COLORADO SPRINGS — The biggest difference in Doherty’s gym as the 2013 volleyball season opens? It’s not the new championship banner watching over practice. It’s all the new faces.
The Spartans graduated seven seniors off of last season’s team which went unbeaten en route to winning the Class 5A title. In fact, just four varsity players return in 2013.
“It’s been terrifying, actually,” said Haleigh Washington, one of those returners. “It’s scary! Because last year, you’re in this comfort zone, there’s a bunch of seniors, there’s a bunch of upperclassmen.
“So this year, we’re in this new environment. We have younger kids, we have kids that need to learn. We have kids that kind of know what they’re doing, but still need to learn. So it’s scary, because we don’t know what the next step is.”
Early-season practice has completely changed from this point last season.
“Last year, we were able to focus on the strategy earlier on in the season,” coach Tara Hittle said. “This year, the main focus is on the skill and the technique of the skill. We’ll get to strategy a little bit later on.”
Hittle has three freshmen on the varsity roster, and moved a number of girls up from last year’s lower-level teams.
“There are a lot of unfamiliar faces, a lot of new people,” said senior Gabby Simpson.
But Doherty’s cupboard isn’t bare.
Washington, a Penn State commit, is the reigning Gatorade player of the year in Colorado. (The only other volleyball player to do that in Doherty’s history? Hittle, who also led the school to a championship in 2003.)
Simpson, a setter, is bound for Colorado State. Seniors Rachel Staudte, an outside hitter, and Kaylee Bussinger, the libero, also return experience.
“It’s a pretty big change,” Hittle said. “However, in the returners that we have, we have four good players.”
The seniors have each embraced a leadership role.
“You’re the leader now, you’re the top dog,” Bussinger said. “You want to show them how we do things on varsity.”
Added Washington: “We try to explain to them things you wouldn’t typically picture in a winning team. We don’t say, ‘You need to hit hard,’ and ‘You need to pass the ball perfectly.’ It’s things like, ‘You need to be confident in yourself,’ ‘You need to know that you can do what we teach you,’ ‘You need to be willing to learn,’ or ‘You need to be willing to change what you already do.’ ”
Despite graduation’s impact, Doherty opened the season atop CHSAANow.com’s 5A volleyball poll on Monday. It’s yet another challenge added to an early season full of them.
“It’s a lot of pressure and everything to hold up to,” Bussinger said, “but, sure, give us that, we’ll try to defend it.”
“We have a target on our back, definitely,” Staudte said.
The Spartans begin the season on Aug. 31 at home against No. 2 Grandview, the team they beat in the 2012 final which graduated just one senior. It makes for a quick test.
“Are we going to go 29-0 (again) this season? Probably not,” Hittle said. “Is that the goal? Yeah, we would love to. But I’m not so concerned with how we do at the beginning of the season. I’m more concerned about us learning and growing. I would love to win the last game of the season.”
Silver Creek, the defending 3A champion, opens Colorado’s high school football schedule. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
The casual high school football observer might think that scheduling football games is an easy process. After all, a school has a specified number of conference games and, then fill in with non-conference opponents.
Well, for some schools, it’s not that easy. There be an odd number of schools in their conference, creating a “bye” that might be much later in the season than the usual bye week. Or, the team may not be able to match up with any other school for a variety of reasons, including competitive level, classification or geography.
The CHSAA tackled that issue a number of years ago and may allow teams to play a “zero week” game when those teams can provide enough information to show that after an exhaustive search, the school was unable to find an opponent during the established 10-week period.
The school then requests permission for the “zero week” games from CHSAA Assistant Commissioner Harry Waterman. Once approval is given, the schools playing that “zero week” game give up one of their two allowable scrimmages in order to play that week. This year, “zero week” falls on August 22-24.
This year, there are 29 “zero week” games scheduled, including Valor Christian’s nationally televised game (ESPN2) against Fresno, Calif., Central East High School in Highlands Ranch. The complete list of “zero week” games includes:
AURORA — He scanned the weight room and could nearly count everyone on two hands. There were 12 kids. You can’t build a football program with 12 kids. Twelve kids is barely enough to field an offense.
