It was a meet-and-greet, yeah, and he hasn't been here long enough to anger his many constituencies, yeah, and the heartwarming, farmer's-son-to-university-president back story has little to do with his ability to actually run the University of New Mexico, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the disclaimers apply - and will for a while. David Schmidly, as they say in his native West Texas, could still turn out to be more hat than cattle.

But I'm betting, here and now, that UNM will get an 11-gallon return with its 10-gallon hire.

Schmidly has been in the President's Office for little more than an eyeblink, but it's clear he grasps UNM's basic, underlying problem: Despite the many things that recommend it, this university lacks self-esteem, a mission, that only brash leadership can provide.

Fortunately, Schmidly is bold enough. His r‚sum‚ says it. His body language says it. His words say it.

He can talk physics and football without the need for a U.N. translator. He actually returns reporters' phone calls in the same decade they were received. He pushes a piece of paper, a busy, one-page plan for improvement, across a conference table and all but announces, "We're gonna get Õer done."

He didn't really say it that way. But that's what he meant.

Day by day, you can almost see Schmidly deconstructing Fortress Scholes Hall - the bunker, and bunker mentality, that has housed UNM presidents for at least the past 30 years.

Schmidly's schedule is more tightly packed than a sausage casing these days: lunches with students and prospective recruits and faculty members and legislators and business leaders and just about anyone else with a dog in the UNM hunt.

That might sound like so much glad-handing fluff, but such gestures matter - particularly at a place that has rarely known exactly who's in charge.

If he does nothing else, Schmidly can at least be credited with gleaning the basic complaint from UNM's undergrads - that the basics, like paying tuition and finding an adviser and just finding someone who cares, is often some kind of Kafka-esque experience. There's so much red tape and customer-unfriendly service at UNM, students have complained for decades, that it either wears down, turns off or embitters the very person the university is supposed to serve.

That, Schmidly says, will be fixed. And soon.

Then there's the retention and recruitment problem - one that plagues a lot of universities, but is acute at UNM, where there aren't enough minorities in faculty and administrative positions, and nowhere near enough help for minority students, of which there are many.

That, too, he says, will be fixed. And soon.

Soon is sooner than you think. Schmidly promises to offer bench marks, report cards, that tell New Mexicans exactly where their biggest university has succeeded and failed.

Hallelujah.

In so many ways, Schmidly is reminiscent of a good coach - you name the sport - who's been around the block a time or two (he's been president at Texas Tech and Oklahoma State), and understands that basics are the building blocks from which to create success.

You start with fundamentals, like finding good faculty and paying them what they're worth. Then you work with students, putting them in positions where they can succeed. Then you solicit community involvement and support. Then you answer the questions without mumbo jumbo - regardless of whether the news is good, bad or in between.

It's stunning that few at Fortress Scholes ever understood these truths, but, well, that's all in the past.

The future is the farmer's son from Levelland, Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah.