The PCA Blog - Colorado

Awards Banquet Recap

01.13.2016


Record attendance from nearly 300 Positive Coaching Alliance supporters -- including National Advisory Board Members Jay Coakley, Bill Hanzlik and Keith Van Horn -- marked the Third Annual Youth Sports Impact Awards Banquet Presented by The Orthopaedic and Spine Center of the Rockies. Highlights of the event at Mile High Station included honoring finalists for PCA's Triple-Impact Competitor® Scholarships.

Master of Ceremonies and 760 AM Radio Host Susie Wargin invited to the stage all the finalists:

  • Danielle Berning, Silver Creek High School
  • Koby Boynton, Boulder High School
  • Serena Bruin, Prairie View High School
  • Kiley Cropper, Greeley West High School
  • Quin Kuechenmeister, Nederland High School
  • Porter Milner, Broomfield High School
  • Emilee Nelson, Rock Canyon High School
  • Nathaniel O'Quinn, Faith Christian High School
  • Jordan Roesch, Strasburg High School
  • Miranda Scarpello, Front Range Christian School.

After the student-athletes returned to their seats, Wargin named the four scholarship winners -- Boynton, Cropper, Kuechenmeister and Roesch -- who each gave a brief speech.

Additional highlights included presentations by PCA-Colorado Board Chair Jack Graham, PCA Founder Jim Thompson and Colorado Rockies Pitching Coach Steve Foster.

Drawing from Lessons from Little League and Life, a book he co-wrote with his father, also named Steve, Foster amusingly rattled off "The Top 50 Excuses of the High School Pitcher" in less than a minute. Then he emphasized life lessons in commitment and accountability, saying, "Excuses are nails in the coffin of failure."

Foster also recalled the end of his Major League Baseball career after a shoulder injury and visiting his grandfather, "PeePaw," who helped him formulate a personal mission statement of the Five E's: Encouraging, Engaging, Equipping, Empowering and Edifying others. Finally, Foster used the video below to introduce Jaide Bucher, winner of PCA-Colorado's GRIT Award.


Colorado Rockies Executive Paul Egins joined Bucher on-stage to present her a $1,000 scholarship.

Next up was a presentation by Christina Leone, a 2015 national winner of PCA's Double-Goal Coach® Award Presented by TeamSnap. PCA-Colorado Chapter Executive Director Linda Crum then presented the Excellence in Leadership Award to Paul Angelico, Commissioner of the Colorado High School Activities Association, who spoke poignantly of "needing to do something about the mismatches in expectations around high school sports among coaches, parents and student-athletes."

The evening culminated as Linda Childears, CEO of The Daniels Fund, presented the inaugural Bill Daniels Triple-Impact Professional Award to Dave Logan. The former NFLer, three-sport star at Colorado's Wheat Ridge High School, current head football coach at Cherry Creek High School and radio host recalled several anecdotes from all those aspects of his life. One key life lesson he emphasized taking from sports, where the individual must be accountable to the team, was: "Ability is necessary;dependability is crucial."