Waiting for the revival at Folsom Field
As a football mecca, Boulder is a bit of a boomtown gone bust, yet hope is resilient here
Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesOptimism is palpable on game day, and excitement never seems to get old in Boulder.It's an hour before kickoff in Boulder, where more than 53,000 college football fanatics will soon hold court at Folsom Field. Temperatures are in the high 70s, and aside from the lack of humidity, pregame conditions are downright SEC-like.
But on this Labor Day weekend in northern Colorado the opponent is Colorado State, not Florida, and summer has officially been issued its two-minute warning.
So why does it feel as if the fun is just beginning?
Then it hits you again -- this is Boulder, where reading, writing and 'rithmetic and a sports-savvy student body collide with laid-back residents in a real-world Shangri-La. Yes, this is Boulder, where neighboring storefronts stock Zig-Zag rolling papers and psychedelic posters, and watering holes serve renowned Fat Tire Amber Ale and other local brews. Indeed, it's where the makeup of the University of Colorado has the reputation of being in a perpetual '60s state of mind.
Situated in the Boulder Valley, 25 miles from Denver, Boulder for a time doubled as college football's promised land: Back in 1990, Bill McCartney coached the Buffaloes to an 11-1-1 record and a share of the national championship with Georgia Tech.
As a football mecca, Boulder now is a bit of a boomtown gone bust. The Buffs posted a 15-30 record in the previous 3½ years under coach Dan Hawkins, but in Boulder, hope is resilient and the wide-open spaces beckon a fresh start.
Optimism is palpable on game day, and excitement never seems to get old.
A block off campus, in an area known as The Hill, students and alumni stand shoulder-to-shoulder at The Sink, a Boulder institution where Robert Redford toiled while he was attending CU on a baseball scholarship. A quintessential college-town bar, The Sink serves up regional beers to a crowd that spills out onto 13th Street.
Across Broadway Street, on the CU campus, students toss beanbags and footballs alongside rollicking tailgate parties. An alumni get-together takes place under an elegant white canopy, the majestic Flatirons in the background, Folsom Field in the foreground. Amid this arresting setting, CU alumni sing along as dueling piano players square off with renditions of The Jackson 5's "ABC."
With its maze of elegant red, sandstone buildings bundled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, the campus feels more like an upscale resort than an institution of higher learning.
CU dates back to 1876, but its edifices look as though they could have been completed yesterday. The pristine Italian rural architecture is timeless. And although the school has a reputation for being stuck in the 1960s, the postmodern collegian has reached Boulder.
On this day, undergrads are decked out in gold, school-issued T-shirts. The men pair them with shorts -- plaid or otherwise -- while the female uniform of the day features the same T-shirt, but often torn or cut up and sometimes fashioned into a tube top. Women accent the outfit with oversized sunglasses; the guys prefer to accessorize with suitcases of Coors Light. Virtually all opt for flip-flops.
Sure, it's November now and Saturday's opponent at Folsom Field is Texas A&M, but it's a safe bet there still will be some exposed toes.
Some students still rock T-shirts paraphrasing Hawkins' famous rant: "It ain't intramurals, brother!" But any confusion among the Buffs is understandable: Farrand Field, where students play intramural sports, was part of a recent $5.7 million renovation to the recreation facilities and is probably nicer than the varsity practice fields at a lot of schools.
Today's fashions stand in contrast to archival photos depicting famed bandleader Glenn Miller in a bow tie as an undergrad here in the 1920s. Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White favored a straight tie and button-down sweater in the 1930s.
It's clear the current student body is not listening to swing music or studying law, at least not on game day. Boulder Police Sgt. Pat Wyton will later tell the Colorado Daily that the force dealt with "the usual drunks and idiots" before and during the Colorado State tilt.
Maybe it's those mountain views, which can be intoxicating. Folsom Field sits in the middle of the CU campus, nestled somewhere between the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains and heaven.
The facility originally was dubbed Colorado Stadium when it opened in 1924 before being renamed in honor of Fred Folsom, who coached the Buffs to a 78-24-2 record during two stints from 1895 to 1915. At an altitude of more than a mile high, the venue always has been a tough draw for opponents, with CU posting a record of 288-142-14.
With game time just 20 minutes away, the Golden Buffalo Marching Band takes a trip back in time by strutting through Balch Fieldhouse, a 62-year-old facility that's attached to Folsom Field.
With its mini-doughnuts, funnel cakes and general carnival atmosphere, the Fieldhouse has the aura of an exhibit building at a state fair. The band serenades a rapt audience with its rendition of the "Hey" song -- Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2," a stadium and arena staple that first gained sporting-event-anthem status a few miles away and a lifetime ago when the Colorado Rockies were an NHL team, not a baseball team.
Afterward, fans sing along as the band plays the CU fight song. The lyrics could just as easily describe the pregame quest for libations back at The Sink. "Shoulder-to-shoulder, fight, fight, fight!"
With enrollments of 28,988 and 25,000, respectively, and campuses located an hour apart, Colorado and Colorado State, in Fort Collins, have much in common. But if these schools are twins, they are more fraternal than identical. Colorado is the state's school; Colorado State is a state school. And from the Boulder perspective, that just about says it all right there.
