'm not a miracle worker, but I do believe hard work does great miracles," Romero said. "For kids to be successful, they need to do so on the court and off the court and I believe they can do both."

(Used with permission of Bob Morris, Sport’s Editor of the Raton Range Newspaper-http://www.ratonrange.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=145&ArticleID=11236)