High school sports, once viewed as a bastion of wholesomeness, is being transformed into a cutthroat business at the highest levels of play, with teenage athletes the prized assets.

Colorado private schools — notably upstart Valor Christian, in addition to Regis Jesuit and football power Mullen — have catapulted to recent prominence by capitalizing on their ability to attract top athletes from around metro Denver.

Participants, including Valor Christian’s former star quarterback Brock Berglund, acknowledge the playing field is no longer level as superior facilities and recruiting tactics replace the luck of the draw that public schools rely on to build their teams.

As frustrated fans watch star players bolt their neighborhood, the competitiveness of the game has changed too, angering rival coaches and leaving those at the highest level of the sport wondering how to deal with the phenomenon.

“We know this is the topic,” said Paul Angelico, commissioner of the Colorado High School Activities Association. “It’s never not been an issue, but as a few private schools have gotten very successful, the issue has grown.”

Chaparral High football coach John Vogt calls the battle between public and private an “arms race” that public schools — like the one he works at in Parker — inevitably lose. “Essentially, it’s like playing an all-star team every time you play them,” he said.

In the 2010-11 school year, Regis Jesuit won seven state team titles, Mullen won its third consecutive Class 5A football crown amid a 34-game winning streak, and Valor, in just its third year of varsity competition, won its second consecutive football title.

On Saturday afternoon, Valor steamrolled to its third consecutive title, routing Pine Creek, 66-10, in the 4A championship game and setting a scoring record for a championship game.

While the big schools get the most attention, the issue is statewide and at every classification. For instance, the elite eight of 3A boys soccer this fall featured seven private schools.

According to research by The Denver Post, 4 percent of all high school championships were won by private schools in the 1980s, a number that grew to 9.7 percent in the 1990s. From 2000 through the 2010-11 school year, 22.7 percent of team titles were won by private schools, though only 12 percent of CHSAA schools are private.

Private schools in Colorado have long excelled at some of the so-called country club sports — tennis, lacrosse, swimming and golf — but in the past few years, the public schools have lost their grip on the bigger championships.

Once a one-trick pony — boys swimming — Regis Jesuit has won at least one championship in boys and girls swimming, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls golf, baseball, boys cross country, hockey and boys tennis in just the past three years. Valor Christian is building the preeminent sports powerhouse in Colorado, with facilities some colleges would envy. And Mullen, under legendary coach Dave Logan, built the biggest 5A football dynasty since Cherry Creek in the mid-’90s.

No private school, however, has caused as much uproar as Valor, which has infuriated rival schools to the point that the Eagles were recently forced to go independent in every sport except for football, lacrosse and hockey.

Valor officials admit they need to do some fence-mending in the prep community but view success, in everything, as their mission.

“If we’ve changed the game, we don’t apologize for that,” said Kurt Unruh, Valor’s president and head of school. “There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s good for Colorado. That’s good for education. That’s good for high school sports everywhere.”

Prestige of winning

Those associated with public schools feel the playing field tilting as private schools extend their reach and influence. Advantages include bigger budgets to spend on facilities, more assistant coaches and the resources to reach out to potential students across the region, not just the local school district.

But those advantages have been around for decades. What has changed is the emphasis on sports in today’s culture — specifically youth sports. Parents are spending an enormous amount of money on their sons and daughters to play club sports at an early age. By the time those kids reach high school, parents want the best athletic program for them.

“Parents are spending so much time and money in hopes that something comes from that,” Angelico said. “Even if it’s not a college scholarship, maybe it’s a starting position, or even to make the team. All of a sudden, parents are spending thousands of dollars, and if the student doesn’t (make it), it’s the end of the world. I get that, but it has skewed what (high school sports) is supposed to be all about.”

And, as long as private schools win, they attract more blue-chippers.

“The kids private schools have — athletically, it’s the top end of all (kids who attend) public schools,” said Berglund, a 2011 Valor grad and quarterback who led the Eagles to consecutive state titles. “The dominoes keep falling. Mullen becomes a name, so everyone associates sports with Mullen. Valor and Regis, the same thing. You can win a state title there. Right, wrong or indifferent . . . the trend itself brings guys that wouldn’t normally come.”

And with winning comes prestige.

“Where else are you going to read about a private school in the paper, other than in the sports section?” Angelico said. “That is a free PR tool for more than just athletics; it’s for the school. I think it’s almost smart.”

Whether it’s always wise for parents to fund those dreams, in search of that scholarship, is another matter.

The proliferation and specialization of youth sports — and, by extension, club sports teams — has made finding the “best fit” high school a priority for parents. It’s commonplace for parents to pay thousands of dollars on fees and travel expenses for their teenagers to play with club teams. One former Mullen parent, Doc Palmere, helped mold his daughter, Laura, with a support staff that included basketball coaches, weightlifting experts and a specialist who helps athletes maximize mental toughness. She now plays at Weber State.

“Parents and kids will do whatever it takes,” said Jerry Howard of Biokats, a Denver-based service that showcases young athletes to college programs. “There are kids out there so caught up in Division I, they’ll do anything.”

When asked if the public vs. private issue has escalated because of the increased importance society places on youth sports, Angelico only smiled.

“Is that even a question?” Then he responded, “I don’t mind saying this: We are receiving kids now whose parents and kids have never experienced anything beyond ‘It’s all about me’ in club sports.

