NMSU athletic director sets sights on winning championships

For the last 10 months, Joe Fields stole time.

“Meaning, don’t put in (just) 40 hours a week. Come in earlier and stay later, right?” New Mexico State’s first-year athletic director told the Journal. “Can I make 10 months feel like 11 months? Can I cover 12 months of ground in 10 months?”

But that time, Fields says, has paid dividends. As he told a crowd of Aggie supporters at D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro in Old Town on Thursday evening, fundraising is up nearly $300,000 from this time last year. More and more donors are stepping in to help support NMSU. And with one major facilities upgrade coming, a few more are already being explored.

In other words, there are plenty of wins off the field.

The only thing left? Winning on the field.

That was perhaps the main theme of Fields’ address at an “Aggies in Albuquerque” event Thursday: If he believes the foundation for success has been laid in his first 10 months at the helm, Fields is ready to see the fruits of that labor come to life on the field and court this year.

“What really matters now is that we start to transition to this winning mindset,” said Fields, who was hired by NMSU in September after previous stops at Tulsa and Texas A&M. “Those are the things that we’re talking about with our coaches. Those are the things that we’re talking about with our staff.

” … We got to win championships, and that’s really important to us as we move forward.”

At the crux of that effort? Increasing NMSU’s revenue share pools among its programs. While men’s basketball revenue sharing was “competitive” and women’s basketball was middle of the pack last year in Conference USA, football was “dead last,” Fields said; now he claims all programs will be among the top half of the league in revenue share this year.

“We were trailing. We didn’t have a chance,” Fields told the Journal. “We’re in the fight right now and now we got to continue to raise funds and generate revenue to get into our programs so that they could be at the top of the league, and honestly, so that the resources can match the expectations.”

In turn, Fields believes the changes and additions he’s helped make – from increasing revenue share to improving player benefits to restructuring the athletic department – will help eliminate some of the “hurdles” coaches might have previously faced.

“Now you see coaches saying, ‘oh yeah, I can recruit X (athlete), that (athlete) signed with us because of X.’ And with that, now the expectation is much higher, and our coaches are fully embracing it.”

That’s all on top of a long-awaited $18.2 million press box renovation that Fields says hasn’t started, but is on time to be completed towards the start of the 2027 season. After receiving $9 million from the state legislature to spend over three years, he said the department will be selecting a contractor for the job soon.

Among other possible facility upgrades, Fields added he wants to renovate some of NMSU’s locker rooms in the near future, a play that would only help the Aggies become more attractive in future conference realignment cycles — even if that isn’t the focus right now.

“If we’re being honest … We’re not there right now,” he said. “The main thing needs to be the main thing, and that’s building a first class organization and winning championships. And from that, we’ll have options as we move forward – if we don’t do that we’ll have zero options.

” … We got to do our part. And we’re in Conference USA, so we have to win the conference.”

Plenty of wins off the field. And as Fields hopes, plenty to come.

But what if the Aggies don’t win, at least this year?

“We’re not gonna budge,” Fields said. “We’re gonna be convicted in what we know and believe And whether it pops right now or later, we got the process right, we got the people right and we’re gonna stay true to what we believe in.”

Sean Reider covers college football and other sports for the Journal. You can reach him at sreider@abqjournal.com or via X at @lenaweereider.