Gatekeepers of the Pit: Mike and Yolanda Sanchez fighting to get back to work
· Yahoo Sports
If Mike and Yolanda Sanchez get their wish, they’ll be standing in the snow in a dark parking lot together some night this winter.
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There’s a chunk of asphalt on the south side of Albuquerque with their name on it. For the better part of three decades, it has been their happy place — where the subculture surrounding University of New Mexico Lobo sports created a family they never knew was waiting for them.
“Mike and Yolanda were amazing every time I drove to the Pit,” said former Lobo men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino. “They always had a smile on their face and always assured me we were going to win no matter how tough the opponent was.
“And that always put a smile on my face.”
He wasn’t the only one, and Lobo basketball wasn’t the only benefactor.
The Sanchezes — Mike, 77, and Yolanda, 78 — have worked high school state basketball and cheer tournaments, Lobo football, softball and baseball games, Albuquerque Isotopes, New Mexico United, Gathering of Nations and professional bull riding events.
Star athletes from thousands — yes, thousands — of Albuquerque’s biggest sporting events never made their way down to that court 37 feet below the parking lot before first being greeted by the youthful, infectious smiles of Mike and Yolanda Sanchez.
“Love them both dearly,” former Lobos coach Steve Alford said. “They are such a fabric of what makes the Pit the Pit, and in the same manner what makes great people great. I appreciate their support of the Lobos and of their incredible kindness.
“When all you do is make people smile you know you are doing things right. Praying for both Mike and Yolanda.“
Today, the smiles are still on their faces, but Mike and Yolanda aren’t at their usual parking lot post.
In 2024, a nagging, persistent cough for Yolanda was eventually diagnosed as lung cancer — now at stage 4. She had a lung removed that same year and hasn’t worked a Lobos game since.
As for Mike, he continued working his parking job through April’s PBR bull riding event. That was when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, also stage 4.
“My mom tells her doctors now, ‘I need to get better so that I could take care of my husband,’” said Myra, the spitting image of her mom who has spent the past two Lobo basketball seasons alongside her dad, keeping her mom’s spot warm.
“And my dad’s like, ‘I need to get out of here so I can go take care of my wife.’ It breaks my heart.”
Before the ‘retirement’ gig
Yolanda is a 1966 graduate of Albuquerque High who went on to be student body president at Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute. She worked for Albuquerque Public Schools for nearly 20 years before helping raise one of her granddaughters.
Mike, a 1967 graduate of Rio Grande High School — Yolanda and their three children are all Albuquerque High grads who have chosen to overlook Mike’s Raven roots — played trumpet in a band called “Little Joe and the Blazers” as a teenager, also went to TVI and later became data communications manager for the city of Albuquerque. He also was a decorated high school, college and national-level fast pitch softball umpire.
After their APS and city government jobs, Mike and Yolanda thought working parking for Lobo games might be a fun retirement gig.
It became so much more than they ever could have imagined.
What might seem to most to be a mere transactional exchange — pay to get in or flash your parking pass to get by — became so much more.
“The thing about it is, we love the coaches, we love the players, and they all become part of our family,” Mike said. “We’ve seen the players grow up, we’ve got to know their families.”
Former UNM baseball coach Ray Birmingham always brought Mike a new Lobo baseball cap when they arrived.
Hugh Greenwood’s mom, Andree, chatted at length with Yolanda before games when her son was a four-year starter for the Lobos.
A family from Hawaii sent a care package after meeting Mike and Yolanda while parking to watch their son play a Lobo football game.
Kenny Thomas walked over and stood by Yolanda’s side when he heard a driver getting upset that she wouldn’t let him park in a lot he didn’t have a pass for.
When former Lobo booster and attorney Turner Branch couldn’t persuade them to take a Christmas tip while parking in their lot for years, he sent his grandson to do it.
“I’m sorry, but tell your grandpa no. I won’t take a tip,” Yolanda recalls. “He just looked so sad and said, ‘I can’t do that. He told me if you don’t take it, I can’t go in the game with him.’”
The Sanchezes even started parking their car nearby while working to hold all hot chocolate, pizza, full meals and more that their regulars brought them on cold nights.
Filling in for mom
It was those cold nights that made Myra Sanchez plead with her parents for years to stop.
“I couldn’t understand why they did it, why they were retired, but they just kept working as hard as they were,” Myra said. “I would see them coming home late at night. I would see them in the snow. I would see them in the rain, in the wind, in the heat, and it would irk me.”
How’d the daughter’s request to get them to stop go? Myra now works parking, too, and has worked alongside her dad since her mom’s lung cancer diagnosis.
“I understand it completely now,” Myra said.
“My parents have touched a lot of people’s lives. I knew that on some level before I worked there, but I’ve learned it on a whole other level the last couple years.”
Their contributions aren’t lost on those running things at UNM, either.
“Along the way, they’ve taken the time to get to know us, our families, our goals, and everything in between,” said UNM Athletic Director Ryan Berryman, who Mike and Yolanda watched grow from student manager for Lobos basketball to running the department they work for.
“Their impact extends well beyond the ‘parking lot.’ I know I speak for many when I say how grateful we are not only for all of their service to UNM, but for their friendship, too.”
A hopeful return
Mike and Yolanda will be recognized by UNM Athletics at Saturday’s Lobo football game — a show of respect and gratitude they’ve earned.
Here’s hoping UNM can someday place a plaque near that southeast asphalt corner of the Pit that reads: “The Mike and Yolanda Sanchez Coaches and Players’ Lot.”
Here’s also hoping those reflective, neon-green jackets and big smiles that Mike and Yolanda wear so well will be back at the lot very soon.
“I want to go back,” Yolanda said. “I really want to try and go back.”
We all want both of you there, too.
Geoff Grammer is a Sports Editor and podcaster for the Albuquerque Journal who covers UNM Lobo basketball and writes a front page column each Monday aimed at telling the stories of people he comes across as a reporter, a dad, a husband and a native New Mexican. If you have any suggestions or feedback, reach Geoff Grammer at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.
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