Bert Borgmann was a sports information director at heart. That’s why CHSAANow.com made so much sense to him. And that’s why our life paths got to converge for nearly a decade.
Oddly enough, I didn’t meet Bert when I started writing for CHSAANow, I met him years earlier. I was bartending to supplement my income as an on-retainer magazine features writer for Mile High Sports Magazine.
He and the CHSAA staff came into the restaurant where I worked. It was just up the road from their office and the group of administrators came in for lunch. When I realized who they were, Bert was the one I ended up chatting with the most.
“You guys know Bob Ottewill,” I asked him.
“Bob actually walked into the office today looking for someone to go play tennis with him,” Bert said. “He worked in that office for years; he should know better than to think we can just get up in the middle of the day.”
I told him I had just started doing magazine work for Bob’s kid. Doug was – and still is – the editor-in-chief of Mile High Sports.
Bert made the connection right away that he had just read a story about Doug going up the Manitou Incline with me. We chatted, we parted ways and I never thought anything of it.
I can’t get that day out of my head.
Because in between that day and where we stand today, Bert became immensely influential in my professional life. His reach in the world of Colorado high school athletics is unmatched and seeing that on a regular basis for seven years was awe-inspiring. His death is nothing short of devastating. I can’t even imagine what his family is going through, but my heart and the hearts of all of us at Colorado Preps and Mile High Sports are with them.
When I started working with CHSAANow, Bert made sure to give me every little piece of advice he could think of. He’d point out small mistakes I made in my hastiness of publishing a story. Not for criticism, but to ensure the quality of all our work.
He’d educate me on rules, bylaws and the overall workings of the association. But perhaps one of the most underrated parts of his personality is that he genuinely cared about people.
I remember after finishing up with some postseason baseball (it wasn’t the state championship weekend, but probably the weekend before) he told me to simply meet him at a restaurant for dinner. George Demetriou, the state’s baseball rules interpreter met us and the three of us just chatted countless subjects. High school baseball was definitely a topic, but we also just talked a lot about life.
Those were the experiences that made me so appreciative of Bert Borgmann the man. This experience wasn’t unique to me. It was obvious that everywhere Bert went, there were people in attendance that he actively cared for.
He couldn’t walk by a score table or hospitality room without finding someone to bump into and catch up with. And it was always about more than just work.
His work also wove into his life in a lot of ways. He could chat about anything related to high school sports and his historical knowledge could be considered the encyclopedia of the subject in the state.
I know that so many stories will be told in the coming days that will shine more light on Bert’s personality and passion for high school athletics. And if I’m being blunt, I’m not in a position to write this if not for him. He was supportive of CHSAANow and of me personally in a way that maybe just the two of us understand.
And maybe that’s how it should stay.
Even after his retirement, he was someone that I would call if I had a question about a bylaw or just the inner workings of CHSAA. I remember driving home from state baseball in 2021 and I called Bert to wish him a happy retirement and most importantly, tell him thanks for everything.
We got to serve together on the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame Selection Committee so we still got to see each other on a semi-regular basis. It was recently that he, Gerry Valerio and I all chatted about putting our heads together in figuring out nominees for the annual High School Athletes of the Year.
I wish we could’ve done that over a lunch. That would’ve been a good time.
For now, we just need to hang on to the memories. I have mine. Thousands of others have theirs. We have enough lifetimes of stories to tell that illustrate Bert’s impact on our world. I look forward to telling my stories others and hearing as many of theirs as I can.