In 1945, at the age of 13, Irwin started to play tennis, after finding his mother’s old (1918) wooden tennis racket. He strung it twice and he and a friend, Nick Siegel, went to Gove Junior High School to play tennis all day, every day, each summer. At East High School, Irwin competed at the No. 1 sport on the tennis team and, in 1949, they captured the state title. Irwin then played tennis at the University of Denver.

“The other part of my life is the tennis. … Tennis is a lot of physics. I taught basic strokes ….”

In the late 1950s, few clubs offered tennis instruction. In 1958, Irwin began working with Arnie Brown at Cherry Hills Country Club to develop an outreach program. By training their top juniors to teach tennis, and then placing them at area facilities with courts, they were able to provide tennis instruction to many more players. About 15 area clubs benefited from the program. Hoffman organized a summer junior league to provide competition for all these new tennis players. The interclub league was later turned over to the CTA which, in 2004, involved some 3,000 juniors each year. He also created a doubles and mixed-doubles tournament at Green Gables, which ultimately hosted more than 500 players.

In addition to being tennis coach at GWHS for seven seasons, he also directed and managed Heather Ridge Racquet Club for nearly a decade. Many of his students received national ranking, some played college tennis, and two of Irwin’s students have played professional tennis.

He often quipped that he went into teaching so he would have his summers free to play tennis professionally—indeed, that is just what he did; he had his summer free for tennis. He was not an ordinary teacher. He was a pioneer in computer mathematics in the early 1960s, when most people had not even heard the word computer.

NEXT: THE KOREAN WAR AND ROTC