Whelan: A letter to myself regarding The Rise of Colorado Football

Fifteen years ago, no more than two hours after the goal posts at Folsom Field came crumbling down right alongside the once proud Nebraska Cornhuskers football program, you didn’t know any better. Walking the streets of The Hill, picking up half-smoked cigarettes out of the gutter and lighting them up, seemed like a good idea to you, being a 12-year-old.

After three different fraternities had kicked you out of their parties—you know, for being a pre-teen—you looked over at your friend Cody while waiting for “The Skip” bus. You in your black shirt with gold lettering and him wearing a white-tee, having already taken off his red and white Huskers shirt.

“I’m going here,” you said, looking across from Meta Skateboards at the looming campus.

Two days before Colorado, ranked No. 9 in all of college football, takes on Utah in a similar regular-season finale to that one back in 2001—a spot in the conference title game sitting there, ready, waiting, willing— you’ll think about that night and the nights that came after it, before The Rise.

You’ll think about leaving Boulder to attend your first year of high school at Mullen in south Denver, where you saw your first recruiting letters. That’s right around when Gary Barnett was losing it, when the Buffs’ glow was starting to wear off. A few of the guys on the varsity squad at Mullen would compare letters coming in from all over, the likes of Oklahoma, Kansas State, USC, Texas, and more. Being just a freshman, you asked them why none of them wanted to go to CU, the school you’d pledged your heart to long before you’d even considered what an SAT was, other than “Saturday” on a calendar.

“Man, (expletive) CU,” they’d joke. 

Of those flaunting their offers and college visits, only one would commit to Colorado, though he ultimately failed to qualify.

Just a few months later, you’d face the choice between staying in Colorado to live with your mom or leaving for California with your dad. This…this is one of those choices everyone looks back on, the tipping point, you know? Where everything changed or, at least compared to where you’re at now, would have changed. Had you stayed in Colorado, you’ll think, there’s no way you’d be writing this, about this. You’d have left after high school, probably for New York or California and never looked back, rejecting the state that raised you forever, foregoing any follow through on the claim you made that night, the night Colorado was supposed to be back. It took you two years of being gone to even think about it, the feeling you had storming that field and looking around at the kids you wanted to be and hoped thought you were one of them. Pretty terrible timing too, 70-3 and all.

For all of the moving pieces in your life before then, before getting the call about your acceptance to the University of Colorado at Boulder and damn near running three or four cars off of the highway in Oakland, you still think this is where it all got the most complicated, don’t you? You know, at least, that this is where you almost lost it. “It” being that connection to that night on that field against that team by that score. Your memory turns into fast forward, too. Admission, student loans, dorm move-in, orientation rally, “**** Creek!”, first F, failed final exam, move out, Alex Henry’s 57-yarder, Readmission to school. By then, it was 2010, and you were walking into Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, hype as all hell. Not only was everyone there, family and friends alike, but the website you wrote for at the time said it would move to a premium model and start paying you for your posts and writing… if the Buffs won. They, um, didn’t.

By then, it was 2010, and you were walking into Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, hype as all hell. Not only was everyone there, family and friends alike, but the website you wrote for at the time said it would move to a premium model and start paying you for your posts and writing…if the Buffs won. They, um, didn’t.

Sure, the game against Georgia where B.J. Beatty forced the game-sealing fumble got your attention, but there was something about that Cal game, wasn’t there? Sitting here, now, you sort of nod shamefully. That was the closest you ever came to just being done, done with Colorado football. That next season, you started actually covering the team–remembering as best you could the advice your high school journalism teacher gave you after shredding one of your fan-boy articles: Impartiality is the most important trait in a journalist. So, you kind of said screw it. You just focused on covering the team as honestly as possible, noting that Jon Embree’s postgame rant was more than a little ironic, no matter how inspiring it might have also been. 

By Colorado State the next season, there weren’t any slight knee jerks under the media table when the Buffs made a play, with hardly any reason to smile after the few games they won. You checked out and you know it, knew it then even. Given up, any sort of attention and passion available turning towards hoops. Resigned to the notion that whatever Colorado football meant that night, when you looked at Cody and mocked him for his porcelain hair and equally poor views in football fandom, had long since passed. Quite frankly, you were probably done with sports writing then, even though you wouldn’t admit it until, well, right now. You didn’t love it anymore.

It’s funny how things work out, of course, because it’s a damn good thing that you didn’t admit it. You’d have missed all of this, you think. Coming back to Colorado in the summer of 2016, you took the job of Editor over at BSN Buffs despite knowing you wouldn’t be able to pull it off, not with your wine career taking off the way it was (and has). Not with that little voice sitting on the keyboard every time you published a story, reminding you that when you don’t love the subject, your writing pretty much sucks. Had you done something about it then, though, you wouldn’t have asked Mike MacIntyre the one question you so desperately wanted to, “Why should anyone think this year will be any different?”

As you consider the fact that in 2016, you’ve been to more games outside of a press box than you have since you were a 12-year-old, you’ll wholeheartedly thank yourself for internally lying about what being a sports writer meant to you. How, had you been real at the time, your connection to Colorado football might have been lost forever. You’ll think about spending Saturdays in Folsom Field with some of your best friends and significant other, all of whom you met through your sports writing career. You’ll think about how you weren’t real before and how, now, it might be time to change that. How you’ve got your fandom back in a way you haven’t had since that night, that game, that team. How you’re done being impartial and loosening the strings holding together the relationship you have with the program.

You’ll think, and probably anyone reading this, about what has happened this season. About how a win on Saturday would obviously take it to a new level, furthering the story of a season meant for a documentary. But even more so, about those years where you were lost right alongside the program and how good it feels to be back, how fragile success like this can be. 

Finally, you won’t even think at all, only smile and try to keep the room from getting too dusty before thanking all of your editors, colleagues, readers, subscribers, coaches, players, and everyone else who kept you afloat long enough to reach this point.

Because The Rise always feels better after one hell of a fall.

Thanks, Colorado.