The big man and his wife had already found a good spot at their son’s high school basketball game when a friend waved them over: Come sit with us.
They moved, settling in front of an older man. He was fit, with white hair and glasses. The older man nudged his friend and laughed. There goes our leg room. Here we had this grand view, and now this big Italian is sitting in front of us.
The man laughed a lot. He’s the kind people meet and say, now there’s someone who enjoys life.
The Italian who was not an Italian but Rich ard Marquez, an elevator-service superintendent, didn’t hear him. Marquez’s son played on Regis High School’s JV team, and he was there to support the school. The big man had been an athlete himself, back in the day at West High School. He’d also been head boy and prom king and was the kind of kid who was respectful to his elders even when the Westside was in tumult.
In Marquez’s senior year, he kicked five field goals during the homecoming game, setting a state record. They ran his picture in the paper. He told the reporter: “The line was blocking good, and I had a lot of confidence I’d have time to kick. I still can’t believe it. I’d jump up and scream after every field goal. I’ve never felt anything like that.”
One of those moments of high school glory. He’d told his family about the record, but he wasn’t one for turning back the clock or drawing attention to himself.
The older man sitting behind him at the game kept talking, distracting Marquez. Something about his voice. Sharon Marquez sees her husband turn around. Oh, boy, she thinks, he’s going to tell them to keep it down.
But the big man looks at the older man. “Coach,” he says. “Coach Lopez?”
Life has its own geometry. Parallel lines, tangents, circles, intersections. You cross someone’s path; they cross yours. Maybe you never meet again. Maybe you spend the rest of your life together or a single football season in your senior year of high school. The coach was only 32 years old back then, a teacher, and he didn’t want the job. Do it for the kids, his principal said. So Ad Lopez added coach to his list of occupations, making the boys practice drills until they got them right. His wife, Glenna Kelly, respected that about him. You never let them settle for less than what they are.
Marquez went to college, Lopez to an assistant-principal job. When their paths crossed again at the basketball game, they hadn’t seen each other in 32 years. “Rich Marquez,” Marquez said, shaking Lopez’s hand, and Lopez remembered. He remembered well enough to say to everyone within earshot, this is Rich Marquez. He set a high school football record.
Lopez leaned over to another friend, Bob Ottewill, who happened to be a former Colorado High School Activities Association commissioner. Does Rich still have the record? I don’t know, Ottewill said.
Lopez is not the kind of man to let things drop. Seeing Marquez again, he thinks we never did honor him properly, and it bothers him.
“People have to be honored for what they do,” he says. “To be recognized is a human need.”
The record part was easy. Lopez found it, made a copy, delivered it to Regis High School for the Marquezes’ youngest son, Josh, to pick up. Marquez’s record has been tied but not broken. Ha! Marquez said, when he opened the envelope. He called the family into the kitchen, grinning: “There it is. You thought I was making it up.”
The gesture moves him, and he calls Lopez to thank him. But Lopez is not done. He calls Sharon, says, “We never recognized Rich as we should have. Come over to dinner, bring the family. We’ll have a little ceremony.”
Oh, I don’t know, Marquez said when his wife told him. “It was so long ago.” “You’re going,” she told him.
They got together a couple weeks ago. Lopez, Kelly, former West assistant coach Tony Roybal, friends and relatives. Marquez wrote to tell me about it later. “I cannot express the admiration I feel for the kindness that was extended and still exists in individuals such as my high school football coach and his wife.”
That night at the Lopez house, Coach presented Marquez with a trophy. He made it himself. He took an old football cleat from his former assistant coach’s son and coated it with brass-colored paint. He built it a wood stand, a nice box, and affixed to the box a small bronze plaque engraved with the words “All-time CHSSA Football Record. Five Field Goals in a Single Game set by Rich Marquez, West High School in a 21-15 win over East High School. 1976.”
“It’s never too late to recognize someone,” Coach said, presenting Rich with his trophy. I doubt there was dry eye in the house.
Tina Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-1416 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
