by Danila Crespin
Daily Lobo
The UNM Athletic Department hit a home run at this year's fund-raiser Saturday night.
More than $125,000 worth of items were auctioned off to raise money for student-athlete scholarships. The auctioned items ranged from UNM sports memorabilia to weekend getaways in places like Hawaii and San Diego.
The item with the highest bid was a full kitchen makeover that went for $14,000.
About 500 supporters of the Lobo Club attended the third annual Howl of a Good Time at the Marriott Pyramid North to show their support for the fund-raising group.
"The people who come to the event are already donors - they are Lobo fans looking for a great buy and a good bargain on some great auction items," said David Sabolcik, director of annual giving for the Lobo Club.
The Lobo Club is the main provider of student-athlete scholarships at UNM according to GoLobos.com. The NCAA also provides financial aid to student athletes.
Sabolcik said the group tried to make the event as fun as possible.
"It's a good old-fashioned auction extravaganza," Sabolcik said.
Every year they have a different sports theme, he said. This year it was baseball.
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"The silent auction was like a tailgate, and then we had the marching band here and they marched everyone into dinner," he said.
More than 350 UNM athletes will benefit from this event.
Rudy Davalos, director of athletics at UNM, said all proceeds will go to a general athletics scholarship fund.
"Contributions will afford the Athletics Department the resources necessary to maintain and enhance our already outstanding intercollegiate program," he said.
Staff at the event wore referee shirts and student athletes volunteered their time as refreshment servers for the event.
Coco D'Angelo, a forward on UNM's women's soccer team, showed up to volunteer at the event. She had no idea how huge the event would be, she said.
"People were going crazy at the auction," D'Angelo said. "I think the organization as a whole does a great job of supporting all the sports evenly. And the community was awesome - we had a lot of fans."
Davalos said the sports teams experienced their best year in the 2004-05 season in terms of scores and student-athlete GPAs.
"UNM student athletes recorded their fifth and sixth consecutive semesters with a combined GPA of a 3.0 or better," he said.
Sabolcik said all of the money from the event will go into a big pot for student athletics.
"We're close to being fully funded in every sport," he said.
Frontier Restaurant, Golden Pride Chicken and Cross Country Auto Sales have sponsored Howl of a Good Time for three years.
Last year's event brought in approximately $110,000.
Petr Pacas, who pitched for the UNM's men's baseball team, said he was happy with how many people came to the event.
"You can really see people caring," he said.
