Nomad’s BBQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico
As a spindly teenager who hadn’t yet metamorphosed into my (then) scrawny 6’1″ stature, I had grand delusions of someday playing basketball for the University of New Mexico (UNM) Lobos. There could be no greater aspiration for a twelve-year old from the mountains than to wear the cherry, silver and turquoise and play for UNM Coach Norm Ellenberger. Back then Coach Ellenberger could do no wrong in my eyes…or in the eyes of every Lobo fan. A 1974 Sports Illustrated article described him as “the Newman-Redford among coaches, a man of such striking looks and charisma that his picture, hanging in Albuquerque restaurants, must be guarded lest it be defaced with scribbled I love hims.” When my Uncle Fred introduced…