The 2017-18 Les Schwab Academic Team Championship Award winners thus far this season.

(Courtesy of DPS)

Kennedy High School is set to be honored this week for its work with Unified Sports.

The school will be recognized at the Special Olympics Colorado Hall of Fame Luncheon this Thursday at the Hyatt Regency in Denver with the Doug Fulton Unified Champion School Kindness Award.

Kennedy recently started its seventh year as a Special Olympics Unified Champion School. The school offers Unified Sports teams for soccer, flag football, bowling and cheerleading.

“The entire school supports a unified model which allows students with and without disabilities to come together and share the importance of inclusion in sport,” according to a release from Denver Public Schools.

The program was started by athletic director Chris Enzminger, Terry Bredehoft, Cami Jensen, Melissa Klomp and Tom Lynch.

PAONIA — Four years ago this fall, this town’s football team won a championship in a park.

At the end of a cold game — temperature at kickoff was 35 degrees — the scoreboard showed that Paonia beat Centauri 32-24 for the school’s first title in the sport since 1959.

Thing is, that scoreboard didn’t show a thing on the morning of the game. Overnight snow had shorted it out. Paonia was set to host a state title game with no scoreboard in Town Park, a throwback event site with stands on one side that used to double as the baseball team’s home field.

“They said to go find Lorna,” said Paonia athletic director Tim Esgar.

That’d be Lorna Hughes, a secretary at the school who was taking tickets. Her husband, Bill, works for the local electric company.

Bill found a solution: foil from someone’s lunchbox. He used it as a temporary fuse, and the scoreboard roared to life. It proudly displayed the final score later that afternoon.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

A year later, Paonia won a second-straight Class 1A championship at Town Park. And a year after that, they were runner-up.

This past spring, the baseball team and the girls track team won championships in 2A. They were the school’s 21st and 22nd state titles. Since 2010, the school has won 13 championships, including five consecutive by the girls track team.

Players, coaches, administrators and parents from Paonia are often asked what their secret is. There must be something in the water, people joke.

No. It’s just water.

Paonia has a pretty good-sized weight room which overlooks an auxiliary gymnasium. In that weight room, the school painted a phrase in black lettering. It reads, “This is our secret.” Hard work. Dedication.

But that’s only part of it.

See, this is a town that has grown accustomed to winning, and to championships. But it’s also a town that’s infused into those titles. It’s intertwined with everything the school does.

Without its community — capable of, and willing to fix a broken scoreboard after a quick phone call — Paonia High School would not be as successful as it is.

“Without them, there is no us,” said McKenna Palmer, a senior who participates in volleyball, basketball and track.

That is their secret.

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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

There’s a grit here. It’s a measuring stick. You will work hard because everyone before you has worked hard. They say it’s evident even in the elementary school.

“It is an attitude and an expectation,” said Lynda Campbell, a retired schoolteacher who knows just about everyone, and is something of a school grandmother.

Was it here in 1902, when the town was incorporated? Or before that, when it was inhabited by the Utes?

The mentality of Paonia was undoubtedly molded by the people that have lived here over the years. They were farmers, ranchers, coal miners. This area, in the North Fork River Valley about an hour-and-a-half east of Grand Junction, has long been known for its produce. (In 1893, the fruit “won several top awards” at the Chicago World’s Fair.)

Now, they are still farmers, still ranchers, and some still are coal miners, though not as many. The area used to have three coal mines, and 11 trains a day going in and out of town. Two of those mines have closed.

But the town isn’t dying. New industries are moving in. 1,425 people lived in Paonia in 2016, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That was the first increase in population the town had seen since 2009.

“The community hasn’t closed. It’s adapted,” said Randal Palmer, the principal at Paonia High School. “They keep plugging along until they figure it out. There’s a will to want to stay in this valley.”

“Our local economy, interestingly, is probably as good as its been,” said Stan Park, the CEO of First Colorado National Bank in Paonia who has had three kids graduate from the high school.

