Multi-sport mentor enshrined at Melton meet
Familiar to just about every wrestler, coach, or aficionado in the building Saturday, Jan. 25, lifelong Ignacio Bobcat athlete, coach and administrator Rocky Cundiff was inducted into IHS’ Coaches Hall of Fame.
Preceding the final round of the 2025 Butch Melton Memorial Invitational, he watched as current Ignacio grapplers Lincoln deKay and Zane Pontine pulled down the black shroud covering a newly installed panel alongside the one filled up by last year’s induction of former boys’ basketball skipper Lee Larson.
And saw his own name directly across from none other than 2001 inductee Melton’s.
“One of my original mentors … he coached me in second grade,” Cundiff, presented to the crowd by Ross Melton, said afterwards. “That’s pretty awesome to be ‘next to’ Mr. Melton; I still don’t know if I deserve it, to be honest with you. It was a real honor to see people I’ve worked with, played with, wrestled with, coached with … that helped me become who I was as a coach. But you can’t put it all in words.”
Ross Melton, a 2004 IHS grad and twice a State Championships sixth-place wrestler, tried to.
Listing many of Cundiff’s accomplishments, he spoke of Cundiff’s 13-year run as IHS Track & Field’s head coach – noting that Cundiff and previous inductees Juvie Jones (2008) and Doug Little (2019) had coached the majority of the school’s state champions/placers. There was recognition of a five-season stretch as IHS Volleyball assistant coach, and two seasons as the skipper, and of course Cundiff’s dozen seasons as assistant to IHS Wrestling boss Chris deKay.
Melton mentioned that the duo were responsible for winning more than 115 duals, coached 27 State placers and four State champs – more State placers than any individual coach or pair before them – and reminded spectators that Cundiff had been named the Colorado High School Coaches Association’s (all-sport) Assistant Coach-of-the-Year in 2008.
“Rocky’s coaching style was to train mental toughness, preparedness,” Melton said during his speech. “Pushes athletes beyond their limits they ever thought they could attain. He does this while taking no credit for himself and insists that … young athletes have merely discovered existing potential within themselves.”
“If you were an athlete of Rocky’s,” he added, speaking not from his prepared notes, “one of the best compliments you could ever receive would be that you were dumb and stupid. It meant that you worked hard, that you had self-discipline, and that you did the right thing – even though it was the hard thing or there was no reward for it.”
“I’d like to thank my family for putting up with me being gone a lot,” Cundiff said, following the unveiling. “And I’m being put in because of the names of the State champions, State placers – and I want you to know that I really appreciate all those athletes … that are honored and, also, the athletes that aren’t. And right now, I just want to see some great wrestling!”
“The kids that I’d coached deserve (this) kind of thing,” he said afterwards, while tipping the proverbial hat to his own coaching influences – particularly, as far as wrestling goes, including Aztec, N.M. and Bayfield icon Herb Stinson. “And, like, just to have these people here was wonderful to see. That honor was really mine.”