Let me do something that almost every sports article does and start with a Joan Didion quote – “it’s easy to see the beginning of things and harder to see the ends.” This is a good life quote, but luckily it doesn’t describe college sports. Despite Diego Pavia’s best efforts, eligibility has defined the career of collegiate athletes. This is an incredible gift.
Never once did I plan to write about sports. I picked CU-Boulder to be my college after visiting the campus once. It was snowy, and the Flatirons
were hidden by the clouds and Farrand Field was blanketed. As the sun rose, the clouds lifted and I saw the same mountains I would see for the next four years. I couldn’t go anywhere else.
From that moment, I became obsessed. Sure, I was a huge NFL fan and loved the Chargers (don’t judge), but a switch flipped and everything fell away but the Buffs. These teams I was learning about, I was going there! I was never going to attend Charger University or Utah Jazz State (man, I really picked some bummer teams to like), but I was going to CU, and these legends did the same thing. I learned everything I could about Colorado Football and Basketball, and found out that I needed to put those thoughts somewhere. Because of Bolts from the Blue, the SB Nation Charger blog, I found the Ralphie Report. Back then, you could very easily submit Fanposts, so I started posting. The first piece I ever submitted was a basketball recruiting analysis for incoming recruit Tory Miller. Even back then, I was an IDIOT, because not once did I mention his propensity for biting. Thanks to incredible generosity by the editor at the time, Jon Woods (boomer), I was brought on to do some of those things for real. It felt incredible. My dad still has a framed screenshot of my first published piece – about the renderings of the new indoor practice facility.
From there, I kind of just didn’t stop. I grew up through Ralphie Report. I remember watching Nick Fisher highlights in my dorm room on Signing Day, hearing about the Juwann Winfree flip in 2016 from my bedroom office and the Karl Dorrell hire while I was walking into a CU-UCLA basketball game. I stayed sane during Covid by recording some podcasts and watching the 2001 CU-Nebraska game, Black Friday, in full.
Even through all of this, I was not thinking about the end of things.
Going back through the archives, I wrote 957 pieces in my time at this version of the Ralphie Report. I guess I’ll end up with 958. I’m proud that I was able to spend that much time talking about what I love. I’m so grateful that people read some of those pieces. I’m sad that the internet ecosystem that let me dive into this work just isn’t there anymore. More than anything, I’m nostalgic of the time I spent on this campus, the SB Nation campus, before graduating.
Built into the bones of rooting for a team like the Colorado Buffaloes is the knowledge that eras will end. Coaching dynasties can last, sure, but the true love between fan and team is built by players. It’s watching Darian Hagan pitch to J.J. Flanagan in 1988, it’s watching Alec Burks destroy Kevin Durant and Texas in 2010, it’s watching Taylor Simpson win sets on her own against Stanford. And that love is destined to die a short and brilliant death. You only get to see them so many times! They only go to school for so many years. The scarcity of the moments makes them precious.
Thanks for reading.