“We have to re-educate kids and parents when they get to high school: ‘This isn’t club.’ (In high school), it’s not about you. It’s about team, school and community. You are serving them. In the club, they are serving you.”

Widening gray area

In its research, which included interviews with more than 25 people involved in high school athletics, The Denver Post discovered that numerous schools, including Valor and Regis Jesuit, have broken CHSAA rules regarding recruiting, most of them minor.

The almost unenforceable gray area, however, is monitoring talented middle-schoolers being recruited by coaches, parents and high school representatives. Multiple sources confirmed this practice is widespread in metro Denver, by both public and private schools, though private schools tend to get blamed more because of heightened scrutiny that comes with winning.

Berglund told The Post he was in eighth grade when he met with members of Valor’s football staff and talked about the program with coaches. He was even given tapes of the offense Valor’s coaches ran at their previous school, Orange Lutheran in California, he said. All this happened before he enrolled there, he said. It is against CHSAA rules to target an eighth-grader using sports as a recruiting tool.

“There was no way I was going to go there,” Berglund said, “and then out of the blue, I was like, ‘I like this place.’ Talking to the coach, I was like, ‘Oh, this is the place I want to end up going.’ “

Asked specifically about recruiting, Valor administrators repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Unruh said, “We’re not an arrogant group of people that says we’re savvy or sophisticated, we’re going to bend this, we’re going to do that. It just isn’t any good for business. It makes no sense to put this level of investment at stake for corner-cutting or small-rule- breaking or any of those kinds of things.”

When asked whether any eighth- graders were given tapes to look at, athletic director Rod Sherman said, “I don’t have any knowledge (of that).”

Angelico said coaches can’t “have anything to do with a specific kid in regards to a program until he has registered and signed up for classes at that high school.”

CHSAA is preparing to implement a bylaw tightening rules regarding contact schools can have with eighth-graders. The association has a number of bylaws seeking to curtail recruiting, including rules that ban school representatives from trying to “solicit or encourage” potential students. (It defines “school representatives” as any person with a special interest in a school or athletic team.) Last year, Regis Jesuit self-reported a violation in which football coach Mark Nolan sent a mass e-mail to eighth-grade students — including athletes and nonathletes, boys and girls — inviting them to an open house. Nolan and the team’s freshman coach were forced to sit out a game because of the incident.

“We chose to face the consequences for something that we didn’t necessarily know that we had done something wrong originally,” Nolan said.

Valor has had nine violations of CHSAA rules in its first four years, two of consequence: Its baseball coach e-mailed his former high school team information about Valor, and a 2010 track meet was marred by what some claimed was blatant recruiting of opposing athletes.

“It was so bad that coaches were verbally jawing at the finish line over their athletes,” Nolan said.

It was the first, and last, track meet Valor ever hosted.

Even when rules aren’t broken, some athletic powers anger Angelico by how they are enticing prospective students — from Facebook messaging and e-mails to pizza parties that, conveniently, come with a campus tour.

“I say over and over to private schools: ‘I can’t defend you on that,’ ” Angelico said. “Is it wrong? No. But am I going to go out of my way to say that you’re OK doing it? No. There’s that big gray area.”

The dividing lines

The Moby Dick-size net cast by private schools over the Front Range in efforts to snag potential students is much wider and all-encompassing than their public school counterparts. While Colorado allows open enrollment — kids can attend a public high school other than the one in their neighborhood so long as there is room — the net isn’t nearly as wide or deep.

“All our city teams are affected by (private schools), big time,” said Tony Lindsay, football coach at the public Denver South. “They come in here and they pull these kids out of the city, and they take them and then they come back with our same kids and they whoop up on us.”

“Kids should attend the school in the district they live in,” said Nathan Schweid, a George Washington High senior football player. “If a kid is fortunate enough that their parents can pay full tuition at a private school, then so be it, but when schools are handing out scholarships to the players they want in their program, that is not how high school athletics should be.”

When a young athlete takes an interest in attending a private school, especially one of the “Big Three” — Regis Jesuit, Mullen and Valor — their socks (and cleats and shin guards) could be knocked off. Valor’s expansive, state-of-the art $73 million campus in Highlands Ranch, for instance, resembles a small college.

“If you go to Valor and see the facilities, they don’t even have to say anything,” said Berglund, the former Valor quarterback. “They can just walk you through the building, and that sells itself. Same thing with Mullen; you can play for Dave Logan. You know what you’re getting. Sometimes at a public school, you never know what’s going to go on. The program might be good, it might not be good.”

Success isn’t cheap. Tuition to attend Mullen is $10,300 this school year. Regis Jesuit costs $11,225, and Valor costs $13,950, according to their respective websites.

All three use a program in which the third-party FACTS analyzes a household’s income and recommends how much of the tuition a family can pay. The rest is usually subsidized by the school. But a third-party recommendation is just that; schools can give more or less financial assistance as they see fit.

More than ever, it seems, kids, parents and schools seek athletic success.

“We’ve gotten to the point where it’s so darn important (to win), rather than looking at, ‘Why did we start this to begin with?’ ” Wheat Ridge athletic director Nick DeSimone said, reflecting on his youth. “It was fun. I got to hang out with my buddies and we all liked football and we got to play.”

Staff writer Electa Draper contributed to this report.

Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com; Ryan Casey: 303-954-1983 or rcasey@denverpost.com