Castle Rock – It didn’t really hit him until Tuesday at the assembly to honor the Class 5A state champion Douglas County Huskies football team.
Actually, they had to have two gatherings because so many wanted to celebrate.
But there Huskies head coach Jeff Ketron was, inconspicuously sitting in the back, allowing himself to take it all in with every pore of his body that, by the way, included a mohawk haircut.
The people, the commotion, the smiles, the joy, the release, the highlight film, and then – bam! – it hit the Denver Broncos’ 2005 high school coach of the year in a knowing, telling and gratifying moment.
How good was it?
“Words don’t describe it,” Ketron said.
It’s farther than you think from Cheyenne to Castle Rock, and in more ways than one.
The former schoolboy defensive end and linebacker, a Wyoming native who also assisted in Idaho and Aurora (Overland), couldn’t believe what he was experiencing.
Perhaps that’s what made it so sweet.
Certainly, Ketron said during last month’s playoffs, this is what he envisioned when taking over the down-trodden program in 1999 – building it up from the ground to competitive status, advancing to the playoffs, becoming a serious challenger, then winning it all. He knew it would require better involvement, commitment, weight training and offseason preparation.
There didn’t seem to be a time frame, although it should be noted Ketron’s proved to be a seven-year plan; the school’s turned out to be 109.
It was his own reality show, but there were no commercials and it definitely didn’t wrap up for the week or night after a half-hour or hour.
Douglas County, in case you haven’t been paying attention, isn’t exactly a sports machine, obviously not in terms of wins and losses.
Before last weekend, when it won the 5A championship at Invesco Field at Mile High, the school had won all of three state championships: boys basketball, back in the time of World War II, 1943; boys track, garnered during the aftermath of Watergate, 1972; and softball, the school’s first girls title, 1994.
The football program was as indicative of it as any of its sanctioned sports. From 1998-99, their first two years of jumping to 5A, the Huskies were 2-18. The latter year was Ketron’s first, a 1-9 opening, followed by 3-7 in 2000, then another 1-9 in 2001.
Actually, in his first six years on the job, Ketron and Douglas County were 23-38, with one playoff showing.
“We had to keep plugging,” Ketron said. “It’s life. You keep going; you don’t give up.”
And that’s one of Ketron’s best traits, said Overland coach Tony Manfredi, who said he wasn’t surprised by Ketron’s magic.
“Absolutely not, and not just about this year,” said Manfredi, 5A’s longest-tenured head coach (25 years). “(Jeff) has been building that thing ever since he took over that program. He was, to me, a can’t-miss head coach, and I knew we wouldn’t have him very long. He’s extremely organized, extremely motivated and does things the right way.”
The Huskies’ 2005 opener, at home against Legacy, was more of the same – the Huskies missed an extra point that would have tied the game in the final seconds.
Then they got on the roll of their athletic lives. Douglas County kept passing “Go” and ran the table. A regular-season title, in the 5A National League, was only the school’s sixth in history. It included meaningful victories over district rival Ponderosa and former Continental nemesis Arapahoe.
The Huskies’ postseason began believably enough with a 63-27 defeat of Thomas Jefferson.
However, their next three victories should occupy a savory place in school annals. In order, they downed perennial power Columbine, Grandview, which also was making its first big-school semifinal showing, and defending Colorado champion Mullen.
The only other gantlet better negotiated was Ketron getting locals to believe they could win.
“Selling it? Oh, geez … yes, it was radically different,” Ketron said. “Selling them on the weight room, developing positive and winning attitudes … It wasn’t easy to do, and it wasn’t going to happen overnight.
“But every year we got better at it. This year, we had a complete buy-in.”
The returns, which included summer pledges to the University of Colorado by tight end Steve Fendry and defensive tackle Eric Lawson among a host of front-liners such as running back Andy Muns, who had 884 yards and 13 touchdowns in the playoffs, were a windfall to the Castle Rock area. Locals seemed thrilled to ride the coattails of kids.
If there’s such a thing as a small town left in 5A’s metropolitan area, it’s Castle Rock.
“It’s paying them back,” Ketron said. “Our community has been so great, the wives, the parents … It’s for everyone.”
Staff writer Neil H. Devlin can be reached at 303-820-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com.