Through it all, the mentality — that grit — has remained. So of course that has spilled over into the schools.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

“These kids see these people working hard every day,” Park said. “They see people in their towns, whether they’re working in the coal mines or down in the shops, or wherever, that’s part of the culture.”

“Not that that doesn’t exist in other communities,” Park continued. “I’ve lived in farming communities where I thought people have incredible work ethic. But if you look at those schools, those are the schools — like Akron, Wray and places like that out in these farming communities — there’s a work ethic. There’s a consistent thing there that when they see that kind of work ethic in people in their community, it extends to their kids.”

Most of the 155 students in Paonia High School’s hallways have a summer job. Some of them have a job during the school year, too, meaning they’re up and working before the day starts.

“I mean, literally, they’re milking a cow,” said Palmer, the principal.

The hard work is done in an environment where excellence is not the exception. In both 2014-15 and 2015-16, Paonia was ranked among America’s top 500 high schools by Newsweek Magazine. The school added an AP program six years ago.

“Every person in my class, they want to go on and do something in post-secondary education to do something that’s really important to them with their lives,” said McKenna Palmer, the senior athlete. “If they set their mind on going somewhere in college, they’re darn well going to succeed in high school. They just have that drive to do whatever they possibly can to make a good life for themselves.”

“The hardwork on the football field turns into hard work in the classroom,” said Jaden Miller, a senior who plays football, baseball, and wrestles.

Said Scott Rienks, the girls basketball coach who also is a football and track assistant: “You talk about sports, but in both my kids’ classes, there was that competitiveness for the grades, too.”

It’s part of their secret.

“There’s no formula or anything to it,” McKenna Palmer said. “It’s just hard work, and just the grit to want to be better than we are.”

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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

Like most small towns, Paonia’s community is a close one. And that’s probably why the community is so supportive of the high school: The high school is the community, and the community is the high school.

So Friday nights at Town Park, or some random Tuesday in the gym, are packed.

“Everyone comes out, whether you have a kid or not,” said Ellie Roberts, a teacher at the middle school who owns an orchard.

“They just want to see us succeed,” said McKenna Palmer.

“Friday night lights, it lives here,” Campbell said. “It really does.”

This past spring, an elderly couple in Crawford was listening to the state baseball semifinals on the radio. They heard Paonia was leading 4-0, and made the five-hour drive to Pueblo for the championship game, which is held the same day. They arrived in the third inning, and watched the Eagles celebrate their title an hour or so later.

Mrs. Campbell, the retired school teacher, is so interconnected with the school that she literally does the football team’s laundry. Brent McRae, the former football coach who resigned this past spring, stopped her after a game a few years ago and said that a player had told him she had a clothesline.

“I said, ‘Yeah, what about it?'” Campbell recalled as she laughed. “But that goes on all the time. And it started when my kids were in school.”

So McRae would drop off the uniforms after the game each week, and stop by on Monday to pick them up. Campbell was happy to do it.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

The school’s booster club — which, let’s be honest, are just members of surrounding community — started a tradition recently where they feed opposing teams and fans after games because restaurants in town are closed afterward.

“This little old man from Meeker came through, and he said, ‘I don’t come to watch the games anymore. I come for the meal,'” Campbell said.

It’s part of the expectation in Paonia: Everyone is here to help.

But there’s also selfless quality the is evident within the school.

Teachers routinely use their lunchtime to work with students. Coaches more often than not are working in three seasons — head coach in the fall, assistant in the winter and spring. That kind of thing.

The athletes themselves are mostly multisport athletes in the truest sense: They participate in one sport per season, and sometimes they participate in multiple sports per season.

“I really don’t like wrestling that much,” said Jaden Miller. “I could be playing fall baseball, but the team really needs me. We all feel like we have to come out. We all play sports that we really don’t enjoy that much, but we’ve all got to come out and do it. There’s not enough kids here.”

Coaches encourage their players to participate in multiple sports. There was even a recent case of a wrestler who also played basketball in the winter season. The coaches worked it out.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s our sport or not,” said Scott Rienks, the three-sport coach who actually started coaching when he was in high school. “That’s a huge thing. We all support each other. We want everybody to succeed.

