Irv Moss of the Denver Post, center, receives a commemorative football in recognition of his Lifetime Achievement Award from 2015 FWAA President Lee Barfknecht, left, and Tim Simmons of BFI Events, right. Photo by Melissa Macatee for the FWAA.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.— Longtime Denver Post writer Irv Moss received the FWAA Lifetime Achievement Award on Monday morning during the association’s annual awards breakfast at the College Football Playoff title game media hotel.

Moss, 81,  is a graduate of Denver West High School, and has covered events in the state of Colorado for 60 years.

• He is both a Ram and Pioneer as he attended both Colorado State and the University of Denver.
• He is a U. S. Army veteran.
• He has been covering sports in the “Centennial” state for seven decades (60 years).
• He started writing sports for The Denver Post on February 8, 1956.
• He has also covered the Winter and Summer Olympic Games.
• He will be inducted this month into the Colorado High School Sports Hall-of-Fame.
• He was a long-time member of the selection committee for the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
• He has been nominated for the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
• He still writes the “Colorado Classic” column for the Denver Post.
• During his first of 46-seasons as the Air Force “beat” writer in 1970, the Falcons posted a 9-3 record, finished as the 16th ranked team in the country, defeated Stanford and Jim Plunkett 31-14 and played Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl.  That season, Stanford defeated No. 2 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.
• He has covered five of the seven football coaches at Air Force, including Ben Martin, Bill Parcells, Ken Hatfield, Fischer DeBerry and now Troy Calhoun.
• Bob Whitlow and Buck Shaw were the first two Air Force Academy coaches and he probably saw the Falcons play during their first three seasons of competition (1955, 1956 and 1957) when their games were at the University of Denver.
• He has covered 20 of the 24 Air Force bowl games (10-10 record).
• He is probably the only media person to cover every commander-in-chief trophy competition since the start of the series in 1972.
• He has covered 84 CIC games as Air Force has won the trophy 19 times.
• He has covered 28 of the 30 games in the Air Force-Notre Dame series.
• He saw the Falcons defeat the Irish four-straight seasons (1982-1985).
• He saw two Falcon squads ranked among the Top 10 (1985 and 1998, when Air Force finished 12-1 both seasons).
• He covered the 1985 Air Force team that is considered the most successful season in Academy football history. The Falcons came within one win of playing for the national championship (Oklahoma vs. Penn State) as Air Force recorded 10 straight wins to start the season, climbed the polls to No. 2 in the nation, but lost to BYU by seven points in the next-to-last game of the regular season. Air Force rebounded with a bowl win over Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl and finished as the No. 5 ranked team in the nation.
•  Moss has covered everything from A to Z in the Rocky Mountain Empire.
• That starts with Air Force Football ends with Zebulon’s failure to climb Pike’s Peak in 1806.
• He covered Wyoming football and wrote about the Black 14 in 1969.
•  Twenty years later, he helped break the story with the late Dick Connor about Bertram M. Lee and Peter C.B. Bynoe making sports history as the first African-American owners of a sports franchise (Nuggets).
• He has been quoted in the book Freddie Steinmark: Faith, Family, Football — “If you’ve ever swatted at a fly with your hand, you know what the Lakewood High School football team faced when it tried to stop a 77-yard touchdown run by Wheat Ridge’s Fred Steinmark that whipped the Tigers.”  And to note, John Hancock coached Lakewood.