Editor’s note: In the Colorado Classics series, The Denver Post takes a weekly look at individuals who made their mark on the Colorado sports landscape and what they are doing now.
The Denver Parochial League had spunk.
An easy way to gain the ire of its athletes, coaches and fans was to suggest that its teams occupied a back seat to the larger and maybe better-equipped public schools. They were a close-knit group in a Denver that was experiencing growing pains in the years after World War II.
Coach Bob Burns and the St. Joseph’s High School Bulldogs were fixtures in a league that also included Annunciation, Cathedral, Holy Family, St. Francis, Regis and Mullen. Mount Carmel and Machebeuf were later additions to a league that flourished for four decades.
“The Denver Parochial League always was the underdog in most everyone’s opinion,” Burns said. “The public schools had better facilities and many more students. We had less than 100 boys in school.”
St. Joseph’s was a small coed parish school on Denver’s west side. It was a second home to many of its students in a way that students of today couldn’t imagine.
For Burns, an assistant football coach and head basketball and baseball coach for more than 20 years, memories of his past are satisfying reflections. At 87 and battling emphysema and cancer, the details are sharp and quick.
“When I became the head basketball coach, I told the players that I was going to put the rules down,” Burns said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to warn you again, but if I catch you breaking the rules, you’re off the team. You’re not going to get back on by going to Father (Bernard) Kramer because I’m going to tell him no.’ I told them I wanted them off the streets at 9 o’clock at night.”
Burns’ speech was in 1952, four years after he joined the St. Joseph’s staff as an assistant coach. He volunteered for the basketball job when no other candidate surfaced. His first task was going to the library and checking out books on how to coach and play basketball.
“I got most of what I knew about basketball out of a book,” Burns said. “Some of the coaches in the league wouldn’t go to that much trouble. I probably knew more about basketball than most of them.”
The “coaching by the book” was successful. Burns guided the Bulldogs to two parochial state championships.
“I think we won seven league titles,” Burns said. “I had only one losing season, and we had fun. After our state tournament games, we’d take the team to North Denver for a spaghetti dinner.”
“Coach Burns made you want to play as hard as you could play,” said Jim Lefevre, a former player at St. Joseph’s. “He was one of the best coaches I had.”
“Guy Gibbs at Regis was hard as heck to beat,” Burns said. “Regis and Cathedral were the teams to beat in the early days. Mullen was an orphanage school before 1960, but when it came into prominence, there was the big three.”
Gibbs, who played and coached against St. Joseph’s, remembers his rival well.
“The visiting team dressing room was across the alley from the gym,” Gibbs said. “Our team started wearing the full T-shirts because you’d freeze while crossing the alley. St. Joe’s was a tough place to play. It almost was like the atmosphere you see in little towns today. Everyone was faithful to the parish and the school.”
Burns became athletic director two years before he departed in 1968. But by the late 1960s the league was teetering. Regis and Mullen were the first to leave for a place in the Colorado High School Activities Association. Holy Family and Machebeuf also entered a league in the CHSAA, but Annunciation, Cathedral, Mount Carmel, St. Francis and St. Joseph’s disappeared.
“Our state tournaments included the top five teams out of the league and there was Pueblo Catholic, Cañon City Abbey, Holy Trinity in Trinidad, St. Mary’s in Colorado Springs and Sterling,” Burns said. “The high point for me was our two state championships.”
Burns retired from a Denver utilities company in 1982 after 44 years.
The Denver Parochial League had its gallery of coaches. Frank Filchock, the first coach of the Broncos, coached St. Joseph’s for a year. Denver basketball legend Robert “Ace” Gruenig coached at Holy Family. Pat Panek, a legend at Denver East, coached Machebeuf. The list goes on with Lou Kellogg and Gibbs at Regis, Sam Jarvis and Frank Rino at Mullen, Cobe Jones at Cathedral, Paul Vinnola and Ev Stewart at St. Joseph’s, Nick Palizzi and Tony DeLorenzo at Mount Carmel, Fred Howell at Machebeuf and St. Francis’ Wendy Strohauer.
Some of the top players were Eloy Mares at Annunciation, Gene and Bob Schnabel at Cathedral, Jim Deidel at Mullen, Al Steinke and Bob Weber at St. Francis, Tom Robinson and Terry Jameson at Regis, John Conway at Holy Family, Dennis Hensen at Machebeuf, Mike Woytek at Mount Carmel and Burns’ own Phil Sorenson, Kenny Ertle and Jerry Williams.
“There were a lot of good people in the league,” Burns said. “I don’t think a league like that could work today. It folded because the schools couldn’t pay the teachers. I know I loved the coaching and I miss it. I loved all of the players I had.”
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-820-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
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COLORADO CLASSICS
Irv Moss,
Denver Post
staff writer
