Thoughts on Home
Saturday Afternoons
As students, alumni and players build one of the most exciting football programs in Colorado, it does so in to a town that won’t show up.
How is it that NCAA D2 National Champions don’t have more noise and hype around the team? And meaningful home games aren’t sold-out?
In the state of Colorado only three teams have become National Champions, the CU Buffaloes in 1990, who tied D1 co-champions with the Georgia Bulldog that year, University of Northern Colorado Grizzlies winning back-to-back D2 champions in the nineties and CSU-Pueblo in 2014.
Like some in Pueblo, some football fans make the argument D2 football isn’t real college football and if it’s not for the “real” National Championship, the “real” one with AP rankings, and a trip to the “real” bowl games, named after fruits or flowers, the football doesn’t matter.
If winning it all is the only measure of how watchable college football is, then why should football fans care about Air Force or CSU-Ft. Collins football? Come on, those teams don’t have any “real” chance to win the National Championship.
But that’s not the spirit of college football; it’s not why teams play the game.
College football is about pageantry and tradition as much as the action on the field. A Saturday tradition of a pre-game grilling, the sounds of the marching band, a raucous student section, hot dogs and nachos at half-time, the flips and kicks of the cheerleaders and watching student-athletes play football.
At CSU-Pueblo however, as the temperatures dip and the Thunderwolves stalk postseason play after a rocky start, the stands are growing more empty. The student section is thinner than it was. And local media, with slogans promising just how much they care about local sports, skip out to cover other “bigger” games.
Thunderwolf football is better and stronger than ever before and doesn’t deserve to be ignored by football fans. In every home game, the stands should be full, the marching band loud and the community in a sea of red.
Maybe success came a little too soon, too easily since Coach John Wristen took over in 2008, and now the community just figures RMAC football is just easy football.
But even during the Pack’s National Championship run, the stands were only partially full. Interest waned even as CSU-Pueblo travelled to the final game. And the community along with CSU-Pueblo struggled to celebrate the new National Champions, who waited a month to finally throw a parade on a Friday, during work hours.
The enthusiasm gap for CSU-Pueblo goes deeper than just perceptions of D2 football; it strikes at the very heart of CSU-Pueblo’s legacy. Its tradition has always been to fill the diploma gap, to serve as a go-between of pieces of paper — the transition from a high school diploma to a paycheck.
In many ways, university and city were separate, never needing the other. Whereas in Boulder and Ft. Collins college football moved from a Saturday activity to an obsession of pride and identity. In an abstract way, attending university is really about unbridled youth and enthusiasm for an idea — the dream of future success — exactly what a football team plays for every Saturday.
For the past several weeks, PULP under the brand “Requarter Sports” with journalists Jason Prescott and Trysten Garcia, have been capturing that pageantry of Thunderwolf Football to tell this narrative. (You can find JP and Trysten’s Pack Interference Show at requarter.com.)
Narratives like Bernard McDondle’s, where before he was injured for the season, you could watch him pinball his way, just like his brother and alumn, Cameron, to 150 yards rushing and donating pizza to his offensive line.
Today, running backs coach Sam Sewell barks out instructions to running backs just as his father did at the Thunderbowl. Sam’s father is the legendary Bronco’s running back Steve Sewell and retired Thunderwolves coach.
In the stands you can watch the speedy returner and receiver Daniel Wise be a threat on every touch. But don’t overlook how he is one of the most outgoing and gracious players on the team.
You may have missed also Kieran Duncan returning for homecoming from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League and his CFL teammate, Pack alum CJ Roberts.
Before defensive tackle, and Aussie Brock Davies left professional European rugby to chase his American football dream in Pueblo, there was Morgan Fox, now an L.A. Ram tracking his assignment — a sign of continuity of the quality that went before and quality recruited to Pueblo.
Running up and down the field is the lovable Team Tundra made up of Dr. Mark and Carol Rickman and of course CSU-Pueblo’s mascot, Tundra.
In the stands, you might see some coeds with their midriffs painted “P-A-C-K”, the fake ESPN studio crew and their cardboard desk, or the student section making a Thunderwolves gesture showing two ears perked up.
In the press box, grinding out the narrative for CSU-P is the hardest working press shop in Southern Colorado led by Media Director Dax Larson and CSU-Pueblo students. And on the sidelines our own reporters, two CSU-P grads covering each game because it’s meaningful to hype, talk, debate and argue over CSU-Pueblo in a way others won’t do.
Just off to the side stands the Leomiti Warrior Center, named not for a high-dollar donor but for Donnell Leomiti, the defensive backs coach who battled pancreatic cancer, but fought through four surgeries to return to the sidelines. As testament to the community and spirit of CSU-Pueblo, the anesthesiologist on Leomiti’s procedures was none other than Dr. Rickman, Tundra’s “dad”.
Every Saturday afternoon, as the band plays the school fight song and the players hold their helmets to the sky in salute to their school and their supporters — students, athletes and alumni come together to build a connection from the past to the future doing for Pueblo what much of Pueblo struggles to do for these students — showing up and showing out.
CSU-Pueblo Thunderwolves football, against all the odds, has built a tradition bonding college and community together. The Pueblo community in return should ‘Pack’ their stadium, every Saturday afternoon, because a team that has built a college tradition so quickly, shouldn’t play in front of empty seats.
