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.
For many years, the Aurora Relays signaled spring had arrived in Colorado and the state’s high school track and field athletes could come out of hibernation from a winter of inactivity.
The relays also meant Bob Caviness, the founder and director of what used to be the first big track and field meet of the season, was hard at work. It always was early to mid-April, and track and field athletes throughout the state were eager to limber up and get their outdoor season started.
“Everybody wanted to come to the Aurora Relays at the beginning,” Caviness, 81 and retired, said as he looked back to the early years of his event. “But after a while, as the number of schools increased, we almost begged people to start another meet. But it kicked off the track season, and it began a schedule of a big meet every weekend leading up to the state meet.”
Caviness started the event out of necessity when the University of Denver canceled the DU Relays in the spring of 1957. The state’s high school coaches weren’t notified of DU’s plans until March, giving Caviness only a few weeks to organize an alternative. He found a willing school administration in Aurora, led by superintendent Bill Hinkley, and was off and running.
“Our first meet had 15 teams, including Aurora,” Caviness said. “It grew to become the biggest meet in the state at one time, with 63 teams and a boys and girls division.”
But the first year, the meet was made up of boys teams from the five Denver Prep League schools: Manual, East, North, South and West; plus Arvada, Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, Golden, Boulder, Longmont, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs Palmer, Grand Junction and Aurora.
Caviness liked the relays format because it allowed coaches to use their full teams, experiment with combinations of runners and gain insight to team depth. The format also included individual events in the 100-yard dash, 120-yard and 180-yard low hurdles, an open mile and the field events.
There were individual stars. Art Levy of Denver East ran the 100 in 9.6 seconds in 1966. Jim Miller of Palmer ran the low hurdles in 19.2 in 1961, a record that was the oldest on the books before being retired when track performances changed from yards to meters. Howard Banich of Arvada West hurled the discus 179 feet, 7 inches in 1971. Aurora Central’s Pat Manson cleared 17-7½ in the pole vault in 1986. Anthony Davis of Hinkley had a 24-6 long jump in 1997.
One year, distance runner Lee Courkamp came from Wiley as a one- man team to run in the open mile.
Wheat Ridge won the first relays. Caviness’ Aurora team won in 1962, but over the years teams from Manual and East dominated the early team titles. Montbello became the power in later years, once winning seven team crowns in a row. Aurora Central’s girls team won three straight in the late 1980s.
“We had most of the state’s best athletes in our meet,” Caviness said. “Darryl Clack of Widefield was as good a sprinter as this state has had. Over the years, we had an impressive list of record holders.”
The relays attracted the state’s best starters. Former CU track coach Frank Potts did the honors. Hinkley, Bill Greim and Raoul Theriault also had the starter’s gun.
In hopes of gaining better weather, Caviness moved the meet from the second week of April to the third week, but there were years when snow was on the ground midweek before the meet.
“We had to cancel two meets over the years because of weather,” Caviness said. “We didn’t run in 1967 and 1984, and the meet in 2000 wasn’t completed because of lightning danger.”
As the meet’s director, Caviness was a stickler for keeping a prompt schedule.
“We wanted the meet to run on time,” Caviness said. “We figured if we ran the daily schedule on time, the teams would want to come back. It took a lot of dedicated people. We probably had more than 40 volunteers each year to pull it off.”
He mentioned Gene Bump, Joe Wasiecko, Pete Blanco, Jack Lynch and Tony Antolini as valuable cohorts.
Caviness moved from Aurora Central to Hinkley High School when it opened in 1963, but he continued his directorship of the track meet until 1992 when he retired. The format has changed from a relay event to a regular track and field meet. It’s now called the Robert F. Caviness Invitational.
Caviness remains a tireless worker for high school sports. Hinkley students continue a program he started of volunteering to help at the state wrestling tournament. And he’s still there to help at the track meet that carries his name.
In his spare time, he is a registered judge of toy and nonsporting dogs.
But need anyone ask what else he is doing?
“He’s helping his daughter coach track at D’Evelyn High School,” Jo Caviness said after answering the family’s telephone. “She takes her dad along with her to help coach.”
Marla Caviness French is an assistant track coach at D’Evelyn. The two can be found most any afternoon doing what they like best.
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
