Cowbell Tradition, 83 Years Strong
by Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
RATON — Dating back to 1937, the Cowbell tourney has brought area teams together at the beginning of each basketball season to play for the coveted Cowbell all the while creating a basketball tradition and rivalries that is now in its 83rd year.
The Cowbell was Introduced as a traveling trophy in 1937 by two Raton Range personalities, Frank Pfieffer and Tim Barber, that area teams would compete for each year. Back in 1937 Jim Roper, former KRTN owner, recalls the teams at the time were Raton, Clayton, Roy, St. Patrick’s, Maxwell, Springer, Dawson, Kiowa, Cimarron, Wagon Mound, Mosquero, Farley, Des Moines and Grenville. The Cowbell competition morphed into a tournament originally called the Northeastern New Mexico Invitational Tournament in 1954 and a couple of years later was renamed the Cowbell Tournament, a name proposed by Jim Martin.
In 1954 the schools in New Mexico were placed into a new classification system that split the area schools into different classes. Raton and Clayton were placed in Class A while the remainder of the teams fell into Class B. Over the years, those classifications have changed and districts were added to create even stronger rivalries over the years. The Cowbell Tournament was a way for the teams to continue to play each other during the season.
When the competition was introduced the team that ended up with the Cowbell at the end of the season and kept it for three consecutive seasons would retire the bell and have their name placed on the bell. The very first cowbell was retired by Raton in 1947 and remains in the trophy case at the school. Cimarron claimed that distinction twice and retired the bell in 1963 and again in 2001.
The Cimarron Rams won the tourney in the 2001-2002 season and kept the trophy throughout the season making them the first team to win the bell at the tourney and keep it through four straight seasons.
Today the trophy remains in play and has not been retired in several years. There is also a concern that replacing the bell would be tough as they are no longer being made in the same design as the current bell. It has also been brought to question who should retire the bell since the changes in classifications and districts have made playing each other more difficult in some cases and yet requiring district play in other cases. Should the bell be retired if the same team wins it three years in a row at the tourney or if the same team keeps it at the end of the season for three seasons?
The girls were added to the tourney in the 1970s but fell out in the 1980s. The girls were brought back into the tourney in the 2005-2006 season with Raton, Cimarron, Clayton Des Moines, Roy, Springer, Mosquero and Questa vying for the girl’s Cowbell and adding to the tradition and rivalry of the sport.
“The only thing that tops it in everybody’s mind is the state tournament,” says Des Moines boys basketball coach Jim Doherty, who previously played in the Cowbell Tournament for the Demons. “There’s just a special feel to it, the kids play harder…. It almost feels like a state tournament.” Springer High School boys’ basketball coach Jimmy Apodaca, a former Red Devil who played in the Cowbell as well, adds, “It’s tradition. Everybody looks forward to it. It’s something the kids could look back on and say, ‘I got to say I won it, I got to say I retired the Cowbell.”
Today the tradition and rivalries continue and, in some cases, have become the game of the season as in the case of Maxwell and Springer over the last few years in the boy’s side of the bracket while it was Cimarron, Des Moines and Springer in the girl’s bracket. This year will be no exception as players graduate and new and younger players move up to high school the competition changes and who wins the trophy will also change.
Des Moines who stepped out the tourney for two years will be back and Clayton once again will be missed as they will be in another tourney. Wagon Mound returns to the tourney with both a girls and boys teams. This year the Tourney includes Cimarron, Des Moines, Maxwell, Questa, Raton, Roy, Springer and Wagon Mound. Games will once again begin on Tuesday afternoon December 10 in Springer and move to Raton on Friday December 13 with the championship games on Saturday evening in Raton at Tiger Gym.
Thanks to Bob Morris for his time and research into the Cowbell Tourney History.