Aurora – Locals have boldly put down two G’s on the Class 5A football quarterfinals.
Grandview against Gateway is a gamble, and forget about the final score.
Call it a Colorado conundrum. The hard nut to crack here consists of similarity, difference, normal, unusual, familiarity and unknown – and toss in some irony – involving different parts of the city and its two school districts.
And it’s all Aurora, indicative of Denver’s aggressive neighbor to the lower right.
Record growth the past 30 years has made Aurorans bigger and braver, if not successful in the state’s largest classification.
However, by late Saturday afternoon, Aurora will have its first semifinalist in the big-school playoffs not named Overland or Smoky Hill.
Why shouldn’t it have been confounding?
Gateway coach Jeff Sweet and Grandview counterpart John Schultz were assistants at Overland, the only team in Aurora to win a big-school championship (1993). But they weren’t with the Trailblazers at the same time.
Gateway, which opened in the 1970s, once was considered to be in southeastern Aurora (along with Smoky Hill), but the area continued reaching farther until new schools Rangeview, Eaglecrest (now in the Centennial) and Grandview had broadened the outlay by the 1990s. (Regis moved in from north Denver late the past decade, and Cherokee Trail has since made it expand even more.)
Gateway is in the Aurora Public Schools District; Grandview is a member of Cherry Creek Schools.
They never have faced each other in a football game.
While both teams attended summer camps in Kearney, Neb., and took part in various drills, they never went head-to-head.
Gateway toils in the American League, a residual of the Continental League, which, in case you had forgotten or didn’t know, was created primarily because locals here and in the Littleton area sought other pastures in the 1980s after growing weary of the demanding Centennial. It’s the league Grandview eventually joined.
The coaching staffs include former Aurora schoolboy players as well as those who roamed the old Mile High Stadium for the Broncos.
Gateway’s strength is in the skill positions; Grandview’s is in its lines and defense.
The rosters, which range from the affluent to poor and include older Aurora families to those having just moved in, have contained the sons of former Broncos. Example: Sam Sewell, son of former Broncos running back Steve Sewell (a Wolves assistant), starts at tight end for Grandview.
Sweet and Schultz – out-of- state transplants, of course – both reside in one of the city’s newer neighborhoods, The Farm, and are within easy walking distance of each other. However, looking over your shoulder at night when exercising the family dog and checking your house in the morning for overnight egg-pummeling have crossed their minds.
“We’re a block away and won’t even say hello to each other,” Schultz said.
Seriously, this is big big-school postseason news in Aurora. If only it could consume football success as it does water and land.
Other than Overland, which also has two runner-up finishes, and Smoky Hill in 1984, the other best success stories in city history involve lower-level titles by Eaglecrest – a newer program most were convinced should have played up – in 1993 and Hinkley (1997). And isn’t it something that Aurora Central and Hinkley, the city’s first two schools, have watched newcomers reach the big-school football heights?
It may not be a total drought on the east side, but it’s also worth noting Aurora’s best chance of progressing into 5A’s 2005 final four goes through one of its own.
Most of the jokes about owning a condo in Aurora stopped long ago, so why not now about most of its football teams?
“All summer long, we felt skillwise we would be right there with anybody,” said Sweet, who is the only man in 5A to double as head coach of football and boys basketball teams. Basketball practice began Monday.
“I don’t know how he does that,” said Schultz, whose program won its first big-school postseason game a week ago. “But (Saturday’s game) should be fun.”
It’s something all Aurorans can understand.