“All of a sudden,” Justin Hoffman said on Monday, “it was a kick to the gut.”
It was the day after the football coach had been introduced to his new players at Smoky Hill last winter. Thirty-five kids came to the introduction. Not great, but better than 12.
“You start thinking, ‘Oh, what’d I do?’ ” said Hoffman, who was hired in January.
The football coach spent six seasons heading nearby Gateway, where he had transformed a program that went 0-9 in 2007 to one that went 7-3 last season. And then traded that in for a place where football wasn’t a priority.
Or so it seemed.
The following day, 15 players showed up to the weight room.
“And the next day, there was 17,” Hoffman said. “And the next day, there was 19.”
A slow trickle turned into an open faucet. By the time the spring sports ended their season, more than 60 players were showing up to work out. To put that number in perspective, Smoky Hill’s program ended last season with a combined 31 players between its varsity and junior varsity teams.
“Now,” said running back Tylor Brown, a senior, “what he’s done is basically made us compete. Former years, it was usually only the seniors that would start on varsity, and now he’s giving everybody a chance to play on that varsity level. That’s a huge difference.”
Smoky Hill has a rough enrollment of 2,300, and is a large Class 5A school. Thirty-one players isn’t enough to make a large 5A program viable. And though the Buffaloes went 4-6 last season, they are 13-35 since 2008.
“First thing we did is we were like, ‘You can’t change anything from the past. We’re moving forward,’ ” Hoffman said.
When practice opened on Monday, Smoky Hill did so with 76 players. Most of that growth is due to the seniors, who helped recruit other students in the hallways and on Twitter.
“We were all excited,” said quarterback Trent Clay, one of those seniors. “We were like, ‘Hey, are you going to come out for football?’ Kids are excited and everybody’s hearing about what we’re doing. It’s great.”
Added running back Isaiah Alexander, another senior, “He inspired us to go out there and get people.”
And while “it doesn’t feel all the way right,” Brown said, “because we know we should have 100 kids out here,” Hoffman has numbers to play with. It’s part of the reason he calls Smoky Hill a “top-7 job in Colorado.” A school this size could quickly become very relevant in 5A.
His players know it starts in practice.
“Last year (during practice), there was a lot of standing around and just people hanging out on the sidelines, not doing any drills,” said senior Frank Thomas, last year’s leading receiver. “Now, you can look at any drill, and if somebody’s not involved, some of the seniors or juniors will yell at them, ‘Get in the drill!’ ”
Now, practice is merely an extension of what Smoky Hill does.
“Before he arrived,” Clay said, “there wasn’t a culture built up. I feel like everybody played football but we weren’t exactly a football family. We didn’t do anything together. We practiced together, but that was about it. I think when coach Hoff came, he really emphasized family and culture and bonded us together.”
The Buffaloes open the 2013 season against Hoffman’s old Gateway squad.
“I’m glad it’s Week 1,” Hoffman said. “If it was Week 9, I think it would kill me.”
This year, Hoffman will stray — slightly — from his rush-heavy attack. In 2012, Hoffman’s Gateway team threw the ball just 14 percent of the time. At Smoky, his offense will be closer to a 60-40 rush-to-pass split — especially considering the Buffs return Clay, who threw for 1,500 yards last season, and Thomas, who hauled in 34 passes and six touchdowns. There’s also Dominique Carrasco, a 6-foot-5 transfer from Kansas with speed and a 30-inch vertical jump who will play wide receiver.
Ah, but the option offense isn’t totally going away. Hoffman has three running backs he’s fond of — Brown, Alexander and Malik Pompey — and he said he’ll rotate each through to keep them fresh.
“We’ve got some kids that can be part of something,” Hoffman said.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he room sits quiet and dark under the iconic clock tower. A switch in the corner is flipped, and the lights flicker. They shine on history.
There are photos noting the ’00 and ’01 athletic teams. That’s 1900 and 1901. Follow the wall and watch the decades pass. There’s a picture of the girls basketball squad from 1914. They’re wearing dresses. Further down, a band uniform from the 1940s.
It’s only a room—small, somewhat cramped, with a low ceiling—tucked above the fourth floor at Denver East High School. Yet, in moments, this museum tells a story that nearly everyone else has trouble putting into words: History is palpable here, perhaps like no other high school in Colorado. And it pulls you in.
