At 60, Bob Stitt still has plenty of swings left in the sword. But he says he’s slain his dragons.
“And people keep bringing up, ‘Oh, they hired the next guy,’” Stitt, Valor Christian’s new offensive coordinator and the man who turned Mines into a monster, told me by phone earlier this week. “No, that’s not why.
“I love coaching. I love helping kids. I love offensive football. … I had a missing piece of my life (by) not helping kids. And I needed to get that back into my life.”
For the record, the guy your buddy thinks might be the Eagles’ next football coach says he’s not interested in replacing Valor’s current coach, who also happens to be a close pal.
Stitt’s hungry. He’s not gluttonous.
“It’s not really a big deal for me (to be the head coach), because my big love is offense, and that’s what I can focus on, is offense,” said Stitt, whose schemes helped the Orediggers win 108 games over his 15 seasons in Golden, a dynasty launched back in 2000. “(Valor coach) Bret (McGatlin) and I have conversations, and I give him my two cents about different things. And he’ll think about them — he might use them or he may not.”
Crazy? Maybe. Only close friends, sharing a bond where trust smothers ego like a wool blanket, could pull this off. Although on paper, it could be glorious. The Eagles are looking for a jolt offensively after an uncharacteristic, transitional 6-5 season last fall. Stitt, the three-time RMAC winner and two-time RMAC Coach of the Year, had an itch to call plays again that needed serious scratching.
“I was hoping that a situation would come up that I would be able to get back into coaching again,” said Stitt, who still calls the Golden area home. “I just didn’t want to move — we had moved so many times. … It just wasn’t the best thing for me to run off and take another college job, because my family wasn’t going to go and I just didn’t want to do that at my age.”
Stitt and McGatlin go back two decades now, to when the latter was working under his father, the legendary Don McGatlin, and he and his fellow staffers would head toward Mt. Zion and queue up to pick Bob’s brain. McGatlin’s uncle, who played at Mines, would set up lunches and dinners with Stitt as the Orediggers’ Division II dominance was just starting to blast off.
“I remember seeing (Columbine’s) Andy Lowry in Coach Stitt’s office, trying to learn the passing game,” McGatlin laughed.
Stitt and McGatlin were close enough that when Valor’s offensive coordinator job opened up, he pitched it to Bob in November, knowing, as McGatlin recalled, that “the worst he could say was no.”
Which he did. Initially.
But McGatlin went right back at him just before Christmas, asking him to sit down and at least let him talk it over in more detail.
“I would like to hire a guy on offense so that I don’t have to worry about that side of the ball,” McGatlin told him.
“Well, shoot, I can do that for you,” Stitt replied.
A lot of prep coaches would seek advice from Stitt, one of the best offensive minds in modern Front Range history, on how to light up a scoreboard. Precious few would hire said legend as one of their coordinators, given resumes and implications.
“I’m not worried about that,” McGatlin said. “And I haven’t felt that from Bob, and we’ve talked a lot. There are a lot of things I’m learning from him that are excellent, and I think it’s the same for him as well. Because with this job anymore, and (even) at the college level, you have to take more of a (CEO) role. I think he’s seeing what I do, and (he’s like), ‘I just want to coach football.’”
Crazy? From a distance. But for Bret and Bob, the line of respect goes both ways. The McGatlins are coaching royalty here, and Stitt was flattered to be asked about joining that legacy, never mind trying to enhance it.
“All these head coaches I’d worked for, they’d never let me do what I wanted to do offensively. I had to become a head coach just so I could be creative,” Stitt said. “And when Bret says, ‘I need a guy on offense, then I don’t have to worry about it,’ I was like, ‘That’s perfect, I’ll give you a quality offense and you just worry about the defense and special teams.’”
Stitt was ticking boxes off the honey-do list, walking the dog, watching tape two or three times a week all while continuing to help turn the engine over at AuctusIQ and AIQ Athlete Insight. Two or three college headhunters a year would inquire as to his interest, but he wasn’t really keen about getting back into the day-to-day grind until last year.
“I’m really enjoying my role as an offensive coordinator and just working with Bret,” Stitt said. “I think we’re a great blend of coaches. And he handles things as a head coach sometimes way, way better than I would handle them. And then I’ve got my my positives as well.”
The Eagles have more juniors than seniors on-hand, so McGatlin expects the fruits of their partnership to really blossom 12-15 months from now, once kids have spent a year getting used to the tempo and the temperature.
But Mines fans will easily recognize some of the looks that are coming to Valor Stadium this fall. Quick tempo. Wide splits. Shallow crosses. Back-shoulder fades. The Eagles’ offensive players bring spiral notebooks to film sessions, and the students are all required to take notes, college-style. Although Stitt joked that most of the quarterbacks under his charge don’t have their driver’s licenses yet. That’s new.
“I think that kids will learn as much as you want them to,” Stitt said. “If you push them and challenge them, they’re going to learn it. Sometimes (we say), ‘Well, they’re just high school kids, they’re 15-16-17 years old, so we’ve got to take it slow.’ They’re only going to learn as much as you want them to learn. I’ve run the offensive side at Valor just like I did at Texas State or Montana or Mines. And these kids have grasped it.”
Crazy? Heck, yeah. So crazy, it just might work.
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
Originally Published: