Casey Opitz is continuing his family’s baseball legacy. Tuesday night, he became the third Opitz brother to commit to a Division I baseball program.
Opitz will head to the SEC, where he will play for the University of Arkansas. The commitment was announced on the Heritage athletics Twitter account.
In the 2015-16, Opitz batted .424 in 21 games he played for the Eagles. Heritage came into the 2016 postseason with the fourth-best RPI in Class 5A, but lost their district championship game to eventual state champion Cherokee Trail.
Opitz’s two older brothers, Shane and Jake, both committed to play baseball at the University of Nebraska. They were also both selected in the MLB draft after their senior seasons at Heritage. Shane went on to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays straight out of high school while Jake played for the Cornhuskers before once again entering the draft and being taken by the Chicago Cubs.
Shane still plays in the Blue Jays organization.
Opitz’s commitment to Arkansas has been updated in the recruiting database for the class of 2017.
Moving into the middle of the summer, sports fans start to feel an itch and there is only one thing that will satisfy it.
Football. The season is so close, yet so far away.
Incoming freshmen can’t wait to be a part of the homecoming pep rally and go watch their teams. There’s no better feeling than when both bands are playing fight songs, and opposing student sections make their case as to why they are the best school in the state.
This year, that all changes. Different kids will force those late-game turnovers, and new legacies will be cemented on Friday nights.
Here are some of the marquee matchups across the state this season, from 6-man to 5A:
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Columbine at Palm Bay (Melbourne, Fla.), Aug. 26 (7 p.m.): The Rebels opens the season against Palm Bay High School after losing in the semifinals of last year’s playoffs. The Rebels have not won a state title since 2011, but will have a shot this season. This game will also be a test of how one of the best programs in Colorado matches up with other states.
Regis Jesuit at Mullen, Sept. 9 (7 p.m.): After last season’s 23-17 win over Mullen, Regis Jesuit looks to make it five straight wins against the Mustangs. This could very well be a playoff matchup as well, as both these programs look to return to the postseason in 2016.
Fountain-Fort Carson at Pomona, Sept. 10 (12 p.m.): After 37 years at the helm, Fountain-Fort Carson’s Mitch Johnson retired after the Trojans lost in the first round of the 2015 5A playoffs. Soon after, the Trojans hired CSU-Pueblo assistant Jake Novotny to take over. Novotny gets a shot to hand perennial power Pomona an early-season loss and keep the strong tradition of Fountain-Fort Carson football.
Windsor and Pine Creek face off in September. (Cindy Betancourt/eStudioWest.com)
Windsor at Pine Creek, Sept. 10 (1 p.m.): The 2013 and 2014 4A champion Eagles gets a shot at the 2015 champion Windsor on this Saturday matchup. These two teams could have met in the finals in 2015 before Loveland upset Pine Creek in the semis.
Pueblo Central at Pueblo Centennial, Sept. 16 (7 p.m.): The oldest football rivalry west of the Mississippi River highlights a great week of football games. Central snuck by Centennial 27-24 last year and will look to make it two in a row this year. These two teams have faced off for over a century in what is certainly one of the top rivalries in the entire state.
Broomfield at Windsor, Sept. 16 (7 p.m.): Blair Hubbard gets a marquee matchup early in his new coaching tenure with the Broomfield Eagles as they travel up north to face the defending champion Windsor High School.
Pueblo East at Discovery Canyon, Sept. 16 (7 p.m.): After defeating Discovery Canyon in the second round of the 3A playoffs last season, defending champ Pueblo East travels to Colorado Springs for a Week 3 rematch against the Thunder.
Legend at Chaparral, Sept. 22 (7 p.m.): Rivalry week. That one game in the schedule that every coach circles on the calendar regardless of where it falls in the year. For new Legend head coach Monte Thelen, this rivalry week game comes with raised stakes, as his Titans face Chaparral at Sports Authority Field.
Delta at Palisade, Sept. 22 (7 p.m.): Delta made a surprise run last season as the program hasn’t seen a championship in football since 1960. But, they’ll see a potential playoff matchup early on in the season as they face off against six-time champ Palisade (the most recent coming in 2003).
Pomona at Valor Christian, Sept. 23 (7 p.m.): The Eagles host the Panthers in a rematch of the 5A state championship game. Valor lost to Pomona in an eary-season matchup last year, but got their revenge in the championship.
Kit Carson at Cheyenne Wells, Sept. 23 (7 p.m.): Last season, Kit Carson was the No. 1 seed in the 6-man state playoffs but was upset in the semifinals. This game could be a statement game for the as they look to avenge the loss.
Buena Vista at Centauri, Sept. 23 (7 p.m.): The Demons meet the Falcons in an early season rematch of last year’s opening round playoff game. Then No. 1 seed Buena Vista defeated then No. 16 seed Centauri 48-6 en route to winning it all in 1A.