“In a small school,” he added of multisport athletes, “to be able to survive, that’s just what happens.”

Said Tim Esgar, the athletic director: “It’s about the school, not about the sport. We’re all using the same kids. The school is first.”

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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

The expectation of excellence bleeds from the classroom to everything else Paonia does.

Last year, a pair of basketball shoes were stolen from an opposing team’s locker. No one knows who took them. (Paonia did buy the player another pair of shoes.) But the next day, unprompted, the student body president stood up in the middle of the lunchroom.

“You better knock that off,” he told every student there. “That’s not who we are. We’re not going to go down this road.”

The message was clear.

It’s equally as clear when freshmen get their first taste of one of Paonia High School.

“For the last 15 years or so, when the kids come into this school, the expectation is already there,” Lynda Campbell said. “It’s not if we’re going to state, it’s where are we going to place? And the expectation is not, ‘If I get a scholarship,’ it’s, ‘What kind will I get?’ and, ‘Where do I want to go?'”

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

New arrivals adapt to the culture within the walls. It was there long before they got there, and will be there long after they leave.

“You just fit in with these kids here, because they’re so — they’re just good,” said McKenna Palmer, who moved from Texas in middle school. “They’re just good kids.”

“It’s just a different atmosphere up here,” said Jaden Miller, who also moved in during middle school. “You’ll be driving down the highway here, and if you just wave at somebody, everybody will wave back. You’ll walk into Hightower, the diner, and you’ll know everybody there. And if you don’t, they’re always friendly.”

So, yes, this small school, nestled in a valley next to a river, has won 22 championships. And it probably will win quite a few more in the near future.

No, it’s not all about titles. Or the academic scholarships. But they are without question the result of the expectation of hard work, of grit, that is rooted deep into Paonia’s culture.

And they are also the result of this community, where, within two phone calls, you can find yourself drowning in heavy machinery that’s just waiting for a project.

“Someone will show up with a backhoe, someone will show up with a bulldozer, show up with fork lift, a bobcat,” said Randal Palmer. “It’s really — it’s two phone calls. You say, ‘Hey, we’re going to meet here.'”

And they say, “O.K.”

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

(Jeff Tucker/jefferywtucker.zenfolio.com)

Seeking to further foster the sportsmanship that exists in high school sports, Mitchell High School has created an announcement that its athletes will read prior to home events.

The announcement, a brainchild of the Mitchell administration, was reviewed by the school’s head coaches, its student-athletes, the English department, and by other athletic directors within District 11.

The sportsmanship announcement will be read by students prior to their home events at Mitchell High School and Garry Berry Stadium this school year.

It will also be printed on the back of every program for home events, and will be distributed to parents during Mitchell’s Fall Sports Kick-Off event on Wednesday, as well as their back-to-school event on Aug. 31.

Here’s the text of the sportsmanship announcement:

Good afternoon/evening ladies and gentleman and welcome to Mitchell H.S./Garry Berry Stadium. My name is: (student’s name) and I am here to deliver your sportsmanship announcement for this event.

On behalf of my teammates, coaches, athletic program, school, and CHSAA, I want to thank everyone here for coming out to support us, the STUDENT-ATHLETES, who will be participating this afternoon/evening. We choose to participate because it is fun for us and we enjoy the friendly competition.

We ask that, YOU, the spectators, honor and respect the student athletes and this event. We PREPARE, PLAN, and PLAY to WIN, BUT WINNING is not our PURPOSE. Our purpose as players and coaches is to compete, to learn to work together, to manage adversity when it arises, and to accept the outcome of this event with humbleness and humility.

To the OFFICIALS, thank you for your sacrifice to this game. We realize you are human and you might make mistakes but we will not criticize you for them. Instead, we will respect you for your efforts and dedication to our sport.

