It’s Prime Time, Baby!
Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Welcome to the first football season with new Splinter directed by a University of Colorado alumna at the helm of our nascent sports section. I have already written a Deion Sanders column earlier this summer after he went full jackass and decided to join his kids in making fun of a former player of his for not playing much college football, but the first game of the Colorado Buffaloes’ season is tonight against North Dakota State, and we are not going to let negativity bring us down today. Sko Buffs!
Don’t ask me about Boulder’s new God-King banning a local columnist from asking him questions this year–that guy is our local newspapers’ resident hot take merchant and this is about journalism in symbolism more than substance. Besides, Sanders has already committed far more egregious crimes against capital-J journalists at the Clarion Ledger while coaching at Jackson St., so this recent incident is extra small potatoes by comparison.
Consider this column a warning that while I am ultimately allied to my journalistic instincts more than anything as Splinter‘s Editor-in-Chief, stanning for the University of Colorado football program is way up towards the top of my priorities too. I grew up on the legends of Kordell Stewart and Heisman Trophy Winner Rashaan Salaam. Lary Zimmer’s warm, comforting voice echoes throughout my childhood, and every time I hear it, I can feel my brain slipping away towards its happy place. I remember the glorious day known throughout the Rocky Mountains as 62-36 like it was yesterday, as well as the excruciating pain a few weeks later of seeing the BCS still give those Bugeaters up in Nebraska a spot in the National Championship game over my beloved Buffs because that stupid system had failed to consider that winning your conference and not getting run off the field in your final game of the season were both important.
Folsom Field, the most beautiful setting in sports, is where I fell in love with football, taking the drive with my family up Route 36 to Boulder on many early Saturday mornings as a child. I have a hazy memory of attending a frigid game against Kansas State where it was below zero degrees at kickoff, then staying the entire time to watch the Buffaloes pull out a close victory. Ever since that day, I have been your garden variety football brain poisoned American, as there are just a handful of things in life that bring me more peace and comfort than football Saturdays and Sundays in the fall and winter.