Tom Southall and Steve Spurrier share a laugh at a press conference on Friday. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
RENO, Nev. — Steve Spurrier isn’t a fan of the trend toward specialization in athletes.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the 2016 NFHS Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Reno on Friday, the former football coach at South Carolina, Florida, Duke and the Washington Redskins offered his thoughts on multi-sport athletes.
Spurrier played football, baseball and basketball at Science Hill High School in Tennessee in the 1960s.
“Not once did coaches say, ‘Steve, I wish you would stick with one of those sports,’” Spurrier said. “I wish high schools would promote that nowadays.”
Of the five athletes being inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame on Saturday, four of them played multiple sports in high school. That includes 1981 Steamboat Springs graduate Tom Southall, who played three sports — football, basketball and track — in high school, and also participated in music.
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
“You hate to limit the opportunities that kids can have,” Southall said. “But growing up in a small school, a small town, you had to do more than one sport or there wouldn’t be enough to go around. Part of it was by necessity that you would be a multi-sport athlete.”
Southall is now a teacher and assistant track coach at Cherokee Trail.
“As a coach now, track and field is the one that a lot of kids tend to want to specialize in,” Southall said. “I look back at the cross-over in skills between football and track — you want to get from here to there as fast as you can? Well then learn how to run fast to get from here to there.
“I’ve always tried to stress to the athletes that I work with, ‘Just go get out there and complete.’ Whether it’s football, basketball, whatever. Just find something that’s going to help you get that competitive edge. The crossover in skills is very important.”
Southall continued by saying, “You’ve got to kind of take the blinders off, and being so focused on, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get a college scholarship.’ There are some out there, but everyone’s not going to get one. So you need to make sure that you’ve got your broad base of knowledge, of skills.
“You hope that kids are able to play as many sports as they want to, and get benefits from the different sports and different aspects of competing. Just get out there and compete.”
There aren’t many people in Colorado that know the media scene quite like Altitude’s Vic Lombardi. The former sports director at Channel 4 consumed Colorado media as a high school athlete at Holy Family before coming back to his hometown to become a part of it.
He is perhaps the best known member of Denver sports media.
But this is far from the media that Vic grew up with. That became apparent last week when the Denver Post wiped out its entire prep sports staff in a matter of 24 hours.
A longtime advocate of the kids, Vic took some time to address the status of high school sports coverage today and how it got to where it is.
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Question: What do you remember from high school sports coverage when you were playing up at Holy Family?
Lombardi: I remember two things. I remember the local paper being where you go for box scores and write ups. And I remember Marcia Neville. At the time, Marcia Neville was the most important person in town.
If she came to your event, or to your school or covered your game, you had made it as high school athlete. When she first arrived at Holy Family for a game against Denver Christian, everybody in the school was like, “Whoa. Marcia is here. This is big.”
Q: So looking at what happened with the shakeup at the Denver Post last week, from your outside perspective, what are you seeing in terms of high school coverage today?
Lombardi: I think it’s more than high school coverage. I think it’s just a lack of community involvement and community responsibility. I think newspapers and radio stations and TV stations in general have a responsibility to the community and when you ignore high schools, which is the root of our community, it’s wrong.
I know financially why they do it. I get it. I’ve been told that. It happened to me at my TV station. They consider it a territorial thing to cover. No one cares about certain high schools taking each other on except for those high schools. But I always felt it was deeper than that.
If you cover the high schools, then they have a reason to cover you. A reason to follow you. It’s just a community, grass roots effort. And when you lose that, you lose the community.
Q: So when a guy like Neil Devlin, who has done this for 34 years, is suddenly out of a job on the paper side, how damaging is that to a metro area like Denver?
Lombardi: I think it’s very damaging because it’s a slap in the face to experience. It’s a slap in the face to contacts. He knows everybody. He knows how high schools operate. He knows the coaches, he knows the (athletic directors). He knows the history. Everyone wants to go young and cheap now and yeah, you can still cover athletics. You can still cover sports. You can still cover it all.
But when you take away the people who have been doing it their entire lives and you tell them they’re not necessary anymore, you can’t tell me that the product doesn’t suffer.
Q: So it seemed like they were going mainly digital and the very next day they layoff Morgan Dzakowic, who heads up their preps online coverage, does it give you the impression that the Post is shying away from preps coverage all together?
Lombardi: Very much so. They’ve taken the lead of the TV stations. Only one TV station in this town, Channel 9 (KUSA), makes an effort to cover prep sports. They actually have a person that’s a prep sports specialist, they have a photographer that covers prep sports, they have a platform digitally and mainstream media that offers prep sports.
They’re the only ones in town. One by one, each of the local stations stopped doing it. And now the paper? It’s sad.
