In his fourth decade as a coach, Mark Roggy will lead Class 4A Greeley West High School to its first championship football game Saturday at Invesco Field at Mile High.
Just don’t ask him to record it.
“It gets to the point where you almost have to hire people to do the tech part,” he said of a more sophisticated brand of high school football in Colorado, which caps its 2008 season and 88th on record with four title games (5A-4A at Invesco, 3A-2A at Legacy Stadium in Aurora).
Today’s players still yearn to take state and will talk about it at class reunions years from now, but have become products of programs that spend more money on everything from uniforms to training methods than ever and use the latest technology to improve and feature their game.
“It’s not even close to when I played, even when I was in college,” said 40-year-old Reid Kahl, head coach at Wheat Ridge High School, a 4A finalist against Greeley West.
Most public-school districts begin the season with modest budgets in the upper thousands, then fundraise for specific needs.
Jefferson County schools were issued $6,000 to fund football, according to Columbine athletic director Ed Woytek. The booster club, coaching staff and players helped raise their usual $20,000 to $30,000 for new equipment, uniforms and whatever else the team needed. Everything from a golf tournament to selling discount cards for local goods and services has augmented game program ads and bake sales.
Individual costs can run high. If a team takes a four-day, out-of-state trip, popularized as prep bowl trips during the late 1990s, it costs approximately $1,000 per player. Tack on another $200 to 300 for attending summer camps, and up to another $100 for practice shirts and shorts.
And this is after players pay a participation fee of about $100 before they even see a helmet.
“We’re constantly fundraising,” Woytek said. “And it’s a whole-year thing. You have to keep your programs going.”
It’s not easy in any economy, Cherry Creek athletic director Randy McCall said: “We have to squeeze here and there and decide what’s important and what’s not. Our community has done a great job supporting our program. Parents are willing to invest a little money in that.”
Following NFL’s lead
Keeping up to date with the latest technology helps coaches dutifully follow the lead of the NFL and colleges. Uniform material has improved, as have shoulder pads, which last longer. The old thermal underwear has been replaced by the likes of Under Armour, including sets for both hot and cold weather. Helmets cost as much as $350 unless purchased in bulk and offer more protection against concussions.
Forty-four-year coach Ken Soper of Dove Creek remembers his playing days in the 1950s in Medford, Okla.: “Only a helmet and shoulder pads were required. You didn’t have to wear leg pads, and we had a great back who didn’t wear hip pads. Now, we have every pad except rib pads.”
School weight rooms used to be small and crowded, but many now seem more like health clubs, especially at the bigger metro Denver schools, with powerful stereo systems helping add to the atmosphere.
“I think they’ll benefit, obviously, with new stuff,” Berthoud senior lineman Jared Wikre said. “It might help them focus on what they’re doing.”
And probably do it in less time. Laptops are used at many schools to help expedite breaking down the game action and statistics. Filming of game action seems to have made the biggest stride. Projectors have become obsolete. Now, when games are filmed, coaches and players can have their own to take home and study.
“All of you don’t have to go to someone’s house to watch film,” Kahl said. “Before, those reels would break every six minutes and you’d be slicing them back together. . . . With DVDs it’s more like you have a toy at the game. And it lets the coaches coach.”
And the players learn. Roggy said that when his quarterbacks “enter the game on Saturday, they will know as much as the coaches do about our opponent.”
It’s a welcomed addition, said Cherry Creek senior T.J. Shantz.
“My dad (a former coach) talks to me about all the new, little gadgets we have and jokes about them,” he said. “He didn’t have them growing up and he gives me a hard time about it, how it’s easier today.”
Local games hit the web
Television and the Internet have made prep football much more accessible. Colorado teams have played on ESPN as well as local cable stations.
“It’s unbelievable,” Woytek said. “A day doesn’t go by without someone telling us they want our games on the Internet.”
While fees paid to schools for games on TV or the Internet are less than a few hundred dollars, McCall said schools are in the process of discussing “revenue sharing” as the demand grows for their games.
All of the above is making schoolboy football a better product.
“As the athletes have improved, so has the coaching,” said Bert Borgmann, assistant commissioner of the Colorado High School Activities Association. “There’s always somebody who has a new idea, then someone will improve on it.”
Former NFL wide receiver Dave Logan, now leading Mullen, which faces Cherry Creek in the 5A final, witnessed schoolboy hotbed Ohio when he played for the Browns.
“As far as the best teams out there, we don’t have that many,” Logan said. “But the best teams here year in, year out can compete with the great teams across the nation.”
CHSAA commissioner Bill Reader believes the state of Colorado’s game remains strong.
“We’re a little off the map in the national scale because we’re in the Mountain time zone and we won’t draw like Texas, but we’re strong,” he said. “At the same time, too, it’s not the be-all, end-all. I like where we’re at. High school football shouldn’t be the end of the world. We have a good perspective.”
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
