How I Fell in Love with Colorado State University

If you know me at all, you know that I am one of the biggest CSU fans in the world (and my height has nothing to do with it). CSU clothes make up half my wardrobe. My car is adorned w/ a CSU sticker on the back windshield. I attended CSU. So did my mother, sister, uncle, first-cousin, tons of other family members, and best friends. I covered CSU athletics for the Collegian. I spent a semester as a Graduate Assistant for CSU Athletics. During that time I helped literally rewrite the CSU record books. I would put my knowledge of CSU sports up against all but 10 people in the world. I rarely go a day with checking Ramnation.com, CSURams.com and Gold & Green News. My obsession with CSU is probably unhealthy.

Yet that hasn't always been the case. I spent much of my life cheering for the now-hated Buffs. I dreamed of attending CU as a kid, playing football on Folsom Field. I cheered against the Rams at the first Rocky Mountain Shootout in Mile High. I cried when my family tuned in halfway through the 1999 CSU win (my dad's inability to read and a 28-0 scoreline just did not compute). Even into my senior year of high school I cheered for CU. Soon that all changed.

And, no, smartass CU alums, it was not because I was somehow rejected from CU and "forced" to attend state (BRAG ALERT: My ACT score was high enough it was literally off the chart both CU & CSU use for entry). It became crystal clear throughout my senior year of school that Colorado State University was the perfect place for me. I got the same exact education and paid far less money to attend. Also, I was able to avoid the vast majority of douchiness that persists in the People's Republic of Boulder.

I was never comfortable in my own skin while growing up in the Dale, but within hours of moving into the dorms at CSU I was already at home. I made friends that I will keep for life and truly blossomed into the awesome human being you see today. The one who is so awesome you losers read words that I write while sitting in my underoos while crying drunken tears.

I bonded with many of my friends on my second night at State when we stumbled upon several hundred CSU fans chanting "DIRTY HIPPIES, FUCK CU!" whilst trying to light a pine tree on fire. I showed them that to light a tree on fire it helps to have some kindling, so we gathered several beer boxes and got a little fire going. Nothing helps indoctrinate someone to a school like a little rioting (I'm not saying I'm proud of this moment, I'm just saying it was pretty awesome at the time).

Even after this I still wasn't sure if I could cheer against the CU football program. It was just too tied up in me. My earliest memories almost all include me, dressed in a CU jersey running around my house impersonating Eric Bienemy (aka Eric THE ENEMY, which I thought was his name), Michael Westbrook and even Rae Carruth /shudder (which, right there should be a lesson in why your children should never be allowed to cheer for CU). One of the most tragic moments of my childhood was the when my mom told me that I could never cut my hair into a high-top fade like my favorite CU players because I wasn't black and never would be (little did she know. Momma, look at me now!). It wasn't that I didn't think I could cheer for CSU, they really had been my second favorite team growing up, but I wasn't sure I could hate the Buffs.

Then...I actually attended a CU-CSU game as a student. I rode up to the game with my boy Sailor, who promptly bailed on me before gametime to sit in the CU student section, while I went by myself to a section that was split CSU and CU fans. I didn't know a soul and was relatively sober (last time I will EVER make that mistake) and within seconds I was being mocked by CU fans. Some older CSU fans immediately jumped in, took me into their group and handed me a flask of Jack. I took swigs as they taught me Fum's Song.

The moment that Johnny Walker (the irony of his name is really thick in this story) made a miraculous fourth-quarter TD catch to get CSU back in the game was the moment I truly surrendered myself to CSU. It was my baptism in Green and Gold, as myself and a random collection of strangers I had never met dissolved into a mass of humanity, collapsing to the bleachers in the most jubilant moment of my life to that point.

With just seconds left in the game, David Anderson made a catch at the goal line and CSU was literally inches from an amazing win (I, and DA, still believe he was in the end zone). CSU was gonna beat the Buffs, in Boulder, scoring the winning touchdown literally 15 yards from where I sat.

We all know what happened next. The beginning of the end for Sonny Lubick and the CSU Rams as a college football power.

It was a cruel way to begin my college career, and in the next four years I watched us piss away two more horrible games to CU, get blown out of the water by almost any quality opponent and had to cover one of the most awkward and bitter break-ups of all-time (CSU firing Sonny was akin to me firing my Grandfather). Still, I soldiered, backed by booze and a beleif that thing would turn around.

In my senior year, things did turn. In the last college football game I attended as a student I was able to rush the field in Wyoming as CSU captured the Bronze Boot and got back to bowl eligibility.

Then, just days before I was set to move to California, I delayed my departure so that I could go to one more Rocky Mountain Showdown.

We all know how that turned out.

Yup, I vaulted over a railing, landing on Folsum Field, not 15 yards from the cruelest moment of my CSU career, this time able to celebrate with several thousand of my closest friends, chanting "I'm Proud...To Be...A CSU RAM!" while stomping on our rivals logo.

I'd say that was a fitting ending to the story, but Fum just does a better job.

Take it away;

I'll sing you a song of college days And tell you where to go Aggie's where your knowledge is Boulder spends your dough.
CC for your sissy boys And Utah for your times DU for your ministers For drunkards, School of Mines.
Don't send my boy to Wyoming U A dying mother said Don't send him to old Brigham Young I'd rather see him dead.
But send him to our Aggies It's better than Cornell
Before I'd see him in Boulder I'd see my son in hell!

Tomorrow I bring the hate. That raw hate. That hatred that the Columbians rub on their gums.  That sushi hatred. Get it? All right!