I can remember myself as a kid, you sought that out. It was a big deal to be in the paper, it was a big deal to be on TV. And now these kids today, what do they get? There’s nothing for them. There’s no reward. There’s no gold pot at the end of the rainbow for them.
Q: So when you were the sports director over at Channel 4 (KCNC) and you are a big advocate for high school sports, what are you being told when you’re trying to do something high school related?
Lombardi: We just didn’t have the resources. We can do as much as we possibly can. But most of the time there were conflicts.
If the Broncos have a press conference or a there’s a Nuggets press conference or anything professional sports related and it competes with high school, guess which loses? The high school loses.
It’s unfortunate because we couldn’t devote the necessary resources to get the good stories. I’ve been in this business for 26 years and the best stories are at the high school level. Always. The most pure stories, the most raw stories, the most real stories are at the high school level.
I guess people don’t want stories anymore. They want to follow pro teams. And that’s the message that’s been given to us.
Q: We get into this line of work because we like sports, we like the games. So when did it get to the point that it’s more important to talk about Von Miller cropping John Elway out of an Instagram post rather than a state baseball championship?
Lombardi: Because more people in the community can relate to Von Miller. People in Erie can, somebody that lives in Colorado Springs can. People that live in Aurora, Arvada, they all know Von Miller.
But if you took all those points and said what do you think about Englewood High School, nobody knows.
And I think just that relative unknown is what scares people. But if you grow up here like I did, I know all the high schools. I knew who was playing. I knew what was what.
I think we are a victim of our own growth. Too many people here aren’t from here so they don’t care about the high schools. If you come in here as an adult, why would you care about a high school unless your kid is at that high school?
We become detached because of all the transplants that live in our community.
Q: Even when there’s a kid like De’Ron Davis that will go big time at Indiana and has a good shot at getting an NBA look?
De’Ron Davis. (Kevin Keyser/KeyserImages.com)
Lombardi: I completely agree with you. I think a guy like De’Ron Davis… my De’Ron Davis was Chucky Sproling from Manual High School. Everybody knew Chucky Sproling. When we were in high school, we’d look at the box score to see how many points he scored.
If you just polled random people in Denver today, and asked them who De’Ron Davis was, nine of out 10 of them wouldn’t have a clue.
It’s not a bad thing, it’s just an unfortunate thing. Because we are not devoting the necessary attention. We in the media have a responsibility to chase the story that means something, not only to the masses, but means something to the local community.
De’Ron Davis is going to mean something to the local community. Just like Chauncey Billups does. Everybody is on the Chauncey Billups bandwagon now that he’s made it as a pro and he’s retired. Back in the day, I remember Chauncey growing up. Everybody covered Chauncey. Chauncey was a big story, he was as big a story as any of the pro teams back when he was the King of Park Hill.
We’re losing that now. We don’t have that association with prep athletes like we used to.
Q: At the risk of getting myself into trouble, is that laziness on the part of the reader or laziness on the part of the media? Or maybe a little bit of both?
Lombardi: I think it’s just a little apathy out of everyone. When I was doing local news, it was easy to send a camera to the Broncos and just get another coach’s soundbite. That’s easy rather than going to a local high school and digging a little bit to find a great story and put that on the air.
It takes more work, it takes more effort and it takes more resources.
I think it’s a little bit of everything. When you take resources away from these media entities then the people who work in those entities have to do what’s the best fit for them. And what fits best is easiest, simplest and most accessible. And apparently what most people think is news.
It’s funny what people think is news. How many different times can you talk about Von Miller’s contract? How many different ways can you cut across that story when there’s a local swimmer who is on the verge of becoming the next Olympian, the next Missy Franklin, and we’re completely ignoring that swimmer because we’re not willing to delve into it.
Q: When did you begin to see that shift?
Lombardi: I saw it shortly after I arrived. I got here in 1998 and when I got here, prep sports were still vastly important to news coverage. Every station had prep reporters, we all covered them very closely.
Year by year, I saw a shift. Staffs got smaller and the first thing to be eliminated was the prep side. It was the very first. Ask any staff in town. And kudos to Channel 9 for at least maintaining that.
But every other staff in town, newspaper, radio, television started chopping off the prep reporters and the prep coverage because it required resources.
Q: So when you look at everything outside of Denver such as Colorado Springs, whose TV stations are very active in preps, same thing with the guys in Grand Junction, the small newspapers throughout the state who’s sports sections are dominated by high school coverage, is Denver just becoming too good for high school sports?
Lombardi: Denver is too big a city with too many pro sports options. When I worked in smaller communities like Austin, Texas there were two things. University of Texas sports and high school football.
