what people are saying ...
New Mexico Magazine
"WHEN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO announced it would cut the men’s soccer program in 2018, fans, players, and alumni were stunned. The Lobos weren’t just competitive—they were nationally recognized for both athletic and academic success. In A Beautiful Shame (Bloomsbury), historian Ryan Swanson takes readers inside that tumultuous final season. Acting as both reporter and fan, he reveals the politics, budget battles, and human costs behind the decision. More than a sports book, it’s a story about community, identity, and not going down without a fight. “This place is a corrosive mix of pride and shame,” Swanson writes of his adopted home state. Yet, as he shows, a scrappy spirit is the New Mexico way—and the Lobos’ legacy. " GEOFF GRAMMER Albuquerque Journal, NM Sportswriter of the Year “Neither overly sympathetic, nor overly critical, Swanson delivers a deft mix of detailed accounting of the agonizing final run of one of New Mexico's most successful sports programs ever with very human, relatable anecdotes that could only be known by the players, coaches, and the embedded author, who lived out that impossible season. Nobody is villainized, but as the program's longtime patriarch would prefer it, nobody is let off the hook, either. There were political promises never fulfilled, numbers that never added up, school administrators digging in on decisions meant to solve problems cutting soccer didn't really fix, a college sports landscape moving at warp speed into an uncontrollable billion dollar behemoth and a sport itself that didn't always view college soccer as something worth saving, anyway. All that taking place in the complex setting of New Mexico -- a proud state always ready for a fight, but rarely prepared to deliver solutions -- and there's no more fitting description of the painful last days of UNM Lobo men's soccer than as ‘A Beautiful Shame’.” SASHO CIROVSKI Head Men's Soccer Coach, University of Maryland "A Beautiful Shame" is a gripping inside look into one of the darkest moments of Men's College Soccer this century. While many college programs have suffered similar fates of being cut, the decision(s) to drop Lobo Men's Soccer was "shameful". A program that stood for excellence and achieved incredible success should have been heralded and rewarded and not dropped. This book reveals the current sad state of a college sports landscape that needs real reform so this never happens again to the players, coaches and the community that serve a University so well." VICTORIA JACKSON PhD, Sports Historian, Arizona State University “What is the value of the University of New Mexico men’s soccer team? Ryan Swanson, in this rich and textured chronicle of the announced final season of Lobos men’s soccer, shows that—contrary to university accounting—it is priceless. A Beautiful Shame places the Lobos’ story in the complicated contexts of Land-of-Enchantment state politics as well as the heightened scrutiny and sweeping business changes transforming American college sports in the 21st century. At its heart are the young athletes and their coaches who come together to fight to win—on and off the pitch.” |
Chicago Sun Times, BEST READS OF 2025
“A Beautiful Shame” chronicles the demise of the once-proud University of New Mexico men’s soccer team, and it echoes so much of what we’ve seen transform college sports into in the past few years. The Title IX gender-equity law. Lucrative marketing deals for the most talented young adults. Athletic department scandals and budget crunches at public institutions of higher learning. And transfer portals that send student-athletes pinging across the country for playing time. This book is a strong reminder that there are dramas surrounding student-athletes and their coaches — and also stories of power and money at our state universities, which are public trusts and vast troughs of taxpayer dollars. That often should be covered by our dwindling bands of local journalists as aggressively as higher-profile levels of government and politics." SoccerAmerica "AFC Richmond had Trent Crimm. The University of New Mexico had Ryan Swanson. Like the fictional “Ted Lasso” journalist, the UNM professor spent a season embedded in a soccer team. Both chose significant years: a push for promotion, and the final fall for a storied program. Yet unlike the fired Independent writer, Swanson actually produced a book that can be read. “A Beautiful Shame: One Team’s Fight for Survival in a New Era of College Sports” details the Lobos’ 2018 season, months after officials announced the men’s soccer program would be discontinued. The decision — following the first rumblings of major disruptions in college sports including the transfer portal and NIL, and Title IX directives — caused a statewide uproar. " Booklist "How can the firsthand account of the final season of a successful Division I collegiate men's soccer team, unceremoniously cut by the school administration, be a feel-good story? Swanson, a history professor at the University of New Mexico (The Strenuous Life, 2019) does a remarkable job capturing the spirit of the UNM Lobos. He pulls back the curtain on the current landscape of a collegiate "non-revenue" team and the questionable methods used to justify slashing the program. This book will appeal to Ted Lasso fans, who will recognize the similar passion and camaraderie among the players, here led by Coach Fishbein, who guided the team from 2002 until the program was dropped in 2019. Fishbein's demanding style, high expectations, and accountability are to be admired, as was his willingness to take the fight for the team to the school administration, board of regents, and even the New Mexico legislature. There was no happy ending, but Fishbein's unwavering commitment to the student athletes and the program he built makes this a compelling read and notable contribution to collegiate-sports history." Albuquerque Journal "Seven years ago was a dark time for soccer fans in New Mexico. Sure, something called New Mexico United was announced and was on the horizon as a player in the USL Championship, a professional league. But the University of New Mexico men’s soccer team — beloved and revered across the state and perhaps the crown jewel in the Lobos athletic program — was on the chopping block. At the time, it seemed like somebody’s cruel idea of a joke. A scandal-free program that not only regularly graduated its players with honors but competed at the highest national level, faced elimination. Elimination indeed. Despite much hue and cry from the community, legislators, players and former players, men’s soccer was outcast. It was no more, except for one more lonely season for players and coaches who saw it through to the end. UNM professor Ryan Swanson was a witness to that final season in 2018, embedded within the program for team meetings, practices, locker room speeches, postgame breakdowns and even legislative sessions." PETER TREVISANI CEO, New Mexico United "Friday Night Lights collides with the high desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico where a University required to balance its budget ends up cutting the hopes and dreams of a generation that is too often told it is not good enough. This isn’t about soccer, it’s about a Community and a Coach that had to fight for every inch only to have it all taken away with a single stroke of a pen. The final season of UNM Soccer is about perserverence in the face of adversity and controlling the controllable. The Lobos men’s teams plays its nuts off why those who relay on the storied program as a bridge to hope put everything on the line to fight to keep it alive. A story that needs to be told and remembered. STEFAN SZYMANSKI Professor, Univ of Michigan, Co-author of Soccernomics“People often talk lovingly about grass roots soccer - Ryan Swanson skillfully recounts the struggles involved in nourishing those roots, and how they were torn up at UNM.” |
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Backstory:
I have been asked, more than a few times, why I decided to write this book. I mean, a soccer team on the chopping block, a university (my university!) embroiled in fractious budget cuts, and the screwed up world of college sports? Was this really how I wanted to spend my time?
Yes, yes it was.
In part, it was because I knew these players, this program, and these coaches. I had been working with the Lobo athletics department for years as the Director of the Lobo Scholars Program. I'd been around. I'd seen things. And so, when the cuts were announced, and Coach Fish gave me complete access to the team as it played out a possibly-terminal season, I couldn't say no. Here was a group of men thrust into a difficult situation. Here was a team faced with extinction. Someone needed to record this saga.
If I'm being honest, there was also a small part of me that hoped a Disney-esque story might transpire. Maybe, I thought, a miracle would happen and a championship would save this team. And I'd be there every step of the way.
But that inkling aside, I also knew that this story mattered to a place that mattered to me: New Mexico. I knew this story would say something about the changing landscape of college sports. Further, I was convinced that following this team, during this season would show (rather than tell or postulate upon) what sports can do for a young person and for an institution.
So, I went all in. I attended every practice and game. I traveled with the team. I hugged the back wall during team meetings, trying to get everything but also stay out of the way. I interviewed everyone who would go on the record with me - players, coaches, university administrators, soccer officials, politicians, economists ... anyone.
What resulted is A Beautiful Shame. It's the story of a team up against great odds. It's about a leader being threatened with the prospect of losing his life's work. It's about a place that sometimes has a hard time believing it can be an incubator for good things.
I hope you'll give A Beautiful Shame a read. And if you do pick it up, I hope you enjoy the journey, and that, perhaps, this story might even change your perspective a bit. Knowing this group of men, and being along for this Beautiful Shame season, certainly changed me.
Yes, yes it was.
In part, it was because I knew these players, this program, and these coaches. I had been working with the Lobo athletics department for years as the Director of the Lobo Scholars Program. I'd been around. I'd seen things. And so, when the cuts were announced, and Coach Fish gave me complete access to the team as it played out a possibly-terminal season, I couldn't say no. Here was a group of men thrust into a difficult situation. Here was a team faced with extinction. Someone needed to record this saga.
If I'm being honest, there was also a small part of me that hoped a Disney-esque story might transpire. Maybe, I thought, a miracle would happen and a championship would save this team. And I'd be there every step of the way.
But that inkling aside, I also knew that this story mattered to a place that mattered to me: New Mexico. I knew this story would say something about the changing landscape of college sports. Further, I was convinced that following this team, during this season would show (rather than tell or postulate upon) what sports can do for a young person and for an institution.
So, I went all in. I attended every practice and game. I traveled with the team. I hugged the back wall during team meetings, trying to get everything but also stay out of the way. I interviewed everyone who would go on the record with me - players, coaches, university administrators, soccer officials, politicians, economists ... anyone.
What resulted is A Beautiful Shame. It's the story of a team up against great odds. It's about a leader being threatened with the prospect of losing his life's work. It's about a place that sometimes has a hard time believing it can be an incubator for good things.
I hope you'll give A Beautiful Shame a read. And if you do pick it up, I hope you enjoy the journey, and that, perhaps, this story might even change your perspective a bit. Knowing this group of men, and being along for this Beautiful Shame season, certainly changed me.