Many people may know him as Ro, but his full name is Roosevelt Anthony Calhoun Jr. He is a student athlete at WNMU who is currently in his junior year this spring of 2019. He is a San Francisco native who was raised in Reno, Nevada. He then transferred to WNMU from the University of Nevada during the fall semester of 2016. He says he loves Western and the bonds he’s made while being here. He is extremely excited to graduate next spring.
Q: Hey Roosevelt, I know last season wasn’t what you expected going 0-10, what do you think transpired to perform that way last season?
A: Our worst enemies last season were time, preparation, and recruitment. We had a whole new coaching staff come in a month before our season began. There was no time for off season recruiting as we were looking for coaches, we also had very little time to prepare leaving us to install a whole playbook in 4 weeks. We were short handed and needed to burn a lot of redshirts of freshman who weren’t yet ready. Meaning we also were short on scout team guys so it was definitely to get proper looks of our opponents schemes. These aspects may not seem that drastic, but they put us at a huge disadvantage last season.
Q: How do you think you will bounce back from last year?
A: I think our bounce back will be tremendous. This upcoming fall we are going to look like a completely different team. We’ve have time to add onto our schemes offensively, as well as defensively, and we will have an almost complete college roster with 95 players next season. We have a lot of leaders and guys ready to compete this fall of 2019. It’s to be very exciting!
Q: What do you think you guys need as a team to be a better football club?
A: All we need is players to buy in to the program and to believe. We have a tons of athletes and great coaches. The only thing separating us right now is the mental aspect. Once we shift gears up there. Then it’ll be no stopping us.
Q: I know you had a record breaking season last year recording 102 tackles in only 10 games of play. What can you do to overcome last year and put up better numbers?
A: Honestly the numbers aren’t too important to me. I’m more focused on winning ball games, if I can record half of those stats at the coast of a winning season i would. My goal is to be recognized as the best LB in this conference and that can’t happen if we’re 0-10. To accomplish that i need to up my level of play while leading us to some wins. And I think that’ll happen this next season.
Q: This year you have 12 games instead of 10, how will you guys manage to stay in shape and conditioned for the extra 2 games?
A: Yes, this is very true! We are are excluding our bye week and adding two more teams to the schedule. It’s going to be exciting! On most areas of the field we managed to stay healthy except for a few positions groups. In my opinion i feel that Terra and Travis will do a great job of keeping us in tip-top shape, and we will also be conducting in weekly yoga and stretching to keep our bodies right, and get out all of the Lactic acid.
Q: I know you are a leader and a solidified baller for our university’s football team. Do you feel like we have enough leadership on and off the field to be successful as football players and young men?
A: We do have some, but there is never any reason why we can’t have more. Our on field leadership had greatly increased. However, we need more off the field leaders to hold people accountable in the classroom as well. Coach Tristan manages this very well, making sure that we are great young men in class and in the community.
Q: Last year the crowd grew each week, what do you think you guys can do as a football team to bring more fans to the games so that you will have more support?
A: Honestly winning games will bring out more people constantly. We have a great fan base and our coaches have taken the liberty to recruit very many kids near by from El Paso, Tx and AZ. This too will expand our fan base so we can have more people at the games.
Q: We all seen spurts of great things last year during the games. How can you all manage to keep that same energy and intensity throughout the whole game?
A: Practice and consistency. We need to practice our consistency week-in and week-out. With tackling, catching the ball, and blocking. We will do each of these things great one play and then horrible the next. If we work on being a consistent ball club then a lot will change in game as well.
Q: Things around here are changing and I’m sure everyone on and off campus can see that as well. The new coaches came here late last year and you barely had time to gel with them. They are improving a lot of things involving the football program. How better do you think the relationship between the coaches and players will be?
A: Every individual player and coach hold a different relationship with each other. Yet, I feel our overall player to coaches relationship as a stuff has gotten much better because we’ve all had time to grasp a feel of each other.
Q: Do you feel like more people are destined to stay at this program because of the changes being made ? In the previous years it was hard to keep elite players.
A: Within programs player will come and go. That’s how it is in the mist of college sports. Whether they are unhappy or unsatisfied with their playing time it is their final decision. At the end of the day only you can decide if your happy with where you are and if you’re not then you make change. The players the stay are the ones who are bought in and committed. Those are the guys we want in the long run anyway. You can be the most elite player ever, but if you’re a cancer to the team we don’t need you.
Q: Is the recruiting process and the way we obtain players a better process now ? I see more effort being put into genuinely reaching out and recruiting players.
A: Yes, the recruiting process now is much better then it was in the past. As of Feb. 6th we added 39 commits to the mustang family and are going to look like a whole new team this upcoming Fall 2019.
Well, I appreciate you for taking the time out of your day to do this interview. I wish you and the Western New Mexico Football team a great season. Go Mustangs!
