Lauren Betts’ list of accomplishments is likely going to outgrow her 6-foot-7 frame. The Grandview girls basketball standout was hard to miss (literally) during her freshman campaign, a campaign in which she averaged 12.7 points per game.
Now, less than two years later, she’s on the map as not just one of the top the recruits in her class, but thetop recruit for all girls basketball players graduating in 2022.
She’s accomplished a lot and she still has plenty of time left to accomplish even more.
It’s a scary thought considering how much of a difference she makes for the Wolves when she’s on the court. Growing up, she was bouncing around Europe watching her dad, Andrew, play pro ball. She developed a natural love for the game and shortly after her freshman season at Grandview, she started figuring out just how high her ceiling in the sport was.
(USA Basketball)
“Once I made the USA (U16) team, I knew my life would change,” Betts said. “I knew everything would be different. After my freshman year I just went with the flow of things and kept working so I didn’t expect anything. I just kept working hard.”
Height can’t be taught in a basketball player, but true fundamentals of the game can develop in any player. Betts has clear advantage as a post player when it comes to her size, but it’s her continuously polishing game that has really made her the No. 1 recruit in the nation.
“The touch and the fell that she has, that’s one of the things that separates her,” Grandview coach Josh Ulitzky said. “Typically you don’t see kids with that height that coordinated. That is the thing that has been so intriguing through the course of her recruitment.”
That recruitment led to a big-time decision for the high school junior. She announced on Twitter this week that she’ll head to Palo Alto and join three other Colorado graduates in Ashten Prechtel (Discovery Canyon), Fran Belibi (Regis Jesuit) and Jana Van Gytenbeek (Cherry Creek) and play for the Stanford Cardinal.
For the better part of three years now, Stanford has simply walked into the state, taken some its best stuff and walked right back out the door.
“The academics are huge over there,” Betts said. “We have a lot of smart girls here in Colorado.”
And it seems those smart girls have the ability to play some hoops as well.
“Colorado girls are definitely underrated,” Betts said. “I don’t think we’re super cocky, we don’t have to talk about ourselves and we don’t have to hype ourselves up. We just work hard and don’t really want the attention.”
Moving forward, Betts is going to have plenty of attention. It starts next week when teams officially begin practice for the upcoming season. Grandview was one of just four teams to officially advance to a state title game last spring before the tournaments were called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coming so close and not being able to close the season out is something that Betts and her teammates have on their minds as play is set begin on Jan. 25.
“We are not messing around,” Betts said. “We all talked and we are starting the season strong because we don’t have time to settle into things. We have to get after it right away.”
Class 6A may once again be part of football’s future.
During their annual meeting on Thursday, the football committee voted to recommend the addition of an eighth classification. This recommendation will need to be voted upon and approved by the Legislative Council this spring in order to be implemented.
If approved there, 6A would join the other seven classes — 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, 8-man, and 6-man — in the fall of 2022.
“I think it’s a start to the process,” said committee member Bruce Grose, the athletic director at Vista Ridge, during discussion. “It’s the start of creating classifications that are like programs, and not just [enrollment] numbers. All along, we’ve divided pretty much just by numbers, and I think we need to reevaluate that process. I think this is the right step forward to create more equity.”
CHSAA assistant commissioner Adam Bright mentioned that his overarching goal for football is to “figure out how we can have like programs competing against one another, and create some equity amongst our classifications.”
“It’s not simply about the number of kids that walk in the door,” Bright added. “Let’s look at programs, and like programs.”
Football has had a 6A classification before, from 1990-93, but this would look different for a number of reasons, most notable that it would be larger than it was back then, which will reduce the size of all classes — and not just large schools.
With 287 schools declaring that they will have football teams in 2022, it means each classification could be comprised of roughly 36 teams or so. Currently, they are in the 40-42 range.
Additionally, the membership has empowered the CHSAA office in recent years with the ability to classify schools with criteria other than just the traditional factor of enrollment. This includes factors such as on-field success of programs, participation rate, geography, enrollment trend, and socioeconomics of school’s population.
