Belleview Christian’s gridiron return brings immediate success

Tony Montiel arrived at Belleview Christian in 2018 with one simple question: “Where’s football?”

The new science and Spanish teacher had played high school football in Texas and remained a devoted follower of the sport, so he was of course disappointed to learn that Belleview had cut its program the year prior due to low participation. Instead of merely accepting the situation, Montiel put it upon himself to revitalize the school’s lost passion for football.

“Ever since then, I’ve had that heart to start the program pretty much from ground zero,” the Bruins head coach said.

His work began with calculating the expected costs of the program until he was finally able to begin recruiting students last year. Belleview athletic director Tim Owen was impressed by both Montiel’s passion for football and his dedication to bringing it back.

“He put together a presentation and he really spearheaded bringing it back,” Owen said. “Through being a teacher at the school and having a touch on every one of the high school boys sometime throughout the day through the classes he teaches, he was able to build that excitement with them and get the hype train going, so to speak.”

Owen and Montiel also agreed that Belleview’s Class 1A boys basketball state championship in 2021 helped reinvigorate students’ interest in sports.

Montiel finally achieved his vision when on Aug. 26 Belleview both played and won its first game of the season against Soroco, 46-6. Belleview then followed that up with a 60-0 victory over South Park for win No. 2. Prior to the program’s two-year run from 2016-17, it also existed from 2012-13, but none of those seasons had resulted in more than two wins.

On Oct. 1 against A-8 League 5 rival Justice, the Bruins won their third game of the season to break the program record.

Belleview’s early success has come with a roster that contains only two players with prior tackle football experience: senior lineman Tristan Feathers previously played at Flatirons Academy and senior running back/safety Davin Hunter last played when he was about 10 years old.

“It’s definitely a big challenge just talking fundamentals from the very beginning,” Montiel said. “Fundamentals is super key to building a successful program. With those two (Feathers and Hunter) helping other teammates out — it started early March — we hit the weight room, talked about what a flag is, what a penalty is, how to wrap up, how do we get to a first down, the bare, bare minimum of fundamentals.”

Hunter said there has been plenty of “learning moments” along the way, but he remains focused on encouraging his younger teammates.

“We knew that we’d be at a disadvantage coming in as a first year program, so we started offseason workouts really early in the summer and we just worked on really basic fundamental stuff,” said Hunter, who has 11 total touchdowns, five interceptions and is averaging over 100 rushing yards per game. “We tried to lock in and get really ready and focused for the season from the second we started.”

His fellow Bruins are quick learners. Sophomore Collin Polson broke the program record with 13 passing touchdowns, junior Matthew Norman is averaging nearly 70 receiving yards and junior Kevin Nayar leads Belleview with 8.7 tackles per game.

Records aside, Montiel and Owen are optimistic that football can endure at Belleview.

“Our biggest goal as a school, as a program, is to leave a legacy of football,” Montiel said. “We want Belleview to have a football team for as long as football is alive, essentially. My seniors, their goals are to definitely leave a legacy for my juniors, sophomores and freshmen and up-and-coming freshmen. We really want to build that legacy, whether we make playoffs this year or we don’t, we did our very best to leave a mark.”

Belleview, 3-4 (1-2 A-8 League 5) as of Oct. 19, hosts Gilpin County on Friday in its penultimate regular season game.