2015 Tracy Fifer Award for Long-term Achievement in Colorado High School Soccer
Joe Guennel is the subject of a Colorado Classic column. He is responsible for bringing soccer to Denver, among many other things. A truly exceptional character. Judy DeHaas, The Denver Post
The Colorado High School Soccer Coaches Association is proud to announce and recognize this year’s Fifer Award winner for Long-term and significant impact on Colorado High School Soccer, G.K. “Joe” Guennel.
Unfortunately Joe passed away at the age of 92 in 2013. Here tonight to represent Joe and accept his plaque is his wife, Inge.
A native of Germany who moved to the United States in 1934 he took up everything but soccer as a teen. When he moved to Colorado in 1961 and teamed with a Dutch transplant to get the youth soccer ball rolling. For the next 16 years in Colorado he continued what he had started in several mid-Western states to advocate for and twist any arm he could to establish a game he had grown to love.
He recognized the need for soccer at all levels: first at the youth level by helping to launch the Colorado Junior Soccer Association in 1961; next becoming the commissioner for the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Soccer League and the Colorado State Soccer Association; finally there was only one area left to tackle and that is the one that lead to us being here tonight, the creation of high school soccer through the Colorado High School Activities Association.
Using the leverage of Title IX, lobbing various school boards, and garnering community support through the growing number of youth players and their parents The Centennial League accepted soccer as a varsity sport in 1968 and the CHSAA sanctioned it in 1971 with Joe pushing, educating, and convincing all the way.
Joe found time to help other states develop and grow their soccer programs, taught skiing, hiked, wrote and illustrated two books about Colorado Wildflowers. Joe was a man of many talents.
Joe has been inducted into The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, Colorado Soccer Hall of Fame, and the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame. He was a member of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America for 62 years. Joe has been called by some the “Father of Colorado Soccer.”
Upon his Hall of Fame induction Joe was quoted as saying, “It’s rewarding, but the thing that pleases me the most about my induction is it’s reflection of the sport’s stability. It’s part of the fabric of the community now.”
We are here tonight largely because of G.K. “Joe” Guennel’s efforts on behalf of High School soccer and wish we could have recognized him in person.
Thank you Joe for all your efforts to grow Colorado high school soccer!