The History Room, filled with old memorabilia from past East sports teams, underneath the clock tower at Denver East. (Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com).
Denver East—known as Arapahoe School, Denver Eastside or East Denver through the years—has won 96 state championships in 16 sports. Yes, Cherry Creek has won more than 200 titles, but these Angels have athletic success dating to 1895. For perspective, the Colorado High School Activities Association wasn’t formed until 1921.
The school itself was founded in 1876, and has known three homes: 19th and Arapahoe (hence, Arapahoe School) until 1889; 20th and Stout (known as “Old East” to alumni) until the spring of 1925; and the current campus just off of Colfax Avenue near York Street.
The current building was part of Mayor Robert Speer’s City Beautiful program in the early-to-mid 1900s. It opened, along with the current campuses for Denver South and Denver West high schools, in the fall of 1925. South was placed at Washington Park, West at Sunken Gardens Park. East was built adjacent to City Park.
East’s clock tower, 162-feet high, can be seen for blocks around and is the lasting image visitors carry with them.
“A lot of people have fond memories of high school. Not too many people say, ‘Oh, boy, I love my building,’ ” Dick Nelson, a longtime English teacher at East and historian of Denver Public Schools, said recently. “It’s usually some program or some kids or some teachers that you remember. You don’t remember the building. But I think East kids remember the building.
“It kind of rises out of the ground,” Nelson said. “It’s amazing architecture, and made possible the fact that it was built before the depression.”
• • •
Denver East High School’s Panek Gym. (Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The school’s old gym was state-of-the-art when it was built in 1925, and hosted the state wrestling tournament three times in the 1930s. East won its only wrestling championship one of those years, in 1937. But that old gym, which features seating above the floor, isn’t quite suited for today’s basketball games and so another one was built in 1982.
The baseball field butts up against 17th Avenue, and across the street the tennis teams have a grandfathered permit to use City Park’s courts. There’s a field turf facility across City Park Esplanade for soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and football, as well as a track outlining the field.
East’s location—smack in the middle of a major American city—makes it unique. An open campus policy during lunch sends many of its nearly 2,500 students flooding out to Colfax each weekday afternoon.
“There’s a real sense of pride, and (the students) feel pride of going on Colfax for lunch,” said Michelle Topf, an English teacher and girls tennis coach. “Even though they make fun of it, they’re very proud of being in the inner-city, they’re very proud of their neighborhood.”
Said Aspen Miles, East’s dean of students and a graduate of the school, “It’s so diverse. Our campus is a good picture of what the world’s going to be like when you get out there. You meet a little bit of everyone doing everything.”
• • •
A staggering number of notable alumni have passed under the clock tower through windowed doors to attend class. Widely known Olympians, actors, professional athletes, governors, musicians, writers and professors are Angels. There’s even a First Lady (Mamie Eisenhower, Dwight’s wife), and an astronaut (Jack Swigert, of Apollo 13 fame).
Nearly every one of them participated in some form of school activity—athletic or otherwise. T.J. Miller, the comedian, co-star of Cloverfield, and lead in Fox’s new series The Goodwin Games, played lacrosse. Swigert, a 1949 grad, played football.
These alums, and their feats, are never far from the minds of today’s students.
“Our halls are filled with it,” said Miles, one of those notable alumni, herself an Olympic-level runner whose state record in the 200-meter dash stood until Regis Jesuit’s Ana Holland broke it in April.
A team photo of the 1901 East High track team. (Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Heritage Hall, on the third floor, spotlights the best of East’s alumni. East’s clock tower room, home to the museum, sits above classrooms, up a short stairway. There’s also an athletic Hall of Fame outside of the school’s gym. It’s dedicated to Nelson for his tireless work in preserving the history of the school.
It all leads to an expectation of excellence at East—a tradition that, as Miles put it, rests on a “history of excellence that we’ve had for a hundred years.”
“It’s self-perpetuating,” said Susan McHugh, a coach with the school’s debate team. “So, kids that come to East, and families, they feel pride and they want to uphold the standards and they want to be a part of the history that’s always been a positive history.”
