Multi-sport star Annie Kunz of Wheat Ridge (Colo.) usually requires two players to keep up with her on the soccer pitch. When it comes to track, not many in Colorado have managed to keep up.
Courtesy photo
Her legacy is too storied to encapsulate in a few sentences, the mark she left too impressionable to surmise with a few comments from her coaches and peers.
Perhaps, boiled to simplest terms,
Annie Kunz of
Wheat Ridge (Wheat Ridge) is one of those once-every-other-decade athletes, one whose multi-sport accomplishments will stand the test of time and be looked at with reverence whenever recalled.
Kunz is Colorado's 4A champion infour track and field events.
Photo courtesy of Dennis Pleuss/Wheat Ridge Transcript
That Kunz's career ended on a sour note - a 1-0 loss to Valor Christian in the Class 4A girls soccer finals - was somewhat of a shocker, only because everything else about her career seemed to be storybook.
Kunz, after all, helped her team to successive state soccer titles in 2009 and 2010, plus placed first in all four of her events at the state track meet last week (high jump, long jump, 100-meter hurdles and 300-hurdles). She departed track and field with six total championships - including records in the high jump and 300 hurdles - and a handful of additional top-three finishes.
"I don't know when it will sink in," Kunz said. "Probably in a couple years when I look back on it. Right now I'm just going to enjoy it. It's bittersweet that it's done."
Now, it's on to Texas A&M for the 6-foot-1 Kunz, where she will compete in both soccer and track. Although her soccer coach believes the pitch is where her natural ability is best rooted and her track coach believes she could be a national champion in the heptathlon if she was solely dedicated to track, Kunz has yet to distinguish which sport more suits her.
"Not really," Kunz said. "Last year I did a little better in soccer than I did in track, and this year, I was a little more successful in track. I still love them both."
Kunz finished her soccer career with 115 goals and 42 assists (the goals, broken down chronologically from freshman to senior, are 15, 35, 28 and 37). Her goal total surpassed the previous state mark of 107 for players in the state's top two classifications. (Madison Page of Jefferson Academy holds the overall record after finishing this season with 137 career goals for her 3A squad.)
"This is my 14th year, and I think, from an offensive standpoint, I've never seen anything like what Annie has brought to us," Wheat Ridge coach Dan Watkins said. "And that's to make our team and program better as well as what she's accomplished individually."
Easily recognizable as the tallest and typically most active player on the pitch, Kunz utilized her prototype athlete's body to enhance her prowess.
"Most definitely," Watkins said. "I think some of that was just her speed in general. But as a forward who is going to draw a lot of attention, I think you have to be able to use that body. Her ability to separate from a defender really gave her an advantage. The technical pieces were there, but her physical tools really allowed her to separate herself as one of the best."
Kunz gets some of her athletic prowessfrom her father Terry, who played footballfor the Oakland Raiders.
Photo courtesy of Dennis Pleuss/Wheat Ridge Transcript
Pedigree doesn't hurt either. Kunz's father, Terry, is a former University of Colorado athlete and a running back for the 1976 Oakland Raiders. One gets the impression the elder Kunz is more taken aback by his daughter's accomplishments than his own.
"It's been unbelievable," Terry Kunz said. "It's a lot easier as a player to go to some of these games because you can affect the outcome. When you're a parent, you're just kind of stuck there in the stands, hoping."
For Terry Kunz, most of those hopes were realized. But here is what further separates his daughter as one of the finest in state annals: not only was she a dominating athlete (also a member of the Wheat Ridge volleyball team), but as genuine a person as can be.
Watkins claimed he's never had an athlete as concerned about the success of her teammates as Kunz, and her demeanor has never contained an ounce of pretentiousness, according to her peers.
"She's one of the nicest girls I've ever met," Wheat Ridge three-sport athlete Nick Swanson said. "You see her at school and she always says hi, gives you a hug. Just a great person.
"She's amazing," Swanson continued. "It's fun to hear about all her accomplishments and everything she does for Wheat Ridge. It's just an honor to go to school with somebody like that."
Predictably, the final loss to Valor Christian was only a downer and not a spoiler for Kunz.
"To make it three years in a row was amazing for me," Kunz said. "I was more sad that the season and my career were over and that I wasn't going to be able to play with my friends again. But we had a good run and I'm proud of the girls."
Paul Willis is a regular sports freelancer for The Denver Post and covered high school, college and pro sports for the Rocky Mountain News from 2000-09. You can reach him at gdpdub@aol.com.
