On the night of Oct. 7, 1966, 31-year-old sportswriter Irv Moss covered perhaps the high school football game of the year in Colorado for The Denver Post.
Here is his lead:
“If you’ve ever swatted at a fly with your hand, you know what the Lakewood High School football team faced when it tried to stop a 77-yard touchdown run by Wheat Ridge’s Fred Steinmark that whipped the Tigers 19-13 Friday night at Jefferson County Stadium.”
Almost 50 years later, and many thousands of stories later about preps, colleges, pros, Olympians and more, Moss, 81, has received a special honor. On Monday in Scottsdale, Ariz., Moss received the Football Writers Association of America lifetime achievement award during the association’s annual awards breakfast in conjunction with the College Football Playoff title game.
You may know Moss from his ongoing feature, Colorado Classics, which celebrates the state’s sports figures from the past. Or you may know Moss from his longtime coverage of Air Force football, from coach Ben Martin to the present and Troy Calhoun.
But in the 1960s, Denver Post readers knew Moss best as the state’s foremost high school sports authority.
Wheat Ridge went on to win the 1966 Class AAA football title. Steinmark went on to become The Post’s Gold Helmet Award winner, and then a famous player for Texas’ 1969 national championship team.
Moss, who started with The Post on Feb. 8, 1956, went on to chronicle sports on every level throughout Colorado, and he’s still doing it today.
Mike Judson: @thesportschief
