Salata tells his side of RRHS program change

ALBUQUERQUE — More than four months after he learned he was no longer the Rio Rancho High School boys basketball coach, Wally Salata decided it was time to reveal what happened the morning of March 26.

The news of his dismissal spread like wildfire, but Salata wasn’t doing anything to control the blaze.

“The phone calls, the emails, the messages I got were crazy,” he recalled. “I got a ton of people supporting me and up to this date, I did not say anything to social media, did not say anything to the media — it’s been four months. I kept quiet because I wanted to kinda reflect and get things together.”

For an interview in early August, Salata had a binder from the 2024-25 season, copies of emails and documents, and four paper-clipped stacks of support from fellow coaches, parents, community members and players.

On March 26, Salata was called into RRHS Principal Millan Baca’s office, where he found three other people — his immediate boss, RRHS Athletic Director Sal Gonzales, and Rio Rancho Public Schools Executive Director of Athletics Todd Resch.

Salata said he felt ambushed with more than Baca awaiting him in that meeting, thinking the meeting would just be the two of them.

“We’re going in a different direction with the boys basketball program,” Baca told Salata, who’d recently finished his 16th season at the helm of the Rams, as he recalled the meeting. “They didn’t say I was fired; they didn’t say I had a chance to resign.

“I said, ‘What do you mean? … What documentation do you have? What did I do wrong? What was going on? I don’t have anything in my file down at district office.’ (Baca) goes, ‘We will be going in a different direction with the boys basketball program’ – he said that twice. Then he goes on to tell me I had two weeks to get all of my stuff out of my office.

“Todd and Sal didn’t say anything. All Todd said is, ‘We will be notifying the media right after this meeting,” Salata recalled. “I was there less than three minutes.”

Resch’s text to media was sent shortly before 9 a.m., noting “Rio Rancho HS is looking for a new boys’ basketball coach.” Resch said he had no further details to provide.

“I feel like I was unsupported; I felt like I was undermined — I felt that the administration was irresponsible,” Salata said. “It was like in less than three minutes, my 16-year career was done. And I was shocked.”

Salata said he’d last received an evaluation and growth plan following the 2022-23 season, but none since; negative comments in those from Gonzales could have rectified things Salata may have been doing wrong.

“I think that’s important for people to understand that if you don’t have these types of things, how are coaches supposed to get better? So that would be the biggest thing,” Salata said. “Not having administrative support is a big one — you have to have an AD at school every day. He has to see the overall operations of the facilities, of your coaches,” he added, noting that he would more often meet with the principal.

Salata sent an email to RRPS Superintendent Sue Cleveland, who he noted, at least thanked him for his 16 years with the district but confirmed in her return email the Rams would be seeking a new goal and “revitalizing” the program.

What turned out to be his final RRHS season had ended at Sandia High School in a first-round game of the Class 5A state tournament, a 71-53 Matadors win. Sandia’s season ended in a loss in the championship game.

On the morning of Saturday, Aug. 2, Salata said he didn’t know what a “different direction” meant, noting his teams only had one losing season in the last 11 years, the Rams had been a regular participant at state and that the team won the championship in 2016 as an 11-seed.

Plus, Salata said, his program had been involved in the community, his annual late-December tournament and regular youth camps had brought thousands of dollars into the athletic department’s coffers and, his Rams teams through the years had included 72 seniors with every one of them graduating.

Salata said there had been a few rough moments in the 2024-25 season, two including bad decisions that had been made by an assistant coach and a more recent one in which three freshmen in his program had been caught in the locker room, allegedly drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

The latter incident had occurred two weeks prior to Salata’s meeting with Baca while Salata had been attending the state tournament at The Pit.

Salata said he hopes to coach again someday and that he resigned from teaching on July 1.

He has had coaching interviews at 3A and 5A schools and had an opportunity to get a job in Artesia, but he wants to stay close to the Metro area, where son Walt, now the boys JV basketball coach at Cibola High, and daughter Ally — part of the RRHS coaching staff for the girls track and field program and the power-lifters — and his grandson reside. Walt, Ally and another daughter, Georgia, now living in Las Cruces, are RRHS graduates.

“I still have the fire and desire to coach,” says Salata, 60, but he doesn’t want to start at the bottom, namely building a program or coaching at a sub-varsity level. “I’ve paid my dues” with 37 years as a coach under his belt.

Oddly, Salata said, when he left his head coaching position at Rio Grande High School to take over the program at RRHS, left vacant when former coach Brian Smith headed across Northern Boulevard to become the first head coach at Cleveland High, he thought five years might be as long as he’d be with the Rams.

After those first five seasons, with the Rams going 52-92 and without a postseason appearance, “going in a different direction” and releasing Salata could have been expected. But then-AD Bruce Carver had faith in Salata.

Through his 16 seasons at RRHS, Salata’s win-loss record is 232-214. For his career, which also included stints at Los Lunas and his alma mater, St. Pius X, he is 347-350.

“I don’t want my (RRHS) job back, but I want closure,” Salata concluded, making sure to thank his assistants the past few seasons: Dalon Bynum, Ramon “Swoops” Montano, Walt Salata, and brothers Christopher Williams and Marcus Williams.

Steve Heredia, formerly an assistant at Atrisco Heritage Academy, was hired to replace Salata.

Following the Aug. 2 interview with Salata, Gonzales and Resch were asked to provide their responses.

“As a district administrator, I am not at liberty to discuss personnel matters,” Gonzales texted.

Resch wouldn’t comment either, instead deferring requests for comments to the district’s Executive Director of Communications, Wyndham Kemsley.

Kemsley replied in part that RRPS “feels it is important to clarify that coaching positions within Rio Rancho Public Schools are at-will, and are determined on a year-to-year basis. At-will positions do not have the same requirements or expectations, specifically with regard to annual evaluations, as full-time positions do.”