You covered both equally. We covered it madly, we were feverish when it came to high school football. We did shows on Friday nights. When I was in Indiana, we did basketball shows.
But Denver is a major pro sports town. You have a lot of different things to hit on, even in the summer. And lost in the shuffle is preps. They’re no longer a priority. There’s pro, college, pro again, Broncos and then preps.
Q: Is it realistic to think preps can get back in that mix or has that ship already sailed?
Lombardi: I think you’ll see prep coverage more on a digital level now. The digital sphere has opened up.
The beautiful thing that has happened in our industry is that local high schools are broadcasting their own games. Students are now doing play-by-play, they’re being reporters because they’re allowed to be. The web has given them that access.
When I was in high school, I would’ve killed to do play-by-play of a game somewhere, but we didn’t have cameras. We didn’t have a studio. You don’t even need a studio, you just need a computer. I can listen to my kid’s lacrosse games on my computer, they’re streamed live. It’s really cool. I like it.
You lose out on the masses because the masses don’t hear it, but the communities that do care about it get a chance to listen to that stuff.
Q: When you see Colorado kids reach that national level, is there a part of you that wants to turn back to the TV stations and the reporters now and ask why they weren’t covering these kids five years ago?
Lombardi: You lose that attachment. I’ll give you a great example.
When I worked in Arizona, I did a high school sports show. It was a half hour, once a week. And I went out and found great stories. I went out and found a kid who went to a high school just north of Phoenix and he was supposed to be the next big thing.
He was 6-foot-7, he jumped out of the gym. I did a standup where he jumped over me to dunk a basketball and I forged a friendship with his kid because he was so good at what he did.
His name was Richard Jefferson.
So 15 years later, I’m at Pepsi Center and Richard Jefferson is playing for the Spurs and this is late in his career. I walked up to him in his locker room and I felt kind of silly. I said, “Hey Rich, I don’t know if you remember me…”
Before I said anything else, he said, “Of course I do. Vic Lombardi. I remember the show, I remember our shot.”
It was really cool to have that association that impacted his life. It was a big deal for him to be on that show. It was a big deal to featured like that because he was a high schooler. Now it happens every day. But when you’re a high schooler, it means so much more.
Q: You work for a station now in Altitude that tries to do it’s part for high school kids. It broadcasts weekly football games, it covers state championships. What does Altitude do that other stations or outlets can take and use to boost up that coverage?
Lombardi: I’ll give Altitude credit in this regard, Altitude doesn’t have to cover high school games because they don’t make any money doing so. It’s not a moneymaker. It’s never been a moneymaker.
They do it, but I think they’re community-minded and they understand that there is somewhat of an audience there. They have the capability, the teams and the resources to get it done.
Again, would I love to see our outlet cover high school sports religiously? Yes.
But it always comes down to resources. At least we cover games. At least we cover the state championships. We cover the Friday Night Light games. So there are things that are being done at Altitude that make me happy.
Woodland Park alum Jeremy Gwinn, now at Colby Community College in Kansas, was drafted in the 12th round of the MLB Draft on Saturday. (Courtesy of Colby Community College athletic communications)
Woodland Park’s Jeremy Gwinn and Windsor’s Jake Greenwalt made history on Saturday, becoming the first-ever alums of their respective schools to be selected in the MLB Draft.
In all, 16 more products of Colorado products were drafted on the final day of the 2016 draft, bringing the total to 22 players. That figure is tied for the seventh-most in state history since the draft began in 1965.
Six high school seniors were drafted this year, as well as 16 former Colorado high school baseball players who are now playing in college.
Gwinn started the day off for locals as a 12th-round pick of the Kansas City Royals, going with the No. 373 overall selection. He graduated from Woodland Park in 2013, and is now a 6-foot-5 right-handed pitcher who just finished his sophomore season at Colby Community College in Kansas.
Woodland Park was founded in 1890, and, according to CHSAANow.com research, it has not previously ever had a player taken in the MLB Draft.
Gwinn went 8-2 with a 3.53 ERA in 79 innings this season at Colby CC, which included a team-best five complete games in nine starts. He struck out 104 batters, and walked 21. After the season, he was named first-team all-conference and first-team all-Region VI.
Windsor’s Greenwalt, meanwhile, became Windsor’s first-ever selection when the right-handed pitcher was taken by the San Francisco Giants in the 23rd round at No. 695 overall.
He was also the first 2016 graduate to be selected in this year’s draft.
A right-handed pitcher who stands 6-foot-2, Greenwalt was 9-0 with a 0.89 ERA in 55 1/3 innings for Windsor as the Wizards reached the Class 4A Final 4. After the season, he was named first-team all-state in 4A.
