Oklahoma star carries Bloomfield family legacy

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If the UNM Lobos expect to pull off a gigantic upset on Saturday against Oklahoma, they’ll have to deal with Sooners wide receiver-punt returner Isaiah Sategna III.

Just as Bloomfield High School’s track and football opponents had to deal with his dad back in the ‘90s.

The proverbial apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

Mario Sategna, one of the finest track athletes the state of New Mexico has produced, was a state champion for Bloomfield in the long jump, the pole vault, the 110-meter high hurdles and the 300 intermediates. He set Class 4A state records (Class AAA at the time) in all four of those events. All four still stand, 35 years later.

He scored points for the Bobcats in the 100- and 200-meter sprints. It was not reported that he also drove the team bus, but that would have come as no surprise.

His prep best in the pole vault of 17 feet, 1 1/2 inches at the state meet in 1991 was the best mark in the nation that year. It remains the all-time New Mexico prep record.

As a running back, Sategna rushed for more than 1,000 yards as a junior and more than 1,500 as a senior. He scored 58 touchdowns during his career.

Now, regarding that tree-and-apple thing …

Isaiah Sategna was an outstanding track athlete before opting to focus on football.

“He’s a much better athlete than I ever was,” Mario Sategna, now an assistant track-and-field coach at Texas A&M, said by phone while driving back to College Station from a recruiting trip.

How good a track athlete was Isaiah Sategna?

Competing for Fayetteville High School (his dad as a Razorbacks assistant coach), he was the state’s Gatorade boys Track & Field Player of the Year twice — in 2019-20 and again in ‘21-22.

As a senior in 2022, Isaiah took first places at the Arkansas state meet in the 110 high hurdles, the 300 intermediates, the long jump and the 100 meters.

In the 2020s, it’s rare for college athletes to play more than one sport.

Even in the 1990s, it was unusual.

After his prep career, Mario Sategna considered signing with UNM and playing football and running track.

In Bloomfield, he’d been a Lobo fan.

“Growing up in northwest New Mexico, you know, it’s not like I was cheering for Colorado or Colorado State,” he said. “I mean, you were cheering for people in your home state.

“I remember going to basketball games at the Pit,” he said, noting that his uncles had Lobo season tickets. “Walking into that place, coming from a town of 5,000 people, it was like, ‘Holy cow.’ You know it’s pretty awesome stuff.”

But his track-and-field versatility took him in another direction. He signed with LSU, brought to Baton Rouge by Tigers coach and fellow New Mexican Pat Henry (Del Norte, UNM).

“I knew I wanted to do the decathlon,” he said. “And it was going to require a lot of training in all the different areas.”

All that training paid off.

As an LSU senior in 1995, Sategna won the decathlon at NCAA Outdoor Championships with a total of 8,172 points. He won two of the 10 events that compose the decathlon: the long jump (24-8 1/2) and the pole vault (17-0 3/4), both specialties of his.

After his bid for an Olympics berth in 1996 fell short, Sategna began a coaching career that has lasted 30 years.

Isaiah, his father said, would have loved to run track in college. Football, though, has worked out.

In three years at Arkansas, where his dad had been an assistant track-and-field coach, Isaiah Sategna caught 54 passes for 632 yards and three touchdowns. Last season, after transferring to Oklahoma, he had 67 receptions for 965 yards and eight TDs. He returned 24 punts for 318 yards, an average of 13.25 yards.

He got off to a strong start in 2026. In the season opener against UTEP, he caught four passes for 76 yards and a touchdown and returned a punt 88 yards for a TD.

“He’s worked very hard to get where he’s at,” Mario Sategna said. “As a dad, you know it’s one thing to have ability. It’s what you do with that.”

In last Saturday’s 17-10 road loss at Michigan, Isaiah was held to two catches for 9 yards and three punt returns for 17 yards.

He’ll look for a bounce-back game against UNM, as will the Sooners as a team.

There’s this, as well: before Mario Sategna was the tree, he was the apple.

His father, Phil, was his track coach at Bloomfield. His mother, Jeanne, was a Bobcats volleyball coach. They both still live in Bloomfield, as do many Sategna relatives.

His uncle, Tom Sategna, set a state long jump record in 1972. Tom’s nephew broke that record in 1990.

Mario said he gets back to the Four Corners as often as he can, as does Isaiah.

And if you were wondering: here’s why he’s Isaiah Sategna III when his father’s name is Mario.

“My dad’s name is Phillip,” Mario said. “I’m Phillip Mario Sategna. And (Isaiah) is Phillip Isaiah Sategna.”

Mario won’t be at Saturday’s game, he said, because Aggie track-and-field recruits will be in town.

“But his mom (Dahlia, a former LSU track athlete and a 1992 Jamaican Olympian), his sister, both grandmothers will be there. (And) a lot of relatives on my side that are gonna attend the game.

“I’ve got a lot of cousins and stuff that have circled that game,” he said, “… They’re coming from the state of New Mexico, and I know it means a lot to Isaiah to have family there.”

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