Athletic officials to address club

 Top New Mexico Military Institute athletic officials will speak at this week’s Rotary Club meeting.

Athletic director Jose Barron and head football coach Kurt Taufa’asau will give an overview of NMMI athletics during the meeting, which begins at noon Thursday in the Roswell Civic Center.

Barron, who was named athletic director in 2014, has been employed at NMMI since 2003 when he was hired as an athletic trainer. He was given additional duties as an associate director of athletics while he oversaw the evolution and growth of the sports medicine program.

Prior to NMMI, Barron worked in a number of sports medicine and rehabilitation clinics and spent some time working as an athletic trainer in player development for a professional baseball team.

Barron holds an undergraduate degree from New Mexico State University and a graduate degree from New Mexico Highlands University.

Taufa’asau, a native of American Samoa, played for NMMI in 2009 under former head coach Jeff Lynn. He returned to his alma mater in 2016 as a defensive line coach.

As a Bronco, Taufa’asau earned first-team All-Western States Football League honors as a defensive lineman. NMMI posted a 7-4 record to earn an appearance in the Central Bank Salt City Bowl where it lost 22-14 to Hutchinson Community College. In the bowl game, Taufa’asau was credited with four tackles.

The Broncos concluded the 2009 season ranked 20th in the final NJCAA national poll.

Taufa’asau then went to the University of Wyoming where he played for coach Dave Christensen while earning a bachelor’s in sociology in 2012.

After graduation, he spent time in the NFL, signing with the Oakland Raiders in 2013. He also spent time on the Tennessee Titans practice squad that same year and the Indianapolis Colts practice squad from 2014-15.

He was the defensive line coach at Westlake High School in Saratoga Springs, Utah in 2015.

Taufa’asau was named 2021 American Community College Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year.

As a joint four-year high school and two-year junior college, the NMMI Athletic Department oversees 24 sanctioned sports teams — 8 at the junior college level and 16 at the high school level — as well as the corps physical training program and the Health Physical Education and recreation academic division.