Nearly 17 months before Cleveland High School engages in its first varsity athletic contest, two head coaches are on board to lead Storm teams.

They won’t need any introduction to Rio Ranchoans or the student population at CHS.

Longtime cross country and track and field coach Larry Chavez began those programs when Rio Rancho High School opened in 1997. Brian Smith served four seasons (1999-2003) as a varsity boys basketball assistant coach, left the state for a couple of years, then returned in 2005 to become the school’s fourth head basketball coach for the RRHS boys. In his second season at the helm, Smith led the Rams to the Class 5A state championship.

Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sue Cleveland said she was pleased both decided to become head coaches at the high school, named after her and slated to open in time for the 2009-10 school year.

“We didn’t pressure them in any way,” Cleveland said, pleased with what she termed their “early commitment.”

Cleveland said establishing athletic programs at CHS will be a lot easier than it had been at RRHS, which Chavez recalled lacked a real track and resulted in him shuffling his athletes from Sandia Prep to Menaul School to West Mesa High School before a track was in place.

Cleveland said the rest of the fall sports n football, volleyball, boys and girls soccer and girls cross country n will be next to obtain coaches, although RRPS athletic director Bruce Carver said Tuesday afternoon that he hasn’t received a lot of applications and resumes for the gridiron post yet.

Of course, part of the reason for that may be because coaches often don’t want their name appearing in the media for future jobs, especially those already with head-coaching jobs in 2008. Carver did name one APS varsity football coach that had contacted him about the opening.

Chavez had announced his retirement from coaching during the fall, and his boys cross country team honored him by running well enough to capture a third-place trophy at the state meet.

Prior to his arrival in Rio Rancho in 1997, Chavez twice coached track and field plus cross country for a total of seven seasons at Santa Rosa, divided by an eight-year stint at Tucumcari High School.

Chavez later said he was hopeful of getting a job at the new high school, after spending a year golfing and taking time to head to Portales to watch his daughter Hilaree, a member of the Eastern New Mexico University track and field team, compete in her senior season. His son Lawrence, on the ENMU men’s track and field team, will be a sophomore next season.

“All the pieces fell together where I could sit out a year, watch Hilaree in her final year at Eastern, and watch Lawrence,” he said, anticipating a lot of golf, too.

Chavez told his track and field team the news Tuesday, telling the boys he didn’t want them to hear he’d be a Storm coach in the media.

“I like rebuilding or starting teams from scratch,” Chavez said. “I like the challenge.”

Coincidentally, Lawrence Chavez was a member of Smith’s state championship team in March of 2007.

Smith, 67-22 at RRHS, won’t have a year off to play golf, though. He’ll coach the Rams on the hardwood next winer, which will be his fourth and final season.

Smith said it wasn’t an easy decision, but he discussed it with his wife Kristi, a teacher at Enchanted Hills Elementary.

He said he likes “the challenge of starting a program from the ground up” and it was something he hadn’t done before, and that he had spoken to Larry Chavez and two other “original” coaches at RRHS, baseball coach Ron Murphy and girls basketball coach Bob McIntyre, before making a decision.

Unlike Chavez, Smith hadn’t been eyeing retirement, but he is looking forward to something Chavez has been able to do on numerous occasions: coach his own kids.

Although Brock Allen Smith is just eight months old, Smith said he wouldn’t mind coaching the CHS Storm when his son n class of 2025 n plays there.

“The thing I like is it’s going to be in the city of Rio Rancho,” he said. “We obviously like this community.”

As for the expected Rams-Storm rivalry, Smith said, “We’ll be there for each other, then beat the heck out of each other when we play each other.”