David Oakeley, the first marketing director for NMSU Athletics and a longtime Aggie fan, looks back on building that job from scratch in the early 1990s. Hired first to get Aggie games back on the radio, he later ran marketing with no advertising budget, trading Aggie Sports Association memberships for ad space and adding in-game promotions like a pizza giveaway. He recalls the football program's long losing streak and why he believes Jim Hess saved it. The conversation also covers the challenges NMSU faces compared with UNM, from geography to legislative funding, his take on athletic director Joe Fields and the Pan American Center naming-rights deal, and his work moderating two Aggie fan sites. Oakeley ends with his view that the Aggies can succeed at their own level rather than at the top tier.
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