![]() ![]() ![]() He and his staff found a way to help those athletes maximize their abilities in ways they didn’t expect. Reyes had success finding athletes from other sports in an athletically gifted school to join the team. Under the Reyes’ watch, the Wolves won a combined 11 relay championships - after the school only had one previously - and had 13 individual state championship victories, capped by a trio of titles at the 2023 meet with 100 and 300 meter hurdles crowns for junior Gabriella Cunningham, who also teamed with sophomore Leiava Holliman, junior Makiya Singleton and senior McKenzie Droughns to win the 4×100 meter relay. That has been the only girls team other than the 2015 Cherokee Trail (99.5) to even approach 100 points at state in that span. The Grandview girls team piled up a stunning 120 points at the 2017 meet (the most since George Washington scored 124 in 2000). The Wolves scored a combined 924 points (562 for the girls, 362 for the boys), which is the most in 5A for any program since 2014, with only the 916.2 of Cherokee Trail - which won the 2023 boys 5A crown - coming close. High jump coach Dylan Baumgarten has recorded and cataloged data at the 5A state track meet since 2014 and the numbers show that Grandview has had the most successful overall run in the state’s largest classification in that span. I’ve definitely had years where that happened and years where it didn’t.” “I get asked that question a lot, how do you get everybody onboard as a team? I wish there was a magic answer to be honest. Your distance group is nothing like your throwers, your throwers are nothing like your sprinters, hurdlers or jumpers, so it’s not easy. “It’s really hard to build a track team because it’s basically built on a lot of individual performances,” Reyes said. Now, when the duo departs, it is the program that has jockeyed with rival Cherokee Trail for tops in the district over the last decade. The 45-year-old Reyes noted that when he and his wife and assistant coach, Natalie, came to Grandview in 2014 after 11 seasons at ThunderRidge (which followed a season as an assistant at Broomfield, his alma mater, plus two as head coach at Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas), Grandview was the only program in Cherry Creek Schools that hadn’t won a state championship in boys or girls track. “I don’t know how it happened or what, but I always tell the kids ‘I don’t pump my chest because I’m your coach, I’m just glad to be part of this group.’” “The last three years I’ve coached - since COVID - I felt like I’ve been living a movie,” Reyes said. Reyes had to settle for three state championships - the girls in 2017 and boys in 20 and a trio of runner-up finishes - plus double-digit individual and relay titles as he helped usher a good program in the state’s elite. ![]()
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