​For the past ten months, Joe Fields has stretched time, pushing beyond the standard 40-hour week by arriving early and staying late. That was his candid takeaway to the Journal about his first year as New Mexico State University’s athletic director. He asked, in effect, whether he could make ten months feel like eleven and cover twelve months of work in ten. Yet he believes that stretch of effort has yielded real returns. Speaking to a crowd of Aggie supporters at D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro in Old Town on Thursday evening, Fields reported that fundraising is up nearly $300,000 from the same period last year. More donors are stepping forward to support NMSU, and with one major facilities upgrade on the horizon, a few additional initiatives are already being explored. In other words, there are several off-field wins to celebrate.
The lingering question, however, is whether those gains will translate into success on the field. That was the central theme of Fields’ remarks at the “Aggies in Albuquerque” gathering on Thursday: if he believes the foundation for success has been laid during his first ten months at the helm, he’s eager to see that work bear fruit on the gridiron and the court this season. “What really matters now is that we start to transition to this winning mindset,” said Fields, who joined NMSU as athletic director in September after earlier roles at Tulsa and Texas A&M. “Those are the conversations we’re having with our coaches and our staff. We’ve got to win championships, and that’s really important to us as we move forward.”
At the heart of that effort is increasing NMSU’s revenue share among its programs. Fields noted that while men’s basketball revenue sharing was competitive and women’s basketball sat mid-pack in Conference USA last year, football trailed at the bottom. He now asserts that all programs will sit in the league’s top half in revenue share this year. “We were trailing. We didn’t have a chance,” he told the Journal. “We’re in the fight right now, and we’ve got to keep raising funds and generating revenue so our programs can be at the top of the league—and so the resources can match the expectations.”
Fields believes the changes and additions he has helped implement—from boosting revenue shares to enhancing player benefits and reorganizing the athletic department—will help remove obstacles coaches previously faced. “Now you see coaches saying, ‘Oh yeah, I can recruit X (an athlete); that athlete signed with us because of X.’ And with that, the expectation is much higher, and our coaches are fully embracing it.” Added to these efforts is a long-awaited $18.2 million renovation to the press box. While Fields notes the project has not yet started, it is on track to be completed by the start of the 2027 season. The department will use $9 million allocated by the state legislature to be spent over three years, a plan Fields says underscores the progress and commitment behind NMSU’s athletics program, even as the organization continues to navigate the path toward on-field and on-court success.