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.
In the past two days, Bobby Mitchell heard people call him Bob or Mitch.
Hearing either one told him he was at Wheat Ridge, where he played sports for the Farmers.
Today, people are calling him Bobby or Bobby Bruce. That tells him he’s back in Texas, where he played college football at the University of Texas.
“I can tell immediately where I am by hearing those names,” Mitchell said recently before traveling north to attend a reunion of Wheat Ridge’s 1966 state championship football team. “It seems as if in the south it goes to Bobby or Bobby Bruce.”
Mitchell didn’t stay long for the reunion. He returned to the Dallas area to continue his dental practice that began in 1974.
While Mitchell was here, he saw some friends he hadn’t seen in years and they talked of their unbeaten team that brought the school its first state football championship.
“It started a period of time where we experienced all the highs and lows you could imagine,” Mitchell said. “It was quite a time in our lives. Those memories still are with me.”
He ranks Wheat Ridge’s 12-6 victory over Denver Washington at Bears Stadium, later Mile High Stadium, as a highlight of his playing days. His memories continue on to his junior season at Texas, when the Longhorns also were unbeaten, defeating Arkansas in a nationally televised shootout in a battle of the top two ranked teams in the country; and a 21-17 victory over Notre Dame in the 1970 Cotton Bowl.
Mitchell came to the reunion knowing he would not see three people who were once prominent in his life.
Red Coats, coach of the Farmers, halfback Fred Steinmark and end John Vest would be in attendance in memory only. Vest was a close friend who won the state discus championship the same year Mitchell captured state honors in the shot put.
Coats was the innovative coach who brought a pro-style offense from his previous coaching assignment in Texas and won state titles in 1966 and 1967.
“Red wanted me to learn how to kick field goals and extra points and I did,” Mitchell said. “I was horrible to begin with, but made enough of them to help me be the state’s leading scorer. We threw the ball a lot and our offense varied from week to week.”
Mitchell played fullback and Steinmark played halfback. Both went to Texas when the University of Colorado coaching staff showed little interest.
“Freddie played right away,” Mitchell said. “One of the coaches from Texas came to Wheat Ridge to talk to me, but he asked who was that No. 43. That was Freddie.”
Mitchell was moved to guard on the offensive line and played at 225 pounds. Their careers flourished right up to their junior season and the big game against Arkansas. It originally had been scheduled in the middle of the season, but because of the anticipated rankings, it was moved to the end.
One of the lows that Mitchell talked of was about to occur. Steinmark was visibly limping in the game against the Razorbacks. Tests revealed he was suffering from bone cancer in his thigh. His leg was amputated in hopes of saving his life, but he lost the battle with the disease two years later.
“We couldn’t imagine what was happening when the diagnosis came in,” Mitchell said. “He was limping and had slowed down, but everybody gets bruises when playing football. That was the last game he played.”
Mitchell remembered that Steinmark always had wanted to go to Notre Dame. He didn’t get there, but he didn’t want to miss the Cotton Bowl game.
“Here we were playing Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl,” Mitchell said. “He wanted to be on the sidelines, and he was. He stood the whole game on crutches near our bench.”
It was a trying time for Mitchell. He lost his brother Mark Mitchell the year before in Vietnam, and he saw his teammate stricken from the playing field a year later.
Mitchell, 57, has been in and out of Colorado a big part of his life.
“I grew up in Colorado Springs, but our family moved to Dallas in 1963 and to California in 1964,” Mitchell said. “My sophomore year in California was the only year I played on the same team with my brother. We moved back to Colorado and to Wheat Ridge during my sophomore year.”
Mitchell is planning another visit to Wheat Ridge later this fall. Don Cooper, the school’s former track and field coach, is being honored.
Coats, Vest and Steinmark will again be on the mind of a teammate.
“I remember all of them,” Mitchell said. “You don’t forget when you share that kind of experiences.”
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