Two rounds prior, in the 21st, Chaparral alum Max Kuhns was drafted by the New York Mets at No. 640 overall.
Kuhns, a 2013 graduate of Chaparral, just finished his junior season as a right-handed reliever at Santa Clara in which he went 1-4 with a 2.21 ERA in 40 2/3 innings. He made 28 appearances, and struck out 37 batters, while walking 16.
Kuhns is the fourth draft pick in history from Chaparral, where he starred in both football and baseball.
In the 24th round, 2012 Fort Collins graduate J.D. Hammer — now a senior at Marshall — was selected by the Rockies at No. 710 overall.
Hammer, a right-handed pitcher, was 4-2 for Marshall this spring, and had a 4.88 ERA in 66 1/3 innings. He had 56 strikeouts against 24 walks.
Hammer is the sixth draft pick out of Fort Collins High School.
Highlands Ranch alum Nick Shumpert, who graduated in 2015, was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 28th round. A second baseman, he spent this past season at San Jacinto College North in California.
He hit .284 with a home run and 16 RBIs, and also stole 15 bases this spring.
Shumpert was also drafted out of high school, going in the seventh round of last year’s draft.
After Shumpert, three locals were drafted in the 29th round.
First, Conifer alum Earl Henderson was drafted by the White Sox at No. 866 overall. Henderson, a first baseman, is a redshirt sophomore at Central Arizona College, and hit .406 with six home runs and 47 RBIs this season.
Henderson graduated from Conifer in 2013, and is the school’s second-ever draft pick.
Seven picks later, 2013 Pine Creek graduate Dane Hutcheon was drafted by the Minnesota Twins. A shortstop at Montevallo in Alabama, he hit .365 with three home runs and 43 RBIs this season.
Regis Jesuit’s Bo Weiss. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
Just five picks after that, Regis Jesuit senior Bo Weiss was drafted by the New York Yankees. A right-handed pitcher, and member of the 5A all-state team this spring, he went 7-1 with a 2.91 ERA, striking out 61, and walking just 15.
Weiss, the son of Rockies manager Walt Weiss, is a North Carolina commit. His older brother, Brody, was drafted in the 22nd round in 2013.
Things kept up at a furious pace in the 30th round.
Nick Highberger, a 2012 graduate from Rye who is now at Creighton, went to the Oakland A’s at No. 892 overall. A senior, he went 2-1 with a 3.20 ERA in 39 1/3 innings pitched this season.
Highberger is the second alum from Rye to be drafted, following former teammate Denton Keys, who went in 2013.
Later in the round, 2014 ThunderRidge graduate Brody Westmoreland was selected by the Houston Astros. In his lone season at the College of Southern Nevada following a transfer from San Diego State, Westmoreland hit .375 with 11 home runs and 40 RBIs.
Westmoreland was drafted out of high school, going in the 35th round in 2014.
Two high school seniors were next.
Cherry Creek’s Nate Sweeney went in the 33rd round to the Chicago Cubs. An Arizona commit, Sweeney was drafted as a right-handed pitcher.
He appeared in nine games for the Bruins this season, and was 1-3 with a 4.85 ERA in 21 2/3 innings. Sweeney also plays infield and outfield, and hit .389 with four home runs and 26 RBIs. He was a first-team all-state pick in 5A.
Sweeney is Cherry Creek’s 50th all-time draft pick, which is the most in state history.
Green Mountain’s Wyatt Featherston. (Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)
Green Mountain senior Wyatt Featherston was drafted by the Rockies in the 34th round as a center fielder. He is committed to Western Kentucky.
Featherston, a member of 4A’s all-state first team, hit .472 with 12 home runs and 29 RBIs this season. He also stole 14 bases.
This is Green Mountain’s third time having a player drafted, and first since 1991.
In the 36th round, the Yankees drafted 2012 Legend grad Tyler Honahan, who is now a senior left-handed pitcher at Stony Brook.
He went 5-6 with a 5.25 ERA as a starter, throwing 70.1 innings with 62 strikeouts and 36 walks.
Honahan is the second Legend product taken in the 2016 draft, after Arizona’s Bobby Dalbec (fourth round), and third in program history.
In the next round, the 37th, 2014 Pueblo South graduate Cory Voss was drafted by the Washington Nationals. Voss is a sophomore catcher at McLennan (Texas) College, and hit .384 with 11 home runs and 53 RBIs this season.
Voss was previously drafted out of high school, in the 34th round.
Regis Jesuit had another senior selected when outfielder Quin Cotton was drafted by the Rockies in the 38th round. Cotton, a first-team all-state pick in 5A, is committed to Grand Canyon University in Arizona.