Valor Christian and Cherry Creek play in late September. (Cindy Betancourt/eStudioWest.com)
Valor Christian at Cherry Creek, Sept. 29 (7 p.m.): In 2014, the Bruins defeated the Eagles to win the 5A Championship. Last season, Valor beat Creek in the semifinals and eventually went on to win the title. This midseason matchup of powerhouse programs sets the stage for a potential playoff rematch in 2016.
Thompson Valley at Longmont, Oct. 6 (6:30 p.m.): This midseason matchup pits two playoff teams from last season. Thompson Valley lost in the first round to No. 1 seed Pine Creek, and Longmont got beat in the semis by the eventual champion Windsor. Both Longmont and Thompson Valley could make it back to the playoffs.
Bayfield at Delta, Oct. 21 (7 p.m.): Last year’s 2A champion Bayfield faces 3A semifinalist Delta in this midseason grudge match. Bayfield won its first championship since 1996 and just its second in school history last season.
Pueblo East at Pueblo Central, Nov. 4 (7 p.m.): If Pueblo East continues its run from last year, this cross-town rivalry game with the Wildcats will definitely make for a great tune-up before the playoffs start in mid-November.
Smoothies can be a nutritional powerhouse for your body. Blending the right ingredients can make for an abundant amount of vitamins, minerals, proteins and fiber as well as a host of other great benefits. Here are some reasons to include smoothies in your lifestyle.
Meeting your fruit and vegetable consumption: Have you ever wondered how you were going to get the correct number of servings of fruits and vegetables into your day? Blending them could help you achieve those amounts recommended by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
Convenience: This day in age we are all on the go. Blending a smoothie with many different nutritional components is easy and you can take it with you. You don’t need to settle for eating on the road when you can easily blend a smoothie which will give you the energy your body needs.
Fiber: One of the dietary concerns for Americans in the 2015 DGA was fiber. Smoothies are a way to increase your fiber consumption to get the recommended amount per day (which is 25-30g per day).
Athletic performance: Smoothies can be consumed pre or post workout. Using dairy in your smoothies will help with the nutrition needed during your athletic competition and the protein in dairy will help with rehydration, recovery and rebuilding of your muscles afterward.
* See additional information below about dairy nutrition
Educational: When picking nutrient dense foods and blending them from various food groups, you will learn what a healthy eating style looks like. This will help you to be more confident in choosing the right foods at other meals or when eating out.
Immune system: There are a number of positive outcomes when you eat healthy, nutrient dense foods. One outcome is increasing your immune system’s ability to fight off illnesses, which in turn decreases your chances of getting sick.
Variety: A smoothie can be used for, or added to, any meal. The combinations of ingredients are endless. Variety makes meals more enjoyable!
* Milk is a good source of nine essential nutrients – calcium, potassium, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12, phosphorus, riboflavin, niacin and protein. Nutrients that, in combination, have been shown to help kids and teens grow healthy and strong. Emerging research in adult athletes has demonstrated that one serving of milk post-exercise can increase the body’s ability to make new muscle and may help improve body composition. Milk’s nutrient package may help reduce muscle damage and improve muscle recovery – which in turn may help the body perform better during its next workout. In fact, research shows that drinking milk after a workout can be as effective as some sports drinks in helping the body refuel, recover and rehydrate after exercise.
RENO, Nev. — Tom Southall was born with one arm, and as he grew up, his parents impressed upon him that he was no different than anyone else.
His induction to the National High School Hall of Fame says otherwise.
Southall, the 1981 graduate of Steamboat Springs, joined the very exclusive group along with 11 other members on Saturday night in Reno. He is the 22nd person from Colorado to join the NFHS Hall of Fame, and eighth athlete. Only Ohio (29) and Illinois (26) have more.
The National Hall of Fame, Southall said, “is one of those things where you just say, ‘Wow, the people that are up there, they’re some pretty significant names in Colorado high school sports and activities.’ But you don’t really put yourself into that picture or that perspective.”
A star in football, track, basketball and music at Steamboat Springs, Southall was born without an arm below his right elbow. He grew up as the seventh of eight kids in an athletic family — a “big, supportive family, a loving family,” Southall said.
“We were always doing something,” he added. “There was always somebody to play with, whether it was sports or games or anything. … I just grew up not knowing I wasn’t supposed to play.”
Southall remembers going to Children’s Hospital when he was five or six to get physical therapy and learn how to use his prosthetic arm. While there, he would see children who were born with minimal appendages due to a nausea medication, Thalidomide, their mothers took during pregnancy.
“I’m seeing these kids with little or no arms or legs out there rolling around, having fun, playing kick ball,” Southall said. “But they’re out there just enjoying the freedom of being active. I learned really early that granted, there are some things that are more difficult for me to do, but I really didn’t have it that bad.”