“Adding the 6A classification gives us the platform … to really reinvent football and allow for that competitive equity that we keep talking about. I think this is a step in the right direction,” said Steamboat Springs athletic director Luke DeWolfe, a committee member who is also on the CHSAA Board of Directors.
Said committee chair Chris Noll, the district athletic director for District 11 in Colorado Springs: “For the last 6 or 7 years, we continue to talk about the same problem, and we continue to kick the can down the road. … We’ve talked a lot today about Championship Weekend, and ‘state championship this,’ and ‘league champion that’ — I think we also have to focus a little bit of our time on those teams that struggle.”
Added committee member Ryan Goddard, the coach at Pueblo South: “Looking at this globally, I think our biggest problem across the state in each classification is our top-8 teams in each classification and the bottom-8 teams in each classification are nowhere near each other. Is it how we classify teams, or how our classifications are structured? I think ‘both’ answers that question.”
Other sports, such as basketball and volleyball, are also considering whether not to to add a Class 6A in the near future.
The idea of 6A football has been brought up a few times in recent years. Various proposals to add an eighth classification were shot down at Legislative Council in 2015 and again in 2019. It was also discussed in 2017, but no proposal materialized.
It is worth noting, however, that the 2015 and 2019 proposals looked much different than this current plan. In 2019, for example, the 6A classification would have been created solely for the postseason.
And, perhaps most notably, in both 2015 and 2019, the football committee not only did not endorse or recommend the plans, but instead actively spoke out against them.
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Postseason
The football committee made a series of moves that sets the sport up to have all championship games on one weekend. It also opens the potential for a single site to host all championship games in the future — something that was done this past fall for the first time in the sport’s history, and has been met with great enthusiasm around the state.
First, they voted to have a 10-week regular season in all classes, with each class having the option of playing 9 or 10 games. Then, they voted to have the same number of playoff qualifiers in each classification.
“I think they should all be equal,” said committee member Greg Jones, the athletic director at Monte Vista. “If everybody’s the same across the board, it goes along with what we just did with 6A.”
Following a long discussion, the committee voted to have each classification have 24 teams make the postseason.
“If we’re talking about kids, kids want that experience, kids want to be part of something,” said committee member Marty Tonjes, the athletic director at Horizon. “If it’s what’s best for kids, we should create opportunity for kids.”
Currently, 5A and 4A have 24 qualifiers, while 6-man through 3A have 16 teams make the postseason. In the past, there had been three weekends of state championship games.
Finally, the football committee also passed a motion to have semifinal games hosted by the higher seed in the semifinals, and championship games at neutral sites in all classes.
Seeding will be done by the CHSAA Seeding Index: CHSAA RPI, MaxPreps Rankings, Packard Rankings and the CHSAANow coaches poll. Teams can only be moved due to geography.
As with 6A, these recommendations need to be approved by the Legislative Council in order to take effect. If approved, these changes would take effect in 2022.
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Fall 2021 championship sites
Following overwhelming positive feedback about a single-site state championship, the committee moved to have the 6-man, 8-man, 1A and 2A title games at CSU-Pueblo for the fall 2021 season. Those games are scheduled for the weekend of Nov. 27.
“There was a lot of discussion and positivity about how each game had their own moment and their own spotlight,” Goddard said.
Added Regis Jesuit coach Danny Filleman, another committee member: “It just makes that state championship a little more special for those kids and players.”
The 3A game will remain at CSU-Pueblo the following weekend, on Dec. 4. And 4A and 5A are set to return to Mile High that same date.
Going forward, “we will explore all options” for a single-site state championship for all games, Bright said.
Earlier, the committee voted to add a 10th game in 6-man for the 2021 season, so that the alignment of championship games with 2A, 1A, and 8-man would be possible.