Cotton hit .514 with three home runs with 28 RBIs this spring, and stole a team-high 14 bases.
The 39th round saw the Rockies take another local senior — Fruita Monument catcher Cuba Bess. Bess, a Grand Canyon commit, hit .507 with a home runs and 19 RBIs this season.
He is Fruita Monument’s seventh all-time draft pick, and first since 2009.
Six alumni of Colorado high school baseball were selected on the first two days of the MLB Draft, including Loveland alum Alec Hansen going in the second round on Thursday, and five additional college players drafted on Friday.
Cherry Creek alum Griffin Jax, now at Air Force, was drafted in the third round of the 2016 MLB Draft. (Courtesy of Air Force athletic communications)
The second day of the MLB Draft was Friday, and the first local off the board was Cherry Creek alum Griffin Jax.
Jax was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the third round with the No. 93 overall pick. He just finished his junior season as a right-handed pitcher at Air Force, in which he went 9-2 with a 2.05 ERA and struck out 90 batters in 105 1/3 innings.
It is the second time Jax has been drafted. He was picked in the 12th round out of high school in 2013, but opted to play at Air Force instead of starting a pro career.
His selection also adds to the legacy of Cherry Creek. This is the 49th time a player who went through that program has been drafted, which is most in state history, but it is the first time since 2013 that a Cherry Creek player was taken — when four Bruins were selected. That group included Jax.
Legend alum Bobby Dalbec, now at Arizona, was drafted in the fourth round. (Stan Liu/Arizona Athletics)
A round after Jax on Friday, in the fourth, 2013 Legend graduate Bobby Dalbec was selected by the Boston Red Sox with the 118th overall pick.
Dalbec is now a junior two-way player at the University of Arizona, who plays third base and is also one of the team’s best pitchers. He is hitting .266 with six home runs and 38 RBIs this season.
He also is 9-4 with seven saves, a 3.28 ERA and 61 strikeouts in 71 1/3 innings as a pitcher, but was drafted as a third baseman.
Dalbec is just the second player from Legend to ever be drafted, following Greg Pickett last season.
The next Colorado product off the board was 2013 Broomfield graduate Brandon Bailey, who was drafted by the Oakland A’s in the sixth round. A right-handed pitcher, he is now a junior at Gonzaga University.
This spring, Bailey helped the Bulldogs reach the Regional round by going 10-3 with a 2.42 ERA and 125 strikeouts in 100 1/3 innings of work. He held opposing hitters to a .214 batting average.
Bailey is Broomfield’s 10th pick in MLB Draft history, and the first since 2011.
After a few rounds of silence, Regis Jesuit alum Peter Bayer was taken by the Tampa Bay Rays in the ninth round. Bayer just finished his senior season at Cal Poly Pomona where he went 2-2 with a 4.39 ERA. He did however lead the team in opposing batting average with opposing hitters only batting .198 off him.
At Regis Jesuit, he was an All-Continental League pick in his junior and senior seasons and helped the Raiders come away with the 2011 5A state championship.
Only 17 picks later, Fossil Ridge alum Julian Garcia. Garcia, a sophomore at Metro State, was taken by the Philadelphia Phillies.
Garcia went 5-6 in his freshman campaign, one of the better freshman seasons in school history.
He is just the second player from Fossil Ridge to ever be drafted.
As a senior with the Sabercats, he threw 32 innings, finishing with an impressive 2.19 ERA. He also showed he wasn’t bad swinging the bat as he hit .510 with three home runs and 14 RBIs.
Loveland’s Alec Hansen, now at Oklahoma, was selected in the second round of the 2016 MLB Draft on Thursday night. (OU athletic communications)
Alec Hansen is leading the way for Colorado baseball in the 2016 MLB Draft.
Hansen, a graduate of Loveland High School who is now a junior at the University of Oklahoma, was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the second round of the draft on Thursday night.
A 6-foot-7 right-handed pitcher, Hansen went with the No. 49 overall pick to become the first Colorado product taken in this year’s MLB Draft. He was the lone local taken on the first day of the three-day event.
This is the highest a Loveland player has ever been drafted. Previously, the school’s top pick was Scot McCloughan going in the 10th round directly out of high school in 1989.
Hansen is Colorado’s highest draft pick since Thomas Jefferson alum Kyle Freeland went in the first round of the 2014 draft. There were no in-state players selected on the first day of last year’s draft.
Hansen was also drafted out of high school after he graduated in 2013, going in the 25th round to the Colorado Rockies. He opted to play at Oklahoma instead of signing.
The hard-throwing pitcher went 3-5 with a 5.40 ERA at Oklahoma this season, and struck out 75 batters against 39 walks in 51 2/3 innings.
