They are twins technically born a day apart, though it was only a 23- minute difference – the elder’s birth was a few minutes before midnight.
They are natives of Clairton, Pa., where “The Deer Hunter” was set.
And between the 65-year-olds are 84 years of coaching high school football, 79 to Colorado kids.
But none was sweeter or more memorable to Bob and Tom Hinton than the 2005 and 2006 seasons, when they finally were united on the same staff, at Hinkley in Aurora.
“It was a really big deal for us,” Bob Hinton said.
In their first fall since the days of mag wheels and Hurst shifters, the brothers, retired from coaching but still serving as substitute teachers, recently were honored with the Ben Gregory Award from the Colorado Football Officials Association. Gregory, who died in 1997, coached Montbello’s best teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s before moving to the University of Colorado as an assistant under coaches Bill McCartney and Rick Neuheisel. The award is presented to a retired coach who was a facilitator of sportsmanship toward opponents as well as officials.
“It’s unbelievable to get it with my brother,” Tom Hinton said.
The Hintons played both ways as linemen at Colorado State. In 1965, Tom began his prep coaching career in Arizona, Bob in California. A year later, Tom came to Ranum High School and stayed through 1994. He switched to Arvada until 2004. Bob came to Hinkley in 1969 until he retired last year, two years after his brother joined him on Bob Bozied’s staff.
“It was outstanding,” Tom Hinton said.
Previous Ben Gregory Award winners: the late coach’s family; Herman Motz (Thomas Jefferson); Dick Yates (South and Kent Denver); Sam Pagano (Fairview); the late Dominic Capra (Northglenn, Horizon and Legacy); and Bruce Abeyta (John F. Kennedy).
“Those other guys were all pretty good coaches,” Tom Hinton said.
Enrollment standards
In case you’ve been wondering, enrollment standards for the next two years of football are as follows:
Class A 6-man (1-75 students) and 8-man (76-125) will have no changes.
* 1A will be 126-275, an increase from 256.
* 2A will be 276-600, up from 257 and 550, respectively.
* 3A will be 601-1,100, an increase of 50 students from the lower end of the class.
* 4A will be 1,240-1,640, up from 1,101 yet down 20 students from the top.
* Hence, 5A will be 1,641 and up, which may or may not aid officials who are scheduled to have a realignment plan in place by November.
Stay tuned, especially with what happens concerning big schools.
Name game
Year in and year out, boys tennis seems to have the most difficult and unusual spellings and pronouncements of last names.
Plus, an all-name team has been there for the choosing at any Colorado wrestling tournament over the past three decades.
It continues in 2007 for football, which gives us 4A Littleton’s Mister Jones and 3A Falcon’s General Lee.
However, tops on the list may have occurred in the mid-1990s, when Gunnison had a player named Sur Render.
Good numbers
For the 18th year in succession, the number of student-athletes increased, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
With an increase of 183,006 in 2006-07, the total climbed to 7,342,910. In addition, girls participation exceeded 3 million for the first time, with 3,021,807.
Overall, 54.2 percent of students participated in athletics. Once again, football led the way with 1,104,548 players.
