FINDING GOD ON THE FIELD

West’s wife, Catherine, was the school’s athletic trainer. She was a cradle Catholic, having attended Catholic schools, including St. Mary’s Academy and Creighton University. One of her conditions for marrying West in 2004 was that he join the RCIA program and become Catholic. Something he reports he did “gladly.” 

His sponsor was Frank DeAngelis, then principal at Columbine. “[We] got to know each other on a deeper level. Going through those classes reinvigorated his own Catholic faith as we learned the doctrine. Beyond that, it was finding Christ in everything that you do. Every day now, we end the day with family prayer. Every Sunday when I am on my knees in the pews in church, I thank God for everything He gifted me with the last week and remember my hopes and prayers for the upcoming week.” 

West was not always so active in his faith. Baptized in the Methodist Church, he grew up as “a CEO Christian: Christmas and Easter Only. Faith wasn’t a constant connection in my life,” he admits. He attended Pomona High School and then Colorado State University, where he played football as an offensive lineman in the late 1980s. He was not a starter but played for three and a half years until he “realized there was more to life than just football.” West completed his degree in education and began teaching at Ken Caryl Middle School in Littleton. 

In 1994, when Andy Lowry was hired as the head football coach at Columbine, West had only served for a year as JV defensive coordinator at another local high school. Even so, Lowry took a chance on him and added him to Columbine’s coaching roster. “I remember the first time we got together as a staff. We didn’t talk about football. We talked about what it meant to be good men, to be role models for the players, to be father figures for some of the boys, to carry ourselves appropriately on and off the field, to not use abusive language or cuss around the kids. That has always been a core value of mine. I believe we have a duty to be good role models for our players. Andy was a huge role model for me.”  

All through high school and college, West worked as a Little League, high school and college umpire. He decided to take a shot at becoming a professional baseball umpire, so took a leave from teaching and went to Florida in January 1998 to attend a six-week course. He was one of only 30 students chosen to move on to the minor leagues, and then one of only seven to stay in Florida for spring training with the Pittsburg Pirates. 

That summer, West began umpiring everything from rookie ball up to Triple A; he even covered a few Major League exhibition games. He usually had farms teams from the St. Louis Cardinals farm team and Colorado Rockies in whatever league he was working. “I came up through the minor leagues with guys like Matt Holiday, Garrett Atkins, Clint Barmes, Josh Bard and pitchers like Adam Wainwright and C.C. Sabathia when they were just getting started.”

West continued umpiring for a year after marrying but found that living on the road for six months a year was not compatible with married life. In 2005, he left umpiring behind and took a job at Columbine where he initially served as dean of students. In 2009 he became a grade school principal but decided after two years that “I was more fit to be with older kids.” He spent four years as a middle-school principal, then eight years as principal at Englewood High School.

West discovered that being a baseball umpire was great on-the-job training for being dean of students. “It taught me how to deal with conflict, with people yelling at you; it taught me about sport. As a professional umpire, you understood not just the game on the field but everything behind the game. Some of the players are genuinely out there to play the game, but some are just about themselves—what do they have to do to look good to get called up to the majors? What I love about high school sports is that they are still pure. You’re playing for an institution, for your student body, for your community. It represents more of all the things that are good about sports, all the benefits you get from sports.” 

He thinks that working with high school athletes allows you to understand them in the classroom as well, “You get a chance to be around them every day, to see them on the field and push them to excel in a different way. In both coaching and teaching, you have to find out what makes each kid go. Some kids respond to raising your voice, some to putting an arm around their shoulder and talking through it. Every kid learns differently.” 

West often runs into people whom he used to coach. “You see the great young men and women, the mothers and fathers they have become. They come back and thank you. One of the hidden benefits of teaching and coaching is the impact you can have on kids and see it come to fruition long term. I look at things differently now in my 50s than I did in my 20s,” he says. “Now I try to find, ‘What is God trying to tell me through this situation? What’s the solution? How do we find the good in people?’” 

When West was looking for a career change last summer, several opportunities were on the table, including the opening to be AD at Regis Jesuit. “I prayed a lot about this job, asking God, ‘What are your long-term plans for me? How can I serve you?’” West is grateful he found Regis Jesuit. “I couldn’t imagine a better fit. Sometimes I thank God for unsaid prayers.”

Managing 30 sports programs with multiple levels at Regis Jesuit is a challenge. Organizing schedules, officials and buses—just keeping the trains running on time, as it were—would count as a job well done at most schools, but Regis Jesuit wants athletics to serve as a conduit for mission. During his first year as athletic director, West has had to jump into the rich tradition and special language of Jesuit education in which one the key concepts is “finding God in all things.”

This principle originates directly with St. Ignatius. As he paused by the River Cardoner early in his conversion, he was able to see God creating moment by moment each drop of water and blade of grass by the riverbank. From that prayer experience comes the insight that God can be found not only in a church, but in art, science and mathematics—and in athletics.

West said that he and the other Columbine coaches would give Coach Andy Lowry a hard time for running three-hour practices. The school’s practice field was high enough that it had a clear view of the mountains. “We would stay out there as long as there was sunlight. Every single night when the sun set, I would marvel at its beauty, and even tell other coaches, ‘Look at how beautiful it is.’ I loved taking time to realize the wonderful place God has given us.”