“I know I’m one of the best pitchers in college baseball,” Hansen told CHSAANow.com in May. “That just pushes me to work harder to achieve my potential.”
The MLB Draft began on Friday with the first 77 picks — spanning the first, second, compensation and lottery rounds — on Thursday. It continues with rounds 3-10 on Friday, and things wrap up with rounds 11-40 on Saturday.
Loveland alum Alec Hansen, now a junior with Oklahoma’s baseball program. (OU athletic communications)
Kevin Gausman, Marco Gonzales, Ryan Burr.
Alec Hansen.
Loveland High School alumnus Alec Hansen listed the aforementioned three names as inspiration for Colorado baseball. Hansen may soon be joining them as inspiration for others.
The 6-foot-7 junior won’t have to wait long for his name to be called in the 2016 MLB Draft. He was previously taken in the 25th round of the 2013 MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies straight out of high school, but was a likely high selection if he was considered signable.
Hansen turned down the Rockies and opted instead to go to Oklahoma.
“I’ve gotten to see better competition, and figure out what it takes to get to the next level and to be the best at the next level,” Hansen said recently. “I have a good picture of that now.”
Hansen began the year with talk of a potential No. 1-overall pick in this year’s draft. He has a career 4.55 ERA with 156 strikeouts and a 5-11 record. The move to pursue college over taking the money with the Rockies was considered a good decision in the baseball world as it set up Hansen for the possibility of a top draft pick.
However, Hansen has, at times, struggled at the collegiate level.
“I see that stuff – I read it – so I know what the expectations are, and the expectations are what got to me a little bit at the beginning of the year,” Hansen said. “When I would have a bad outing, it made everything more frustrating than it usually would be just because I know what I can do, I know the expectations are there, and just not living up to them.”
Hansen has grown over the year and changed his mentality as he gets back on track. He was named the Big 12’s co-pitcher of the week on Monday after throwing six shutout innings and allowing just two hits in a 12-0 win over Kansas State on Sunday. Hansen struck out nine against just one walk.
“I know I’m one of the best pitchers in college baseball. That just pushes me to work harder to achieve my potential,” Hansen said. “Just doing my thing and working hard, keep getting better and letting that stuff take care of itself.”
As Hansen tries to keep his thoughts away from the buzz he is generating in the draft, the state of Colorado – mainly Loveland – has its eyes and ears trained on it.
“We have players that are following him, keeping up to date. He definitely is a topic of conversation around our baseball field,” said current Loveland head coach Jerod Cronquist, who arrived after Hansen graduated. “Any time Loveland baseball can make the news – national headlines – for something like that, obviously going to have a positive effect on our program. I think it also helps our players realize if you’re a good ball player, you’re going to get noticed.”
Fairview alum Ryan Madden is a freshman at Oklahoma, and now a teammate of Hansen’s. (OU athletic communications)
Oklahoma teammate and former 5A player of the year at Fairview, Ryan Madden, elaborated on what the high draft pick would mean for the state.
“It gets people recognizing (baseball), especially within the state,” Madden said. “People putting focus on baseball as their first sport as opposed to football or basketball.”
“That would be great for Colorado because there are some extremely talented players here. For the national scene, to get a glimpse of that, it’s just going to help Colorado baseball,” Cronquist added. “We have players producing all over the country collegiately, but to get a high draft pick is well-deserved for the state of Colorado and the talent we have here.”
For the amount of talent that Colorado possesses, the recognition doesn’t match up. Colorado isn’t typically considered a hotbed for baseball talent. But, Colorado has a shorter season compared to states that have the ability to play year round.
“It’s tough when you only get 19 games a season compared to schools in California and Texas, but the talent here, I think stacks up anywhere,” Cronquist said.
Cronquist and Hansen’s time never overlapped at Loveland, but Cronquist remembers watching Hansen pitch against him during his time coaching at Thompson Valley.
“You could tell back then that he had all the talent to go as far as he wanted and that’s a testament to his work ethic and the coaching staff,” Cronquist said. “Because there are a ton of physically talented players out there who don’t enter the conversation to be No. 1 overall picks – they don’t put in the work or aren’t coachable – so credit to him and his coaches along the way for helping develop him to get to this point.”
Hansen said he will forever remember something his high school coach, Jake Marshall, said to him as a freshman.
“Usually kids don’t make JV at Loveland freshman year, but he put me on JV and he was my head coach, and he told me to stay humble,” Hansen said. “He told me, ‘You’re going to be playing over a lot of these guys, so stay humble.’ That’s something that’s stuck with me and I think he instilled that in me.”