Said Miles, “It was a challenge: What am I going to do to make East proud, to add another chapter in East’s book?”
Yes, a lot of that tradition is athletic success. The boys soccer team owns the most recent title, capturing Class 5A in 2011, and the boys basketball squad was upset in the 5A final last spring. From 1931 to 1968, the school won 73 state championships.
But there’s also the Constitutional Scholars team which routinely wins, or at least earns a place at, the national competition in Washington D.C. Its speech and debate program is widely known. The woodshop course designed and built new shelves in the school library.
“When I was there,” Miles said, “it was about me being the best runner I could be and still understanding that the academic foundation they were giving me is what was going to take me in life. It wasn’t just, ‘You’re an athlete.’ I was one whole student that they were putting together to go out and make an impact in this world.”
• • •
A 5A boys basketball championship trophy from 1996. (Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)
What makes East so special? Once it touches you, the history and tradition never seem to let you leave.
“There’s kind of the rich sense of, ‘Once you’re an Angel, you’re always an Angel,’ ” said Lisa Porter, the school’s athletic director who played soccer, basketball, volleyball and softball at East before graduating in 1993. “Once you get a job at East, whether it’s teaching or coaching, you don’t leave.”
Seven coaches or heads of activities have been at East for at least 10 years. There are stalwarts like boys basketball coach Rudy Carey, who graduated from the school in 1970. Or Andy Mendelsberg, who has been at the school for more than 20 years. He was a softball coach, dean and athletic director before becoming principal last year.
One major reason coaches stay put is because East has outstanding participation numbers. More than 100 girls came out for field hockey last year—105 for tennis. The East Theatre Company routinely has between 275 and 300 members. Everyone, it seems, is involved in something.
And through the years, many of those students have found their way to big things. It makes for a legendary alumni base.
A portrait of John “Jack” Swigert, Jr., one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13, hangs in the Alumni Heritage Hall. (Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)
“I was talking to a group of freshman last year: ‘Anybody know anyone famous from East High School?’ Not a hand went up,” said Nelson, the historian. “So I said, ‘Well, I’ll give you a hint on one. This was an African American actor, he had a tremendous movie called Hotel Rwanda.’ I said, ‘Anybody know who that kid is?’ ”
Nelson was speaking of Don Cheadle, who graduated from East in 1982.
“Not one hand went up,” Nelson said. “And then I realized, they don’t know Hotel Rwanda. So I go to another one: ‘This guy was an Apollo 13 astronaut.’ A kid’s hand shot up, and he goes, ‘Oh, I know that one!’ I said, ‘What’s his name?’ He said, ‘Kevin Bacon.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s the guy that played him in the movie.’ ”
It’s something you won’t find at many other schools, these stories of astronauts who roamed the halls, of actors, or athletes. All Angels.
“Other high schools that I’ve worked in, they’ve worked to get that (tradition), but East has it naturally,” Porter said. “It’s just part of the culture, part of the fabric of East High School. It’s the rich community of pride and tradition in things we’ve all done. It happens as a school and as a community.”
“And then,” Porter said, after graduating, “we all come back.”
In May 1921, a group of principals and superintendents gathered to create the organization that would evolve into the current 343-member Colorado High School Activities Association we have today. Why?
Talks had been taking place long before that meeting. After all, games were being played every week — even as World War I raged. While limited information exists on injuries during that time, competitive athletics has always provided a risk of serious injury, especially football. And safety and fair play were a top priority then, as today.
The country was just three years away from the end of the war. It was seeing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on their way home and returning to their previous lives, as well as the emigration of hundreds of thousands Europeans fleeing countries ravaged by the war. For many, that meant returning to (or starting) high school. And, that’s where the story of the Colorado High School Athletic Conference begins.
There are documented reports that upon their return, many of these men took up the sports they played before heading off to war. Schools started to see men as old as 22 and 23 playing football against those just starting high school, some as young as 14. It didn’t take long for fears of safety and fair play to arise.
So, schools began the discussion of creating a fair and safe playing field. And the organization started with age as one of its first rules.
