Does history repeat itself?
We’ve all heard the famous warning, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” There’s certainly some truth in that. But recently, while attending an Eagles concert, I heard Don Henley use another line, one often attributed to Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
I like that.
The same events may never happen exactly the same way again. The names change. The circumstances change. The scoreboard changes. But every once in a while, the rhythm feels familiar. You hear an echo from somewhere in the past.
And lately, I’ve been hearing one from the fall of 2000.
Remember Y2K? As 1999 became 2000, people wondered whether computers would crash, banks would shut down, airplanes would fall from the sky and the modern world as we knew it might grind to a halt. Midnight came. The calendar changed. And, for the most part, nothing happened.
By August, another school year had begun. The seniors would graduate in 2001—the Space Odyssey class. The future seemed bright, and expectations were high in Wildcat Country, especially for football.
But those Wildcats were carrying something much heavier than expectations.
Earlier that year, on Wednesday, January 12, teammate Joe Moreno Jr. had been killed. Joe’s story deserves a column of its own, and someday I’ll write it. His loss affected his teammates deeply. Football couldn’t erase their grief, but getting back together—practicing, competing, laughing and hurting alongside one another—gave them somewhere to put some of that pain.
So we entered the 2000 season with hope.
Then Artesia beat us 42-6.
Technically, Artesia later forfeited the game because of an ineligible player. But let’s not rewrite history—they whooped us.
Silver City beat us 14-7. Then came Los Alamos in a rainstorm that turned the field into mud. We lost 12-9, a game we believed we should have won. We finally broke through against West Las Vegas, 55-6, before a very good Hobbs team handed us another 42-7 loss.
Five games into a season filled with such high expectations, we were 1-4 on the field.
High hopes had turned into questions. Questions were becoming doubts. And when a football team starts 1-4, there are plenty of people willing to tell you what’s wrong.
But inside that locker room, something different was happening.
The players weren’t quitting. The coaches weren’t quitting. Most importantly, we weren’t quitting on each other. There was still belief in that room. We couldn’t change what had happened during the first five games, but we could decide what happened next.
And what happened next changed the season.
St. Pius, from Albuquerque, came to Lovington with a talented football team. In front of a great home crowd, the Wildcats upset the Sartans, 13-7.
Then Fort Stockton came to town.
35-6.
District play began. Ruidoso fell, 31-20. Then Portales, 21-12. We stepped outside district play to beat NMMI, 34-7, and closed the regular season by defeating Santa Teresa, 54-0.
A team that had been 1-4 had suddenly won five straight.
We were 6-4.
And, just in time for the playoffs, we were “Back in the High Life Again.”
Three more victories followed—Thoreau, St. Michael’s and finally Cobre.
Eight straight wins. Led by seniors Ryan Burkett, Storm Field, Max Brown Joe Hart, Gilbert Sanchez and the late Kiley Aswell and current Wildcat coach Josh Faith.
The Lovington Wildcats, who had once stood at 1-4 with people wondering what had gone wrong, finished 10-4 and were state champions.
Now I’ll ask the question again.
Does history repeat itself?
Probably not exactly.
But maybe Mark Twain had it right.
Maybe sometimes it rhymes.
The 2026 Lovington Wildcats now find themselves at 1-4. Expectations were high when this season began, too. Things haven’t gone according to plan. There have been disappointments. There have been mistakes. And yes, doubt has begun creeping in around Wildcat Country.
Sound familiar?
This week the Wildcats are open. There is no Friday-night scoreboard to worry about. Instead, there is time to work. Time to heal. Time to correct mistakes. Time to decide what kind of football team they want to be from this point forward.
And waiting on the other side of the open week is a team coming from the Albuquerque area—Valencia—making its way into Wildcat Country.
As I sat listening to Don Henley talk about history rhyming, my mind went back 26 years.
1-4.
A team with expectations.
A season that seemed to be slipping away.
A locker room that refused to surrender.
And then—St. Pius.
13-7.
Nobody in 2026 can promise what happens next. The 2000 Wildcats earned their ending one practice, one play and one Friday night at a time. This team will have to do exactly the same.
But history does leave lessons.
A bad beginning doesn’t have to determine the ending.
Adversity doesn’t have to divide a team; sometimes it pulls one together.
And a record tells you what you’ve done. It doesn’t tell you what you’re about to do.
After writing recently about the connection between music and football, another song title seems appropriate for these Wildcats:
“Nothing Else Matters.”
Or maybe legendary Wildcat coach Jerry Brown would have put it even better, borrowing from Meatballs:
“1 and 4? It just doesn’t matter.”
What matters is what happens next.
Twenty-six years ago, a 1-4 Wildcat football team decided its story wasn’t finished.
Maybe history won’t repeat itself.
But come next Friday night in Wildcat Country…
I wouldn’t mind hearing it rhyme.
And the Tale goes on…