To our OPPONENTS, we will compete against you as hard as we can because we want to win just as much as you do, but at the end of this event, we will respect you for being our competitors.

To the PARENTS and FANS, cheer for us in a positive manner, respect all of the players, coaches, and officials and remember, this is just a game and we are here to have fun.

Not everyone gets to win everything and there are some incredible LIFE LESSONS that can be learned from any outcome. With that being said, let’s have a fantastic event this afternoon/evening.

(Photo courtesy of Jared Felice)

Jared Felice started his teaching and coaching career at Fountain-Fort Carson. The 2001 graduate of Mesa Ridge High School became a social studies teacher, the dean of students and also worked on the varsity football coaching staff under Mitch Johnson.

Now he’s headed back there to oversee the athletic department.

After two years as the athletic director at Sand Creek, Felice is returning to his roots to take the athletic director position that was vacated by Chris James.

James is returning to his hometown of Pueblo as the new principal at Pueblo West. He served as the AD for the Trojans for one year.

That left the door open for Felice who jumped at the opportunity to get back to his hometown.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to return to my roots at Fountain-Fort Carson HS and once again serve this special community,” he said. “I am fully committed to upholding the mission and vision of the district and high school in driving the athletics program in a new direction that advances our coaches and student-athletes toward success.”

The Trojans boast a standout track and field team and will head into the football season under the second year of new coach Jake Novotny.

Felice will have to jump right into the decision making process as the school is without a boys basketball coach. Gregory Williams will not be returning to the program.

Felice is unsure if he will make a hire, but says he may be a part of the process.

He will finish out the school year at Sand Creek and start as the FFC athletic director at the start of the next school year.

(John Priest/CHSAANow.com)

Boys soccer will add a new fourth classification of competition beginning with the fall 2018 season.

The new Class 2A was created when the Legislative Council voted to approve a proposal to do so during its meeting on Thursday at the Radisson Hotel Denver Southeast. The motion passed easily with a 62-5 vote.

“We’re excited that the Association voted to add an additional championship for boys soccer in 2018,” said Bud Ozzello, the CHSAA assistant commissioner in charge of boys soccer. “It will enable our schools with smaller enrollments to compete in their own playoff bracket.”

The move brings the boys in line with girls soccer, which added a fourth class two seasons ago. When that decision was made, the girls had 74 teams playing in 3A. Boys soccer currently has 78 teams in 3A, and the new class will help bring that number down.

The proposal was supported by the soccer committee, the Classification and League Organizing Committee, as well as the equity committee.

The change will be effective with the 2018-20 two-year cycle, meaning the next season, in fall 2017, will still remain at three classifications.

When 2A boys soccer does begin play in fall 2018, it is likely that it will affect the structure of the championships, Ozzello said.

Currently, all three classes play their title games at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on a Saturday. A fourth classification could mean splitting the championships over two days, like girls soccer does, or using a separate venue for 2A.

“We’re limited by what the venue (DSGP) can do, especially because the (Colorado) Rapids are in-season at that time,” Ozzello said.

That decision likely will be made over the course of the next year.

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Notables

• A few tweaks to the RPI formula became official. A full story is available here.
• Eddie Hartnett, the current Board president, noted that he would be introducing the next CHSAA commissioner the next time the Legislative Council meeting convenes in April. (Applications for the commissioner job are being accepted now.)
• Four new schools were approved for initial membership into CHSAA: DSST-Cole, Golden View Classical Academy, Stargate School and Victory Prep. This brings CHSAA’s membership to 355 schools. Additionally, Caprock Charter Academy, DSST-Green Valley Ranch, and Venture Prep were all approved as full members following a three-year probationary period.
• In the future, applications for membership will only be considered in odd years after a proposal passed. This will make it so new schools are only added during the beginning of a two-year cycle, which will help reduce complications of changing schedules and league structure.
• Officials’ fees got a $2 bump in all sports, at all levels, for the 2018-20 two-year cycle. There had already been a $1 increase scheduled.
• Cross country’s wish to move the 2A state meet to run six, score four was voted down. So 2A will remain at six runners competing, but only three scoring.

