SAN ANTONIO, TX – No book, story or video can sum up “The Rise” of Colorado Football. But a four word slogan might be able to.
‘Welcome to the Fight’ (WTTF) has been enshrined on the tee shirts, laden in the words and ubiquitous in the minds of the Colorado Buffaloes in 2016. WTTF isn’t something to be cute or coy about, it is not to be mocked and it is not to be confused with clever marketing. WTTF describes the in-house mindset of the players, coaches and staffers of the Buffaloes. It is the palpable mindset in which every brick of the Champions Center was laid, the attitude that characterizes every weight lifted, tackle made and pass caught, WTTF is the turnaround of Colorado Football.
Fourth-year head coach Mike MacIntyre took a club that was a cellar dweller, chocked full of complacency and changed them into Pac-12 South Champions. It didn’t take just one year of work, although on paper and in the standings it would appear that way. The team had become more more competitive and hungry over the course of MacIntyre’s tenure. They were so close so many times in 2015 that it was heartbreaking to anyone that had an ounce of care for Colorado. What the Buffaloes lacked was a style, a swagger, a persona.
“It’s all-encompassing, all of that embodies the person you’re going to be,” MacIntyre distilled the qualities of his quartet of a catchphrase. “In every situation, you’re going to have to face it, you can’t run from things, it eventually catches up with you no matter what it is. We took ‘Welcome to the Fight’ into the games, we tell them to enjoy every minute of the fight and our guys have shown that on the field this year, we’ve been up, we’ve been down, we’ve been behind, it looks like we aren’t clicking and they just fought through it and come out on the other side so that has been a persona of this football team.”
Even the most talented teams need an identity, they need a reason to exist, to thrive, to win. For the 1927 Yankees it was ‘Murderers Row,’ the 1990s Bulls had the rise of superstardom in basketball with Michael Jordan and the turn-of-the-cetnruy Rams had the ‘Greatest Show on Turf,’ changing offense in football. Good teams need something to hang their hats on, too, even if it is as simple as defense and rebounding like Tad Boyle’s philosophy. Until this season on the football field, Colorado had long lacked an identity.
“It was awesome, some of the games during the season, in the middle of the season we’re kinda to me foundation building games and I kinda realized they had caught it,” MacIntyre described the team as it found its identity in WTTF. “After that, I felt like, it wasn’t on self-pilot but I knew all of that (other stuff) was fixed and all they had to do was play football. That made everything else smoother and we went on a long winning streak. Everybody kept saying, ‘Are they ready? Are they ready? I knew we were ready. Now were we good enough to beat the teams. The teams were good. We found ways to do that but we were ready to play.”
They found ways because they are a special team, and what separates great teams from special ones are the teams that find something to play for aside from the “W” next to their name. Between an enviable passion to prove the doubters wrong and an us-against-the-world mentality, the Buffs found a reason. Whether it’s playing for Sal Aunese like CU has in the past or your late father which happened with Coach MacIntyre this year, it helps to have a reason outside of football for committing yourself to the game. This season, the Buffaloes have had many.
“Last year was a tough year, our guys kept fighting, keep working, kept going and came up close,” MacIntyre said in recollection. “Personally in our family, I lost my mother in-law and my dad so there were a lot of things going on there. My wife and I were talking one day and we talked about how life is a fight and if you don’t welcome it, it can destroy you. Facing adversity can either make you or break you. We were talking about then I started thinking about our team and I talked to our captains and our seniors and then we had a meeting in May and I said, ‘Welcome to the fight, every day is going to be a fight in life and we have to embrace it.’ We took that motto and said we’re going to fight every day in a positive sense and realize that when things in life come your way that are hard you can either turn away and run or face it and grow and that’s what the team has done. That’s what ‘Welcome to the Fight’ means, it’s an everyday battle and a lot of our kids have used it in a lot of different situations they’ve gone through.”
Family is one of MacIntyre’s key fundamentals. You see, his four-word slogan is really just an abbreviation for his four fundamentals. Foundation, future and football are the other three.
It reads in MacIntyre’s biography that family “is about being close, caring about each other and being accountable to each other. CU’s players have to fully understand how their actions affect their teammates – on the field and in life. They will understand how their actions represent Colorado and their individual legacies.”
Every man’s foundation is their family. Fittingly, MacIntyre’s next credo is foundation.
Again from the coach’s biography, “foundation is about becoming a solid person on a daily basis in their daily activities. That includes a commitment to things like self-discipline, perseverance, time management and responsibility.”
“It’s a process, and the first thing you have to do is to develop a relationship with the players and know that you have mutual trust,” MacIntyre spoke to how he built his bottom layer. “Then you start to build that culture and that foundation. It was truly brick by brick, but at the same time we had to develop our players physically too. We’re at the point now we’re we are a good physical football team, we’re mentally there and we have the fortitude with all the things we’ve been through and that will keep getting inherited and embedded in our young guys. That’s a process you have to keep working, it doesn’t just happen. There is still a lot of building blocks I have to do with each class and with each team and every team is going to be different, you have to make sure you hit the right buttons and the right guys are in the right spots to help influence all of that.”
Foundation builds future.
Once again Coach’s biography “future is putting the necessary energy into their academics. Education is their Future. Even if our student-athletes go on to play in the NFL for three to five years, they need to have an idea about what they want to be the rest of their lives. Football is what they currently do, it’s not who they are. He teaches them to use football to get an education and a better future.”
“I tell them all the time the more you grow as a person, and you will reach more dreams than anyone thought you could reach on that football field,” MacIntyre explained his beliefs. “Now you could be successful on a football field and not grow but it eventually catches you so I want to do both. And I believe it’s more fulfilling, long lasting and it establishes the program better.”
While the final F is football, but it might as well be faith. Football is secondary to MacIntyre, if his players can take care of the first three Fs, he has faith that football will take care of itself.
“I never doubted it,” MacInrye explained his faith in knowing he would strike success. “Were there times when we were trying to climb the wall to get there, yes. I never doubted we would end up being successful, that’s a big word. Are there times where you think you have this and that and this and that and then this and that, yes there were are a lot of days like that.”
But MacIntyre always had faith in his fundamentals, he always had the fight.
“I’ve seen it trickle down to the young guys and it’s part of the culture now. The older guys have taken it upon themselves to train the younger guys on what our culture is. There was even one day where a couple of freshman had missed some classes and one of our seniors stood up and said forget it, freshman come meet us here at six in the morning to do up downs and the seniors and captains ran them. We didn’t have many classes missed at all after that, that’s the legacy of what we’re about.”
Every day on campus in Boulder has been a fight for MacIntyre and each Buffalo. It’s a fight they welcomed when they committed to the University of Colorado. It’s a fight they welcome on every snap of every game they play.
Colorado Football fought it’s way back to college football relevancy, and it’s because they welcomed it.