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Summer camps
With 48 schools set to play football this spring in Season C, the decision was made to change the usual 10-day summer contact camps to an extra week of practice in the fall.
There was concern from the national Sports Medicine Advisory Committee for states that are playing spring football seasons surrounding a lack of rest.
If approved, football teams would begin practice on Aug. 2 rather than Aug. 9, and ramp up their contact from there.
“This provides us to get the work in we would in the padded camps, but also provide our athletes who compete in the spring the chance to rest, and avoid any equity issues of some teams being allowed to have camps while others cannot,” Bright said.
In mid-March, the world was on the verge of changing. What was commonly referred to as just “the coronavirus” had started sweeping its way through the United States and impacting the daily lives of millions of people.
In Colorado, the first day of the final weekend of the state basketball tournaments had been played, but that night they were called off.
Two months later, Denver South girls basketball coach Wayne McDonald was in a hospital bed. He had two questions for his wife.
“I asked her who won the NBA championship,” McDonald said. “That’s when I found out that life hadn’t just changed for me, but changed for others. There was no NBA champion. I asked her who won the state basketball playoffs. There were no state basketball playoffs.”
That was heartbreaking for McDonald. He understands the hard work that goes into a season and wanted someone, even if it’s not his team to experience that hard work paying off. But his hard work was only just beginning.
As the country was stunned hearing news that members of the Utah Jazz had tested positive for what is now known as COVID-19, McDonald was just about to begin his fight against the virus. The shutdown of the NBA on March 11 triggered a snowball effect that would culminate in stay at home orders in nearly every state in the country and the effects are still being felt today.
Within a week, McDonald was on a ventilator at Rose Medical Center and the prognosis was uncertain, at best.
“I think it was about March the 15th,” McDonald recalls. “I remember coming home and I felt like I had the flu, and I just thought I’ve had the flu before, I’ll get over it.”
After falling twice while trying to get out of bed one night, a trip to the doctor was in order. That’s where everything got scary.
“My wife and my son takes me to the doctor and they told my wife to leave the room,” he said. “And the rest of the story, I can’t tell you. I just can’t tell you.”
Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he has no recollection.
Waking up was just the first step of a very long road to recovery for McDonald. He remained in the hospital, only able to talk to his family via Zoom or FaceTime. The fight for his life was the most important battle ahead. But it was tough seeing a man who had turned the South girls basketball program around and led it to its first league championship taken down so hard by something that was so unknown at the time.
“I certainly was hoping that it was going to be a happy ending, but it certainly was in my mind,” athletic director Adam Kelsey said. “This is like one of the most beloved coaches in our school and is an incredibly meaningful person in the lives of all these girls.”
Kelsey was one of the few who was able to actually go into the hospital to visit McDonald. That was a pretty significant moment considering the limitations that had been placed on hospital visits. But it was significant in the way it helped kickstart McDonald’s road to recovery.
If there was any doubt in just how much, the Denver community loves the veteran coach, it was erased the day he was released from the hospital. First, McDonald got a standing ovation from hospital staff, a common ritual when COVID patients were released, then he received a welcome sight.
Players, past and present, were there to root him on for the next stage of the process.
“It was something very breathtaking and it was an emotional day,” McDonald said. “I gotta tell you, I’m probably at the best school in Colorado. My basketball team was up there and coaches were out there. Parents were up there when I was getting ready to get released and I was so just taken back that I have been a part of these young ladies lives, and I’m telling you, there were players that came from Montbello from my Montbello coaching days, there was players that came from Overland and then my South girls came and it was just so emotional.”
(Photo courtesy of Denver South/Adam Kelsey)
And they were there to remind him just how important the work was going to be from here on out. One thing that Kelsey pointed out about McDonald’s effectiveness as a coach is his ability to motivate his team.
Part of that effectiveness is establishing a motto, a theme, for his team each year. In a year where McDonald survived COVID and worked his way back to health enough that just three weeks ago, he deemed himself healthy enough to coach, surely the experience would play into what he wants his team to focus on.