The rule adopted in 1921 simply stated that a student shall not participate in athletics after having reached his 21st birthday, but he could complete the current season he was participating in. That rule remained that way until 1925, when the rule evolved to ineligibility “upon arriving at his 21st birthday.” Fifteen years later, that was changed to a student’s 20th birthday.
CHSAA’s current age of 19 was first adopted in 1950. That change meant a student could not participate in football if he turned 19 before August 25, or basketball, wrestling and swimming if he was 19 before December 1, or baseball, track, tennis and golf if his birthday was before March 1.
A modification to the previous rule was passed in 1958 where students who turned 19 prior to August 25 were prohibited from participation in any sport. In 1975, the Association changed the birthdate to August 1.
CHSAA’s age rule had remained consistent since then, but the ability to seek a waiver of the rule was added in 1991, which allowed schools to request a year if that student met specified educational or physical criteria. Initially, students could not be granted a waiver to play football, ice hockey and wrestling, but that limitation was removed in 1994.
In 1996, at a special meeting of the Board of Control at Aurora Central High School, and in response to a case where a 20-year-old Down’s Syndrome student had been denied a waiver to play, the CHSAA legislative body changed the age rule to give the Commissioner authority to allow for a variance of the rule in limited cases where the safety of the participant and other participants was not compromised and that such participation would have no bearing on the outcome of contests.
The final facelift came in 2005 when the CHSAA age rule was rewritten to eliminate the by-law from the waiver process and allow for a variance of the rule based on meeting the criteria for an exception. If the athlete meets the narrow criteria for an exception, the exception will then be either approved or rejected without appeal. The CHSAA Age Rule (1760) can be found on page 54 of the current Handbook.
In all, the rule has changed 13 times in 93 years, but the heart of the rule remains safety and fair play for its student participants.
Rules are often viewed as roadblocks for our ultimate goals, whether in life or in high school athletics. But rules are critical to the moral structure in our everyday life, and even more formative to our children in those sports and activities they play.
High school athletics and activities playing rules are about education, about teaching our young people to work within a structured system. Rules add value to those games and enhance the life lessons learned in an appropriate educational setting.
Simply by participating, our children learn many valuable lessons, but those lessons are enriched by the standards and expectations demanded of them under the Colorado High School Activities Association by-laws and the playing rules developed by the National Federation of State High School Associations. These rules provide a reason to play, provide the legitimacy for the results of the games.
Under CHSAA rules, students earn their participation opportunities through their performance in the classroom.
Rather than look at rules as roadblocks, we need to encourage our student participants, their parents and our communities to view rules as a means to improve our society, the moral structure by which we all live.
Rules raise expectations. Higher expectations yield greater results. Rules establish a level playing field and give participants a place to start their ascent to the adult world. Rules begin the structure from which our ethics and principles develop.
Without everyone playing by, and knowing, the rules, making a basket, sinking a putt, spiking a ball is meaningless. Structure, rules create the learning environment children need to succeed in life.
In the modern day reality, coaches are held in higher esteem than many other leaders of society. Whether this is earned or anointed, it makes little difference, because coaches truly have to be, are expected to be, leaders.
Too often, coaches are remembered for successes measured by wins and losses. That is the public face that those outside educational athletics seem to need to define success. The reality is not the playing field, the competitive court’s wins and losses, but what the young men and women take with them as they go through life.
As a leader, coaches play a crucial role in teaching life lessons to our competitive youth who choose to participate in interscholastic sports. These life lessons take place in locations outside the typical classroom like a weight room, the gymnasium, practice areas, and of course, the playing fields and courts.
Coaches are positioned to have a dramatic and positive influence on our students that go well beyond the playing field. As a membership, the CHSAA has established core expectations for the values that are imparted by our coaching professionals. There are minimum standards that coaches must meet, but those standards are designed to elevate that coach to a higher level where she/he can provide the necessary life lessons.
Coaches strive to teach and model the proper techniques that will enable their players and teams to be successful in an educational setting. Wins and losses are nice, but what that student takes from her/his participation is of paramount importance.
A colleague of mine often asks this question, “If we are teaching our students lessons that last a lifetime, are we as coaches positioning ourselves as lifelong teachers?”
The CHSAA Coaching Advisory Committee is focused on doing just that for every coach in Colorado.