Southall played all kinds of sports when he was young, and specifically got interested in football because his older brother played.
“I idolized him,” Southall said. “I just assumed that when I was old enough, it would be my turn. My parents never discouraged me from doing anything.”
But when Southall’s freshman year at Steamboat came around, a doctor wouldn’t sign off on his physical because of his right arm. They eventually found another doctor to sign the slip, and his high school career took off.
He would set a state record in the 2A long jump (23 feet, 4.5 inches), and helped Steamboat’s track team win three championships from 1979-81.
Southall was twice named the football player of the year, and in 1979, Steamboat won the 2A football title.
He was an outstanding basketball player who set school records for steals and assists. He was all-state in music while playing the trumpet, and participated in jazz, band and the concert band.
Southall graduated among the top-10 of his class.
In 1981, Southall won the prestigious Freddie Steinmark Award, given annually to the top student-athlete.
Tom Southall. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
“Everybody kind of took a particular interest with this little skinny kid with one arm,” Southall said. “You know, ‘How was he going to do it?’ I can remember going back and fielding punts or kicks. Half the time everybody would get up in their seat and go, ‘Oh, shoot, he’s going to drop this one.’ Rarely did.
“High school sports gave me an opportunity to find my niche in my school.”
One of Southall’s best moments came in the 2A state football semifinals during the 1979 season. He rushed for 412 yards on a cold day against Sheridan, setting the state record.
“It was Thanksgiving weekend, and it had snowed for four or five days — the good Steamboat powder,” Southall said. “They had to plow the field with a road grader; they painted the lines with yellow parking lot paint. And it looked like Arena Football because there was so much snow on the sides.
“Thinking back on it,” Southall continued, “we didn’t have a track, so we were always out in March and April when there’s still a foot of snow on the ground. So we would always be out on the snow running, and I was used to running on snow and ice and being able to make cuts and change directions. We really had the home field advantage that day.”
Southall’s brother was an assistant coach and noticed he was approaching the record, which had been set earlier in the season by Broomfield’s Guy Egging.
“So he called down to the head coach and said, ‘Why don’t you put Tom back in for a couple plays.’ And he’s going, ‘Why? Why?’” Southall said. “So he says, ‘He’s at 300-some yards.’ So I didn’t know about it, but the coaches were aware of it. I had my brother watching my back, so to speak, to put me back in the game.”
A year later, Flagler’s Bob Trahern eclipsed Southall’s mark.
“I had gotten to know him during summer basketball,” Southall said. “So it was fun to at least have it for a little while.”
Southall moved on to Colorado College, where he led the nation in punt return yardage and set a Division III record for kickoff return yards.
“Nothing — there’s nothing he can’t do,” said former Colorado College coach Jerry Carle in an 1983 video produced by NFL Films about Southall. “That’s why he’s back there. You think I’m playing favorites? Hell, I want to win. He’s back there because he deserves to be back there.”
Upon graduating from CC, Southall attended to University of Denver to get his master’s in accounting, and then spent five years working for a CPA firm. During that time, he got his feet wet in coaching and teaching.
This coming fall will be Southall’s 25th year of teaching. Over the years, he has coached football, track and basketball, and is currently a track assistant at Cherokee Trail.
He is heavily involved in the Special Olympic and Paralympic races at Colorado’s state track meet, and over the past decade or so has embraced a role as an advocate for those athletes.
“Special Olympics or Paralympics are great programs to give kids an opportunity to experience being on a team,” Southall said. “A lot of times, they’re with a case manager with class or things, so they really don’t get that interaction, whether it’s social or team-building, which is such a great aspect of high school sports and activities.”
Southall, who was inducted into the CHSAA Hall of Fame in 1999, said he draws on his experiences as an athlete learning how to compete with his disability — things like coming up with a way he could lift weights — in his role as an coach.
“Now as a teacher and a coach, the exciting part is being in a position where you are experimenting — you’re faced with a new challenge,” Southall said. “In athletics, you may have a situation like mine where you’re dealing with someone who has a physical impairment. How are you going to make it work? How are you going to train that person as an athlete? You need to have an idea of what they can’t do, and try and make adjustments to it, but focus on what they can do.”
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.
Eaglecrest has hired Kari Hamilton as head coach of the girls soccer team, athletic director Vince Orlando announced Friday.
Hamilton was previously the head coach at Legend from 2012-15. She had previously served as an assistant at Chaparral as well as her alma mater Rangeview.
While at Rangeview, Hamilton lettered in soccer all four years and was a three-time all-league selection.
She continued her soccer career at the University of Northern Colorado before joining the professional ranks with the Fort Collins Force and the Chicago Cobras.
The Raptors went 8-7 in 2016 and did not make the Class 5A state playoffs. Orlando hopes that Hamilton’s extensive background in the sport will help Eaglecrest reach the next level of competition.