“He always does a great job of creating a theme for the year,” Kelsey said. “He’s had different ones over the few years he’s been there and I wonder what his theme will be for this year.”
McDonald is going back to an oldie but a goody: No days off, no plays off.
He had to take that to heart as he began rehabbing from his time in the hospital. He had to learn the simplest of tasks all over again, such as how to walk. He had dropped 70 pounds during his battle against COVID.
He had to work to get it all back.
It was tough task considering what he had been through, but as he tells his girls through the course of a season: No days off, no plays off.
“That was the fight in me: no days off,” McDonald said. “I remember a young lady coming to the hospital, had the shirt on and they looked at me and they yelled out of the crowd, they said, ‘Coach, no days off, no plays off.’ And that told me a lot. I needed to kick in, I needed to do what I needed to do with therapy. I need to do what I need to do to be able to walk again, I need to gain some weight. I just needed to adhere to our message, to our thing. And that encouragement, it did encourage me.”
It encouraged him enough to get done what he needed to get done. He was able to join Kelsey at Denver South’s annual fundraiser golf tournament, although he couldn’t fully play. He’s worked his way back into his regular life.
And when girls basketball practice officially begins on Jan. 18, he’ll be on the court with the girls he loves to coach.
It is with sadness that the Colorado High School Activities Association pays its respect to a long-time Denver Prep League coach and CHSAA Hall of Fame member.
Former Thomas Jefferson football and track coach Herman Motz passed away last weekend, but his presence cannot be forgotten.
Motz compiled a 135-30-1 at Thomas Jefferson from 1976-89, earning 12 state playoff appearances, 9 DPL titles, six final four appearances and winning two state titles. The first came in 1980 when TJ beat Cherry Creek 20-19 and the second in 1989 when the Spartans beat DPL rival Montbello 34-32.
Truly an old school coach, Motz used to walk to and from the school each day. It gave him time to think, he told others. He was inducted into the CHSAA Hall of Fame in its Class of 2005.
Motz coached football and track & field for over 20 years, earning numerous honors. He has been a clinician for numerous football clinics from 1977 to 1990 and has held virtually every office available in the Colorado High School Coaches Association and was named Coach of the Year seven times. He was inducted into the CHSCA Hall of Fame in 1991.
Motz was a member of the CHSCA Board of Directors and received the Don Des Combes Award, the highest honor that CHSCA can bestow. He was the original editor and producer of the CHSCA’s “The Colorado Coach.”
CHSAA associate commissioner Tom Robinson served as the replay coordinator during college football’s National Championship game on Monday.
Robinson oversees officials, boys and girls golf and sportsmanship in the CHSAA office, and has worked for the Association for the past 19 years. He also serves as the replay coordinator for the Big XII Conference, and oversees the replay operation each weekend during the fall at the conference’s Replay Operations Center.
A Big XII officiating crew was assigned to work the national title game. So as part of that, Robinson served as the replay coordinator of the National Championship game, which saw Alabama beat Ohio State.
“I’m blessed, man,” Robinson said last week.
Robinson also served in the same capacity for the national semifinal game between Ohio State and Clemson.
“Not as nerve-wracking as the first one,” Robinson said. “It feels like you’re back in the hot seat, for sure. There’s just not a lot of people that get to do it, that get to go, that get to be in the front row. It’s pretty amazing that I’m the one walking through the door.”
Prior to becoming the replay coordinator for the Big XII, Robinson worked in the Replay Operations Center for two years.
Robinson was an on-field official in the Western Athletic Conference and Mountain West from 1975-2000, and worked the Bluebonnet, Fiesta, Rose, Cotton, Gator, Independence and Citrus Bowls during his career. He was also a high school official from 1969-75.
He was named CHSAA’s associate commissioner in 2014, and is in charge of golf and sportsmanship for the Association. He has served on the football and basketball rules committees for the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Robinson is a 1969 graduate of Colorado State University where he ran track, played basketball and football.