That mentality was tested when Hansen sat out the summer with a forearm strain, and had that to deal with amidst the draft talk.
“When you get back into it, your timing is off, so I was wild and didn’t have that great of command,” Hansen said. “When you throw as hard as I do, you can’t just throw the ball over the middle of the plate, you have to hit spots and you have to be able to throw your off-speed pitches for strikes, otherwise you’ll get hit around.”
Madden spoke on guys like Gausman and Gonzales – out of Grandview and Rocky Mountain, respectively – proving Colorado baseball’s merit.
“When I was 12, 13, and 14, I started paying attention to stuff like that,” Madden said. “Definitely inspirational in the way that there are other guys out there who have done it, I can definitely do it – just have to work hard.”
Hansen certainly puts in the work.
“As a teammate, he’s great. Super competitive, definitely just wants to win,” Madden said. “You can’t complain about anything that he does, he’s a very hard worker.”
In addition to motivating the next top Colorado prep player to be just that, Hansen has learned a little something from himself as well.
“I think more so, I’ve grown up as a person coming to college. I think that’s the biggest thing that’ll help me more than anything at the next level,” Hansen said. “When you get to college, there’s two ways you can go. You can go down a bad path and lose yourself and go down that road, or you can establish yourself as a person. Be your own motivator.”
Martin graduated form Jefferson in 2003 and continued his football career at Wyoming. He would come back from time to time, mostly to put on a football camp for the high school during the summer.
The Spartans, once a power program that won Class 4A championships in 1980 and 1989, had their last winning season in 2009. That was a year before Martin would win the first of his two Super Bowl rings.
Now, under his guidance, the Spartans look to regain the dominant seasons they had while he was lining up at quarterback and cornerback for T.J.
“We had a couple of guys (back then) who were fortunate enough to play in the NFL,” Martin said. “But we had great student-athletes, as well, that I was able to go to school with and still hold those relations with that could bring more than that football aspects.”
That’s a huge priority for Martin in his return. He doesn’t want to just coach football. He understands that by taking the role as head football coach, he becomes an educator on life. Academics was a huge part in his journey to become the man he is today.
He was, after all, a four-time honor roll student as well as a Mayor’s Mile High Academic Scholar. And he considers Thomas Jefferson as one of the big reasons that he was able to reach those accomplishments.
“Being able to go that school, know the system, know the players that went to school there, I feel like I have that to hold on to,” he said. “You have to show the kids that if you don’t play football past this year, there are still great things you can do.”
But what about those who plan to continue their football careers after high school?
Bringing in Martin can be seen as a huge advantage for them seeing as how he reached the highest of levels a football player can reach.
His ability to make it at the collegiate level was never in doubt. He originally committed to the University of Colorado to play for Gary Barnett, but upon hearing that he might not see the field for two years, he opted to attend Wyoming where he stepped right on the field and became an instant contributor.
He was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in 2006 and and enjoyed a nine-year career in the league. In the process, he came away with two Super Bowl rings. He won one with the Green Bay Packers (2010) and the New York Giants (2011).
Now it’s time for Martin to take all the lessons he has learned over the years, both in life and in football, and pass them on to the next generation of athletes. His journey, his roadmap gives a Spartans team loaded with potential a chance to take a the 2016 season one to remember.
“We’re playing to reach the pinnacle,” Martin said of his team, which now plays in Class 3A. “I was fortunate enough to do it twice and with that it lends that it wasn’t about being the best player, it was about being on the best team. Being on the best team, you also have to have the right attitude.”
One would argue that having the best team means having a high quantity of talented players. But that may not be the case. Next fall, when perhaps the greatest Spartan of all time steps back on the field as the leader of the program, Martin intends to prove it.
“I would hear all the stories and all the tales,” Martin said. “The talent was still coming there. It was something out of (the players’ control) that they really couldn’t help.”
Thomas Jefferson has lost something since its heyday. To Martin, it’s a sense a tradition that he felt when he was there.
It’s a sense of tradition that he hopes to restore.
The 2015 CHSAA Hall of Fame inductees. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
AURORA — Eight new members joined CHSAA’s Hall of Fame on Wednesday night following an induction ceremony at the Radisson Hotel Denver Southeast.
Coaches Judy Beardsley (Merino/Sterling), Maurice “Stringy” Ervin (Littleton), Art Wollenweber (Sheridan); participants Natalie Hughes (Palisade), Amy Van Dyken-Rouen (Cherry Creek), Edward “Chuck” Williams (Denver East); sponsor Jess Gerardi (Durango/Englewood); and significant contributor Homer “Irv” Moss (Denver) were all honored on Wednesday.
Together, they comprise the 2015 class, which is the 27th in the history of the Hall of Fame.