GILCREST — Rene Aafedt has struggled with the absence of Bruce Kamada’s unwavering energy in the gym.

As the coach of the volleyball program for the past twenty years, Aafedt has understood how much the “Voice of the Vikings” became woven into the fabric of Valley High School. It just doesn’t feel the same without Bruce.

“He used to say, ‘When you’re done, I’m done.’ This was going to be our last season, so it’s kind of tough,” said Aafedt, with more than a touch of emotion in her voice.

Bruce Kamada. (Courtesy photo)

Kamada had been a major component of Valley’s volleyball family, a program that has reached seven Class 3A state championship matches since 2004, winning titles in 2010 and 2012. He was there every season of Aafedt’s career up until this one, her last before retiring.

Kamada, who passed away on September 9 at age 69, had a lengthy background in sports. An All-City football player at Manual High School in Denver in the 1960s, he continued his gridiron career at the University of Northern Colorado (called Colorado State College at the time).

Later on, he worked as the marketing director and announcer for Bandimere Speedway and as an announcer for the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). He also owned South Platte Auto Supply in LaSalle for 23 years and was even the Mayor of LaSalle at one time.

Despite all his other endeavors, Kamada never shied from lending his voice as the public address announcer at Valley events. He dealt with some health issues over the past few years, which included suffering a severe hemorrhagic stroke in February, but until the very end treasured honoring student-athletes. And it wasn’t just Valley Vikings.

“My understanding of how important and how special Bruce was really came from my first year as an athletic director when we hosted a volleyball regional,” Kevin McWain said.

Now in his third season as the athletic director, McWain has been in the district for over a decade.

“That was the first year I think that Bruce really started having some health issues. He had not been able to be at all of the volleyball games,” McWain said. “He showed up for regionals to announce. At the end of the deciding game for each of the participants, he singled out and acknowledged all of the seniors from those teams who came up here to visit from wherever they were in the state.”

Parents from opposing teams, upon completion of the tournament, expressed just how much they appreciated Kamada being a supporter of all the athletes.

He also made a habit of inviting fans from Valley and their opponents to be “loud and proud” at all events.

“When he started the introductions and recognized the other team for being here, he always made a point to encourage the other team to be vocal,” McWain said. “He would joke around with them and say, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s not nearly loud enough.’ He would make it a contest for the Valley fans to be louder too.

“He just created an environment that made it exciting for everybody here. What he did can’t be duplicated.”

Keith Grant has been an assistant as well as a head coach for a number of sports at Valley since 1990, around the time Kamada became “The Voice of the Vikings.” Grant was fond of the way Kamada acted in regard to Valley’s opponents.

“He treated the other team’s kids just as well as he treated our own kids, and same with the parents,” Grant said, even as Kamada would sometimes lightheartedly jest the other teams’ fans.

Kamada’s personality and character certainly showed in the gym and at the field. He announced volleyball, football, basketball and sometimes baseball games, and his talents were called upon at several district and state tournaments. But, his impact went far-beyond calling contests.

Kamada had airtime at a local radio station and would invite players in to interview on a Friday night after a football game or on a Saturday morning. He also continued relationships with generations of local athletes long after they were done competing for the black and gold.

“He didn’t just make the connections with the kids while they were on the court or on the field here, he maintained the friendships after they graduated,” McWain said. “They became part of his family.”

Frank Buck

Longtime athletic director Frank Buck is changing positions this school year in order to focus on his health.

Buck, who has been the athletic director at Mead for seven years, was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in January. He’s undergone a series of surgeries and chemotherapy, and is continuing treatment. But the demands of being an athletic director are too much, and so he is set to change jobs.

“I need to concentrate on my health,” Buck said on Monday. “I really love my job, and the AD world. But it’s all about my health. I’ve got to back off of that a little bit.”

Buck, who has also been an athletic director at Longmont, will become an assistant principal at Coal Ridge Middle School in Firestone.