Prior to joining CHSAA in 2001, he was a math teacher and coach at Regis Jesuit for 30 years, and also served as the school’s director of diversity for six years.
Among the many changes for high school hockey this year comes a very important one, one that would’ve been made even if COVID-19 hadn’t reared its ugly head on planet Earth.
Hockey is growing in the high school ranks and because of that, an additional classification has added to play for the 2021 season. The sport is now split into Class 5A and 4A which signifies significant interest in the sport as well as increased opportunities for student-athletes, which is in line with the values of high school athletics.
“It’s heading in the right direction,” Battle Mountain coach Derek Bryon said. “I think if we can continue to grow both levels of 4A and 5A, we’re going to put out some really competitive hockey and it only gives kids more opportunities to be successful as teams and programs.”
Since 2017, eight total teams have advanced to the state hockey semifinals. Of those eight, three teams (Regis Jesuit, Chaparral and Valor Christian) have gone three times. Regis Jesuit had made the semis every year in that span.
With the growth of the number of kids playing and the programs that are starting throughout the state, the addition of a 4A class just made too much sense and gives coaches and players alike renewed enthusiasm for those additional opportunities.
“We’re here in Crested Butte with a population of maybe 10,000 people,” Crested Butte coach Billy Watson said. “We don’t have a big pool of kids to pull from and even when it was just (one classification), we played those teams very competitively, but I think it gives our kids a new opportunity. It’s a good way to do this, to classify those (bigger) teams.”
This isn’t a situation that’s unique to hockey. In recent years, additional classifications have been added to sports such as girls lacrosse, girls golf, girls swimming, girls tennis, and boys lacrosse. There is consistently talk of adding additional classes in football, basketball, and girls volleyball.
It’s an indication that high school athletics, as whole, continue to grow and see more participation.
As that happens, there will be a natural classification system put in place in order to maintain a level of competitive balance for programs throughout the state.
“These small mountain towns like ours, we’re not going to have 200 kids at tryouts,” Byron said. “We’re going to take everyone that comes and to have the opportunity to compete against smaller schools that are doing the same thing is big for us.”
Perhaps the most exciting prospect about an additional class is the addition of a second state championship game. In recent years, Ball Arena (formerly Pepsi Center) has hosted the state hockey championship and the opportunity to provide more kids with the experience of playing on the same sheet of ice as the Colorado Avalanche is something that everyone can get behind.
“Playing at any kind of NHL arena, the atmosphere is great,” Watson said. “The kids feel like they’re professionals and it’s kind of cool. This gives them a taste of what it’s like to play at that level and if they have that motivation to continue their growth, this will be great for the kids.”
Unlucky is definitely a word that can be associated with the Estes Park boys basketball season in 2020. What could have been a promising season got derailed with injuries across the board.
But moving forward, the team has a promising outlook. Last year’s team didn’t have a single senior depart the squad and it even featured one of the top scorers in Class 3A in Ethan Hill.
But it was the way that the 2019-20 season played out that might be the biggest key in the Bobcats turning around their 8-15 record from a year ago.
“I had some inexperienced players that received varsity experience that wouldn’t have otherwise,” coach Jason Reetz said. “Our depth will be a lot better this year because of that.”
Thirteen players recorded varsity minutes for the Bobcats last year, but only six of them played in more than 11 games. Junior Kian Gerig averaged 10.4 points per game but didn’t play after Dec. 20. In his final game of the year, he scored 13 points to help Estes Park beat Heritage Christian 59-57.
From that point on, Hill became the focal point of the Bobcats’ offense. He finished the year averaging 19.3 points per game and didn’t score fewer than 10 points in any game after the Heritage Christian win.
“When everybody went down and out last year, I could see it Ethan’s eyes, the weight of the world was on his shoulders,” Reetz said. “He wanted to do more and more.”
