AURORA | Two longtime friends and members of Aurora Central’s last state championship baseball team joined the school’s Legends Club Thursday night.
Rich Evans and John Brooks — who starred together in baseball and football at the school in the late 1960s and helped the Trojans capture the 1969 Class 3A state baseball championship — were honored prior to the boys basketball game between Aurora Central and Alameda.
The duo became the 19th and 20th members of the Legends Club, which began at the school in 2004 with the induction of Rhonda Blanford-Green, Dave Gonzales and Pat Manson.
Brooks, 62, is currently a district judge in Wyoming. As a running back at Aurora Central, he led the Centennial League — which coach Don Drury’s Trojans were a member of at the time — in rushing for three straight seasons from 1966 to 1968 and went on to play two seasons of football at the University of New Mexico. Brooks also played center field on Aurora Central’s outstanding baseball team under Herb Buchkowski and was a key member of the 1969 championship team, the school’s last baseball winner.
The 61-year-old Evans had a magical 1969 season and formed one of the Centennial League’s most outstanding pitching duos along with Ron DeJean. He went 13-0 on the mound and scored many key runs in the 1969 state title run, then got a contract offer — which included a $5,000 signing bonus — after graduation from the New York Mets.
Evans decided to take advantage of a baseball scholarship to the University of Arizona instead, but a rotator cuff injury kept him from going further with the sport. He ended up playing two years of football at Arizona. Evans had stakes in a number of restaurants around Aurora and now works for DHL.
Reach Sports Editor Courtney Oakes at sports@aurorasentinel.com or 303-750-7555
AURORA CENTRAL LEGENDS CLUB
Gary Karl Alexander; Craig Bozich; John Brooks; Mark Corey; Steve Eaton; Dave Gonzales*; Rhonda Blanford-Green*; Rich Evans; Amy Baker Halsey; Danny Jackson; Mike Jackson; Ken Krieger; Pat Manson*; Bart Roth; Tim Scheibeler; Don Sanchez; Dean Schock; Dean Sessions; Donald Sessions; Lewis Sondgeroth
* — Part of original induction class in 2004
Class of 1969 had many great athletes, they also won the Centennial league championship in basketball. The football team beat a Wyoming team which travelled to Aurora. Rich Evans’ cycle in the AAA champio