Western Colorado University Athletics

Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Mike Sirko came to Western in 1971 from Monaca, Pennsylvania. Sirko played football for the Mountaineers, being named a team captain twice and winning three RMAC Championships and earning All-RMAC honors as a lineman.
 
After graduating from Western with a degree in education in 1975, Sirko began what would be a lifetime coaching career. In 1976, he accepted an assistant position with the Hotchkiss High School football team. Just three years later, he would take over the reigns as the Bulldogs' head coach.
 
For the following thirty years, Sirko would compile over 240 wins with stints at five different Colorado high schools. He ranks seventh all-time in Colorado high school football wins.
 
Before retiring as the Aspen High School head coach in 2013, Sirko had posted 17 consecutive winning seasons at three different high school programs – Aspen, Doherty High School and Rampart High School.
 
"Mike is as knowledgeable a person as there is about high school football," former assistant coach under Sirko, Matt Wibbels said in his nomination letter. "He has taken his passion for playing football, first cultivated at Western State, and turned it into a prestigious career."
 
Sirko is known for taking teams from the bottom and turning them into contenders, and did that at every stop.
 
When Sirko took over Aspen, the Skiers hadn't had a winning season since 1985, and hadn't made the playoffs since 1974. His first season, Aspen went 7-3 and made the playoffs. In his second, Aspen won a playoff game.
 
He went 52-24 in seven seasons at Aspen.
 
Sirko had two stints at Rampart, as well, including 1996-2003 during which the Rams made three semifinal appearances. In 1998, he led the Rams to a 14-0 season and the 4A state title. Prior to his arrival in 1996, Rampart was 0-9.
 
He also turned around Falcon (1982-88), leading a winless program to its first-ever winning season.
 
In his first stint at Hotchkiss (1979-82), which was also his first high school job, Sirko took over a program that was 0-34, and led them to the 2A quarterfinals and semifinals in two of his three seasons.
 
Sirko currently resides in Grand Junction, Colorado where is the head coach of the Grand Junction High School Tigers