The excuse was so unfathomable that Cristobal Velasquez was stunned silent.
It was 2016, and the Denver West head football coach was in his first season in the program as an assistant. By the time a Week 7 showdown against one of Class 2A’s powerhouses rolled around, he had already seen the signs of the program’s commitment issues: Players skipping practice. Players showing up late to games. Sparse attendance in the weight room.
But the reasoning one senior gave for missing the game against Faith Christian was on another level — even for a program that had one winning season over the two decades before Velasquez took the helm in 2023, jump-starting the Cowboys’ revival.
Coach, I’m not coming to the game. I have a haircut.
“I didn’t know what to say for a long minute,” Velasquez said. “Then I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? A haircut? This is a top-ranked team. These are the opportunities you dream about as a high school player.’ I couldn’t understand it.”
That culture is what Velasquez set out to change when he took the reins of the program from former head coach Leon Garcia, who is now an assistant coach and the school’s athletic director.
Velasquez started cutting kids who weren’t dedicated to the program. He instituted strict policies — miss three practices, you’re off the team. Miss after-school weights, you can’t practice. And, in tandem with Garcia, he’s instituted a rule since 2020 that if you have a single F — no matter what your overall GPA is — you are ineligible.
His tough-love approach has worked.
Denver West went 5-4 in ’23, then 7-3 last year while making the program’s first playoff appearance since 1995. This season, the Cowboys are again heading to the Class 2A playoffs, this time with an 8-1 record after beating D’Evelyn for the first time in school history in a 35-23 win on Friday at Trailblazer Stadium.
“We don’t have kids like that, ‘I have a haircut’ kid anymore,” Velasquez said. “People always ask me, ‘What’s the difference between now and how the program had been for so many years?’ The current kids are ready to fight. They’re ready to show for anybody, win or lose.
“… Our kids here in the inner-city, man, they’re just looking for high expectations. They’re not trying to be treated like victims. And so that’s my approach. I grew up in Compton (California) and then played at Delta (Colorado). I set high expectations for these kids in the classroom and on the field. And they’ve met the bar where I set it.”
The Cowboys don’t have a JV team, similar to many small-school football programs, and have just 26 players overall. That small number, which features 10 two-way starters, is because of the buy-in that Velasquez requires.
“Either you’re with it or you’re not, and that’s why our numbers are low,” Velasquez said. “I’ve coached on teams here at West where we’ve got 55 kids and we’ve won one game, but we have 26 kids who are three-sport athletes, 26 kids who’ve given us everything, year-round, don’t miss a day. I’d rather have that than 55 kids who are not committed.”
In the Gothic hallways of a school founded in 1883, Garcia and Velasquez have also dealt with constant change.
Denver West, like many Denver Public Schools, has experienced declining enrollment. What was once a Class 6A football school when Garcia attended West in the early ’90s has 512 students this year. That’s about a 33% drop from just seven years ago, according to Colorado Department of Education data.
The school’s also been through significant organizational changes over the past 15 years. In 2011, West High School was phased out, and the building housed West Generation Academy and West Leadership Academy, plus a middle school and an alternative school. West Generation Academy then became West Early College before West High School was finally reunified in 2021.
Throughout those transitions, it became difficult for Garcia to cultivate a consistent talent pipeline and develop a better culture with his roster made up of students from various schools. When Garcia inherited a program with only 14 players in 2011, the Cowboys had gone winless in three of their prior five seasons, with just three total wins in that span.
And during Garcia’s 12 seasons, Denver West had five one-win seasons. If not for the Cowboys’ participation in the Broncos’ Futures program, a 7th/8th grade team that’s fed into the school since 2010, Denver West would’ve had to drop football.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Garcia said. “It was really hard. I think most of the time, it just broke my heart. I felt like everybody else had turned their backs on these kids and this community. And being one of those kids (as a Denver West alum), and understanding what those kids go home to or what they don’t go home to, I felt like I just couldn’t be another person that quit on them.
“It was discouraging at times as head coach, but I felt like I could never put my head down in front of them because I didn’t want them to put their heads down, either. So we just fought through it, and I tried to teach the kids about family even though we were still struggling with the commitment aspect.”
Early in Garcia’s tenure, the Cowboys would retrieve his baby son out of the car seat from his car so the tot could sit on the sidelines at practice. Now, that baby is sophomore Gio Garcia — Denver West’s starting center. Meanwhile, Leon Garcia’s longtime right-hand man, Velasquez, has found the right combination of discipline and structure to make the AD’s coaching journey at Denver West come full circle.
“Denver West has seen increased attendance from its players and increased GPAs with those higher academic standards that (Velasquez and Garcia) set,” said Denver Public Schools athletic director Kevin Bendjy. “The Futures football program has been key too.
“… It’s an amazing blueprint that they have executed. Their focus on relationships with their students and their enthusiasm and passion to support the community, support that school and to make it great is what I’m most proud of.”
Principal Mia Martinez Lopez has also provided stable leadership since the reunification of the school in ’21, and other athletic programs have risen under her watch. Denver West’s state championship history is slim: The Cowboys have only won four titles, the most recent being Class 5A boys cross country in 2003. But the school has become competitive again in a variety of sports.
This fall, the boys soccer team made the Class 3A playoffs following an 11-3-1 regular season. Both the boys and girls basketball teams made the playoffs last season. The track team has been on the rise for some time, with the boys earning state runner-up honors in 2019 with Velasquez as co-head coach. Another spring sport, girls golf, had 28 members last year.
“In girls golf, which is one of the larger golf teams in DPS, are we winning tons of tournaments? No, but we’re getting kids excited about playing for this school and just giving them an opportunity to see where they’re at,” Garcia said. “It’s a sign of the (revitalized culture) of West athletics as a whole, with kids wanting to come here and participate in whatever sports they do.”
As Denver West football enters the playoffs next week, the team has a chance to intensify that Cowboy pride. Historical records beyond the Maxpreps Era (since 2004) are hard to come by, but it’s believed that Denver West’s last playoff win in football came 91 years ago, in 1934.
Denver West was crushed in its playoff appearance last year. Velasquez said the 41-0 defeat to top-seeded Strasburg gave his players “culture shock” because of the program’s longstanding lack of postseason experience.
But the Cowboys feel they are better equipped to make noise this November. Denver West’s headliners include junior quarterback/linebacker Marcelo “Rocket” Ortiz, senior wideouts/safeties Robert Wittke and Ernest Fields, junior do-everything Jesus Acevedo and senior defensive end/tackle Aries Uong.
Uong, a team captain and four-year starter who also played on West’s Futures team, says the Cowboys are primed to take another significant step forward as a program. Denver West was ninth in the CHSAA seeding index late Friday night, and could face No. 8 Resurrection Christian in the opening round of the 16-team playoffs.
The Cougars (6-3) have been a Class 2A power lately, reaching the postseason nine of the last 10 seasons. So Denver West will be an underdog, but the Cowboys are taking a “Why not us?” mentality into the game.
“Getting that playoff win, it would mean everything,” Uong said. “It would mean all the losses were worth it, all the struggles were worth it. All the sacrifices by the coaches were worth it. And most importantly, all our dedication to turn this program around was worth it. It already has been, but a playoff win, that would be (the exclamation point).”
