Highlands University went looking for a new athletic director, the answer wasn’t too far off.
Scott Noble has served in the same capacity at Western New Mexico for the last seven years. On Tuesday, he was introduced as the new athletics boss at fellow Division II school NMHU.
“I’ve been wanting to get closer to my roots for a while,” Noble said with a laugh. “Las Vegas is six hours closer.”
The Kansas native takes over a department going through significant changes. In the past two months, the school has dismissed its men’s basketball coach, fired its baseball coach, let go of its softball coach and terminated the contract of Noble’s predecessor, former AD Shanna Halalilo.
Jim Deisler has served as interim AD since Halalilo’s departure and will continue to do so until Noble officially takes over June 9.
The school announced its new softball coach at the same time Noble was being introduced. It’s Kali Pugh, who led Yavapai College to the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference playoffs this past season.
She has coached at the junior college level for eight years. She played at Oklahoma City University and got a master’s degree from Azusa Pacific in 2019. This is her first job at the NCAA level.
“Kali possesses all of the traits of a successful collegiate coach,” NMHU President Neil Woof said. “Her focus on fostering community relationships and her insistence that her players will work hard both on the field and in the classroom is exactly what we were looking for to lead this program.”
As for Noble, he said he’s had his eyes on Highlands for a while. With WNMU being part of the far-flung Lone Star Conference that demands a significant portion of the athletic department’s budget for travel, he said having the chance to lobby for the kinds of funds Highlands will need to stay competitive in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference will be a primary goal.
WNMU teams would often drive three hours to El Paso, then fly into Texas to face a number of Lone Star teams within a short drive of either Houston or Dallas. Others, like Eastern New Mexico, Lubbock Christian and West Texas A&M, were all by bus — and none of it was easy.
Ultimately he’d like to start a multi-year plan similar to the one ENMU had with its facilities.
It took those plans to the Legislature for years when lobbying for support.
“You have to do a good job working on the people who make those decisions,” Noble said. “It’s about getting them on campus to see what we’re dealing with and showing them what we need help with.”
He said he’d also tap into Highlands’ extensive alumni network, one he saw firsthand a number of times while at WNMU.
“They’ve always had a strong, deep group of alumni who support them, so that will be a priority,” he said. “What I see is a great opportunity, to come in there and work with a good staff and an administration with a clear vision for athletics.”
Noble said he’ll do whatever it takes to put a winner on the field, and in the penny-pinching world of Division II athletics that often means finding money that isn’t easy to find. If it means lobbying state leaders or scouring business near and far, he’ll do it.
“I know exactly what I’m getting into,” he said. “We’ve been fighting that same battle [at WNMU].”
Noble isn’t exactly a stranger to the RMAC. He’d had previous stops at Chadron State and, before that, former RMAC member Fort Hays State.
“I grew up cutting my teeth in the RMAC, so it’s kind of like coming home,” he said.
Now that he’s a little closer to his roots, he feels the sky’s the limit.
“I’ve always thought that about Highlands,” he said. “I’m ready to get up there.”