Williams spoke for the group. In a speech, he said, “We all feel that it was essential to have the passion and the love for our respective endeavors.”
Judy Beardsley (Merino/Sterling) – One of the finest volleyball coaches in the state, Beardsley’s teams have won 11 state titles, including 10 at Merino and one at Sterling. Her teams compiled records of 502-88 (85%) through last year. She was named Class 1A Coach of the Year on 10 occasions and has earned numerous other coaching honors, including induction last spring into the CHSCA Hall of Fame. Her teams were runners up four times, finished third on three occasions and earned three trips to the final four. Beardsley was named coach of the year on 16 occasions, including 2000 when she was the National High School Coaches Association’s National Coach of the Year.”
Jess Gerardi (Durango/Englewood) – The “godfather” of blending marching band and concert bands, Gerardi is recognized as the state’s most balanced instrumental music director. His bands have excelled at the highest level, at the state, regional and national levels. He served in nearly every role possible in the Colorado Music Educators Association and Colorado Bandmasters Association (CBA). He is an accomplished judge as well, judging strings and bands with aplomb. Gerardi is a member of the CBA’s Hall of Fame and the Colorado Music Educators Association’s Hall of Fame. He was named “Citizen of the Year” in Englewood and “Colroado’s Outstanding Music Educator” by the National Federation (NFHS) in 1994. In 2006, Gerardi received the covetous “Citation of Excellence” award from the National Band Association. Of note is that Gerardi served as director of entertainment for the Denver Broncos Football Club and was director of the Denver Broncos Band from 1967 to 1998.
Maurice “Stringy” Ervin (Littleton) – A coach for five decades, Erwin’s girls’ swimming teams won five state championships and his boys’ teams won another seven. He has coached 19 individual state champions, as well. He has also coached football and baseball. He has won too many honors to count and has been an integral part of the leadership team for the CHSCA. For a man who never learned to swim himself, Ervin can always be found at the pool coaching all levels of swimmer. He was a classroom teacher for LHS for over 30 years and is a meticulous record keeper. He was named the 1998 National Swimming Coach of the Year. He is the recipient of The Denver Post’s Dave Sanders Award (2001), as well as multiple other coaching and leadership awards. As a three-sport high school athlete at LHS, he led his teams to a state championships in football (quarterback) and basketball.
Natalie Hughes (Palisade) – One of the state’s most prolific runners, Hughes won 13 individual state titles in high school. She won three cross country titles (1997, 99, 00) and then won titles in the 800, 1600 and 3200 meters in track and field. She went on to run at Florida State where she was a seven-time All-American and eight-time All-ACC runner during her time with the Seminoles. She still holds the mile record at FSU.
Homer “Irv” Moss (The Denver Post) – Moss has been writing prep sports stories since 1955 and was in integral part of the early coverage for high school sports in Colorado. He and Manual Boody (CHSAA HoF 1990) were the first two newspaper writers to give life in the major papers to prep sports. He printed the CHSAA championship programs until 1988. He was hired as a part-timer while still a student at Denver West. If you are anyone in high school sports, you can’t pass on into the next world without an obituary from Irv Moss. He was instrumental in developing the Metro vs. Suburbs Baseball All-Star game at Bears Stadium and remains one of the state’s most compelling voices in sports, serving as a resource for prep, collegiate and professional sports in Colorado.
Amy Van Dyken-Rouen (Cherry Creek) – Van Dyken is now one of the world’s most recognizable athletes after a stellar swimming career at Cherry Creek High School and Colorado State University. In high school, she set the state record in the 50 free and 100 butterfly. Her teams won state titles each year from 1987-1991. She was named the 1991 Female Swimmer of the Year. She competed in the Olympics winning six Gold Medals. After suffering a serious injury several years ago, she has become a strong spokesperson for the Paralympic athletes and those with spinal cord injuries.
Edward “Chuck” Williams (Denver East) – An all-state basketball and track athlete at Denver East High School, Williams is one of the state’s finest basketball players. He played on three state championship teams, winning in football (1962), basketball (1964) and track (1964). He also played on a football and basketball team that finished runners-up. He earned All-State honors in football and basketball as a senior. He is a member of the DPS’s All-Century Teams in both football and basketball.
Art Wollenweber (Sheridan) – One of the state’s iconic coaches and administrators, Wollenweber baseball teams won over 300 games, captured seven league titles and made the state tournament eight times. As an administrator for SHS, Wollenweber played a key role in the Metro League, serving as the league secretary/treasurer from 1973-1989. He spent many years on the CHSAA Board of Control (Legislative Council) and was a member of the CHSAA Executive Committee (Board of Directors).
