Christopher Scott Eaton

Christopher Scott Eaton died on November 21, 2022. He was the head baseball coach and a teacher at Sandia High School in Albuquerque.
Chris also was a brother, son, friend, teammate and colleague, as well as a mentor to hundreds of young people. He was a talented writer and historian, surprising friends and family with tours of little-known historical sites wherever they went around the country. He once appeared in a television series and was writing a book. Not that anyone was keeping score, because fly fishing is not necessarily competitive, but Chris usually caught and released more trout than his fishing companions.
Chris was born in Albuquerque on September 2, 1987, and was raised in Corrales. He attended Sandia Prep and Cibola High, graduating in 2006. His early passion for baseball led to him being named team co-captain, most valued player, and a first-team All-State selection from a Cougars team that won a district championship for the first time in more than 20 years. However, Chris once told his brother that he believed he actually was a basketball player trapped in a baseball coach's body.
Chris graduated from Eastern New Mexico University in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in communications. There he played infield for Coach Phil Clabaugh for four years, competing in the rough-and-tumble Lone Star Conference on the plains of eastern New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. Grueling ten or fifteen-hour road trips were just part of the deal. Chris was proud that the Greyhounds were known as a blue-collar bunch of gritty guys, playing the oldest and greatest game on a former cow pasture on the edge of Portales. Later, he was excited when old teammates stopped by, always introducing them to his young players, and inviting them to stay around for practice.
After college, Chris began building his coaching resumé, first as a graduate assistant to Ray Birmingham at UNM and then as an assistant at West Texas A&M, Colorado School of Mines, Texas A&M-Texarkana, and New Mexico Highlands University. He earned a master's degree in sports administration at Highlands in 2014. He then returned to Albuquerque and served as an assistant and co-head coach with his mentor Paul Huitt at Sandia Prep.
In 2017, at the age of 29, Chris was named as the youngest high school head baseball coach in New Mexico, taking over for John Gunther at Sandia High. Chris described spending time with Coach Gunther as Coach Gunther was dying of cancer as one of the most humbling and inspirational experiences of his life. From his first season in 2018, Chris and the Matadors dedicated themselves to honoring Coach Gunther on and off the field.
After losing time, including the entire 2020 season, to state-mandated COVID shutdowns, the Matadors in 2021 and 2022 won back-to-back district titles for the first time in 42 years. The team reached the big schools state championship game against Carlsbad last May and the state semi-final game the year before, heights the Matadors had not seen in decades. Chris was most proud, however, of his players' success in the classroom. He promoted, for all to see, the national recognition for academic excellence the team had received.
Chris was selected by his peers as this year's Class 5A state baseball coach of the year. He was named as the 5A District 2 coach of the year each of the past two years. He was honored with an outstanding teacher award at Sandia four times from 2019 through 2022.
He was a board member of the New Mexico Baseball Coaches Association and a member of the American Baseball Coaches Association. He strategized with others about making the game more accessible to youngsters whose families could not afford the cost of private travel ball. Chris often said some of his most fun as a coach was playing pickup basketball games with his baseball players. He claimed that by himself on a good day, he could beat any group of five on the hardwood.
Away from sports or the outdoors, Chris often was researching, reading or writing. He could discuss in amazing detail unique events such as the 1947 UFO crash northwest of Roswell. He first wrote about the UFO incident as an 11-year-old after he interviewed a former Air Force officer in Roswell. Chris was writing what he hoped to be a book about the rock band The Doors, derived from countless hours of research and communicating with many people, including the late singer/poet Jim Morrison's siblings. He was scheduled to give a talk next April at the Albuquerque Museum on Morrison's long-ago connections to New Mexico. Among other little-known facts, Chris auditioned for and appeared in an episode of the television series Better Call Saul. In his teens, he once traveled by himself to Cooperstown, N.Y., to tour the Baseball Hall of Fame.
At his best, Chris had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and he smiled with his whole face. He made people laugh, sometimes when they least expected or wanted to. He hugged rival coaches, and openly congratulated opposing players, even in the fog of a disappointing loss. Behind the scenes, he counseled with and stressed over his students' and players' problems, their ups and downs, as if they were his own. He would talk for hours on the phone with players, and would sometimes surprise a player with the gift of a book on a subject they had been puzzling over.
Chris lived life on Chris' terms and he was not afraid to question the established path or those in authority. He asked his players to call him Chris. "This is how we have always done it" was not much of an argument in Chris' book.
The Albuquerque Journal once described Chris as "driven." He could be relentless, grinding away despite his personal struggles, always with the intention of making people around him better. His death highlights the urgent need to talk about mental health issues, encourage sufferers to seek help, and improve the availability of resources for those who suffer.
Surviving family members are his parents Gail Eaton and Scott Eaton; his brother Michael Eaton, who followed Chris into baseball and finished his baseball journey as a UNM Lobo; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews who Chris loved dearly.
A scholarship fund or foundation is being established in Chris' name to provide assistance to young players in need and to address mental health issues. Information about this charity and how to support it will be made available in the weeks and months ahead.