Moving forward, Reetz hopes that some of the other players will grow into their roles and provide more support for Hill so that the team can be effective through several players instead of just him.
Reetz will look to someone like JD McCown to help carry the load. Of the players who played in more than 11 games, McCown ended the year as the No. 2 scorer on the team at 8.8 points per game.
“One man can’t get it done by himself,” Reetz said. “Ethan’s role is going to be pushing the rest of the guys to do their job and be where they need to be.”
The Patriot League has always had its fair share of talented basketball teams and players. Estes Park is hoping it can insert itself into that conversation. The combination of more players with varsity experience and the leading scorer in the league is going to make Estes Park a team that won’t be easy to deal with.
“The whole Patriot League thinks all we have is Ethan,” Reetz said. “It’s everything else that’s going to have to fly under the radar.”
The offseason work has been creative this year as it has for all teams, but the Bobcats are anxious to get on the floor when it counts for real and emerge as a legitimate threat in all of 3A.
AURORA, Colo. — Today the Colorado High School Activities Associationannounced in partnership withPlayVSan expansion of its recognized esports title offerings to include FIFA 21 and Madden NFL 21 as part of its ongoing pilot process.
Two of the most popular sports titles in the world, FIFA and Madden boast real professional football and soccer players on their real professional teams. EA’s long-running sport simulation franchises represent all of the excitement of the sports gamers know and puts them in the center of the action. These titles will join Rocket League and League of Legends as esports offerings during CHSAA’s pilot program.
“We continue to see growing interest in esports in Colorado, and this second year of the pilot program has only reinforced that trend,” said CHSAA’s Ryan Casey, who is overseeing the esports pilot. “FIFA and Madden are wildly popular games, and have broad appeal across a wide range of students. So we are absolutely thrilled they will be offered as part of our esports pilot. We anticipate that these games will help increase the growth in esports here in Colorado.”
“The NFHS Network is proud to support the addition of FIFA and Madden to the high school esports gaming portfolio,” said NFHS Network Vice President, Mark Koski. “These are incredibly popular game titles among students — as our first sports titles — we will now offer a new kind of competition to our players and expand the appeal of our platform to a larger audience. We can’t wait to recognize the first-ever FIFA and Madden high school state champions across the country.”
Esports, in nature, allows players to compete in a hybrid of settings – from a computer lab, in-person at school or from a gaming console or PC/laptop at home – which will allow for optimal participation heading into an uncertain school year this fall. With PlayVS, CHSAA has been able to afford students even more opportunities to safely compete and hone their skills in STEM and team collaboration during the current COVID-19 crisis.
La Veta’s sports teams will be known as the Redhawks, starting with the 2021-22 school year.
The school district’s board of education voted in September to retire the previous mascot, the Redskins, following months of work and feedback. Then, on Dec. 14, the board voted to approve the Redhawks as the school’s new mascot.
The change coincides with La Veta’s new school building, which is set to open in the fall of 2021 in the south central part of the state.
The process of choose a new mascot involved “a committee of parents, alumni, students, and staff,” according to La Veta athletic director Chris Locke. This branding committee funneled feedback to the board of education.
An initial survey of new mascot options was sent to fifth graders through seniors in the district, and it offered eight choices in mascots, and also a spot for respondents to add their own option, according to board president Eleanor Foley.
“We favored Redhawks because red-tailed hawk is native to our area,” Foley said, “but waited to see what students would choose.”
That initial survey showed that Redhawks was the most popular choice, and was followed by Raptors, Bears and Red Wolves.
From there, a second survey was sent to students, parents and the community with those choices.
“Again, Redhawks was first, and Red Wolves was a distant second,” Foley said.
Further data, which included paper ballots as an option, was collected.
“All this was presented to school board and we honored the committee’s choice of Redhawks,” Foley said, noting that the vote was 3-2 in favor.
The process of rebranding is still on-going, including the development of a new logo. Foley said that the branding committee “will now begin meetings to help flesh out what images we will adopt.”