He said a reduced schedule this summer has already shown positive effects on his health.

“I’m battling, and I’ll continue to do so,” Buck said.

Chad Eisentrager will be the new athletic director at Mead.

(Matt Daniels/MattDanPhoto.com)

Rodney Padilla has been named the new athletic director at Hinkley High School, taking over the role after 15 years as the successful wrestling coach at Chaparral.

Padilla’s hire was announced by Aurora Public Schools district athletic director Michael Krueger on Monday morning. Padilla will take over for Tristen Rogers, who stepped down to explore opportunities to train triathletes at high altitude.

“We are going to definitely miss Tristen as she is a phenomenal person and a great Athletic Director. We certainly wish her well in her new endeavors,” Krueger said. “We are very excited to share with you that we have found a very talented and super individual to fill Tristen’s big shoes.”

Padilla spent the past 15 years as the head coach at Chaparral, where he won a number of awards. Padilla has also been the dean of students at Overland, and has also coached and taught at Westminster and Lompoc (Calif.).

“Rod is a long-time Aurora resident and we are proud to welcome him to the APS family,” Krueger said.

Durango athletic director Dave Preszler is set to retire. (Blake McClain/El Diablo Newspaper, Durango HS)

DURANGO — After two years as the athletic director for Durango, Dave Preszler will be stepping down to a semi-retired role next year on his way to full retirement.

In his two short years, Preszler has brought tremendous life, enthusiasm and commitment to all activities within DHS. In the next year, he will assist in the transition process with new athletic director Adam Bright while continuing to oversee the stadium remodel project.

“I’m very careful, I can’t allow myself to call it retirement. I’ll call it semi-retirement. There are still a lot of things that I can give back to society that I can do for student-athletes or coaches,” he said.

Preszler has been an athletic director for 39 years, and began his career in Bismarck, North Dakota as a football coach.

“I had the great blessing of playing (football) all the way through high school and college, and after that point, what do you do? I wanted to stay involved in athletics. I started four years here, four years there, and kept moving up the line,” Preszler said.

As Preszler has progressed, he has been able to work at a multitude of schools, each with its own atmosphere. As an athletic director, Preszler experiences the weight of the tough situations revolving around activities and athletics.

“One might think that there is a uniqueness to what occurred, but do things happen at similar levels in other districts? Probably. In a lot of cases it may not be a situation of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ Stuff is going to happen all over the place,” he said.

The situations take a toll, though, and while Preszler makes decisions based on his past experience, there comes a time when enough is enough.

“I’m pretty wore out. Matter of fact, I’m really wore out, and I need to make sure I take a step back to allow myself to catch my breath,” he said.

His kids played a large part in his decision, weighing in heavily on the need for more time together with his grandkids. He plans to stay in Durango during the upcoming year with hopes of finding more time for himself in the process.

“In the old days as a young coach, we would push all day, recharge overnight and you were fine, ready to go. It doesn’t happen that way anymore,” Preszler said. “The coach part of me is saying, ‘I’m going to fight through this thing.’”

Preszler’s current work week varies from 65 to 70 hours, and his only time to exercise comes during 5:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. walks with his dog. The transitional year ahead gives Preszler more time to enjoy biking, hiking and kayaking.

He also hopes to reacquaint himself with some of his former students and coaches.

“Some of the coaches on my staff are still doing really well, coaching in the NFL. We will spend some more time with them during this fall. It’s kind of fun having that availability to do that,” he said.

Preszler hopes that Bright, the new AD, recognizes the importance of relationships.

“I think they need to realize that we have a responsibility to assist in the overall climate of things in the building, and have an opportunity to realize that athletics and activities are an integral part of this high school,” he said.

Along with the stadium reconstruction, Preszler will oversee the process of integrating the middle school and high school athletic programs. He will spend the next year at both the middle schools and DHS.

“I won’t be a hermit, you’ll see me around,” Preszler said. “I’m just going to have less keys.”

This story originally appeared in El Diablo, Durango High School’s student newspaper, on May 26.