Eaton – The ping of an aluminum bat, the pop of leather and the click-clack of cleats on concrete are audible signs spring has sprung.
The high school baseball season officially starts today, but in the baseball-rich community of Eaton, all eyes are still on the Reds’ Class 3A state tournament-bound boys basketball team that begins Great 8 play today at 7 p.m. at Colorado State’s Moby Arena against Pagosa Springs.
“This is it. This is what we have been waiting for, for a long time,” said junior Cody Ball, one of three basketball players – Drew Smith and Logan Paul are the others – who also play baseball. “It’s still time to play basketball.”
The east end of the Eaton gymnasium is a testament to the stranglehold Jim Danley and his baseball team have had on the Weld County town for the past two decades. The Reds have won seven state titles, all since 1994, while the hoopsters haven’t been crowned champions since 1991.
“We’ll take it for what it is, but this is definitely a baseball town,” said Smith, a standout senior pitcher. “A state title would be huge in basketball, and it would do a lot for the baseball team as well.”
The man in charge of turning the basketball team around is Dean Grable, who, along with brother Keith (now a running backs coach at Northern Colorado) put Horizon High School on the map in the early and mid-1990s as top players who led runs to first the basketball and then the football title games in 1994. The 1994 basketball team, coached by Dave Lawrence, lost to George Washington, with Chauncey Billups and coach Bob Caton (now with Aurora Central), by four points.
At UNC, the Grables were part of the Bears’ Division II national championship football teams in 1996 and 1997 under Joe Glenn, now the coach at Wyoming.
“Those were two of the most hard-nosed kids I’ve ever coached,” said Lawrence, who is on sabbatical this year from Horizon. “Back then, Dean was the mild-mannered type, and Keith would get all over him whenever he would screw something up.”
In just his third season at Eaton, the now not-so-mild-mannered Dean helped the Reds earn the Patriot League title and a top seed in the Ray Lutz Region of the 32-team bracket. Eaton, about 20 miles east of Fort Collins, defeated Basalt and Ignacio to reach the Great 8.
Grable was an assistant under Lawrence for five seasons at Horizon before reluctantly taking the job in Eaton.
After being told about the job by Eaton physical education teacher and former UNC receivers coach Larry Adams, Grable told principal Mark Naill he wasn’t quite ready.
But a few days later, Grable called back and said he “was ready for the challenge.”
“Coach Lawrence had a big influence on my life, and Coach Glenn said you always want to surround yourself with good people,” said Grable, who now favors the bald look to the Marines-style cut he and his brother had in high school. “I don’t know how (Lawrence) gets it done, but it seems like he can get his teams to do anything he wants.
“He’s not a screamer-and-yeller kind of guy, and I am just the opposite of that. I kind of get after the guys a little bit more than he does, but I think I still try to get the most out of my players like Coach Lawrence did.”
Danley, in his 33rd season in the dugout for Eaton, is in the mold of Lawrence. Danley’s postgame lectures, win or lose, are what he is known for.
“Nobody has a corner on the market of how to coach kids or what style works the best,” said Danley, who will be in attendance tonight for the basketball tournament game. “But it’s pretty different for those kids to go from Dean to me. Our dugout has been described as comatose at times.”
But one thing is certain: Success breeds success.
“No doubt, this is the best thing that could have happened for our baseball team,” Danley said.
Said Paul: “We’ll be out there next week. We are in this for the long haul. Just having that winners’ attitude, it’s a great thing to have.”
Jon E. Yunt can be reached at 303-954-1354 or jyunt@denverpost.com.
