Legendary NFL linebacker Dick Butkus passed away last week in his Malibu home at the age of 80. Butkus played nine seasons for the Chicago Bears and was known for the ferocious, intense, and aggressive way that he attacked the game. Born Richard Marvin Butkus, Butkus grew up the youngest of eight children growing up in a rough, blue-collar area on the south-side of Chicago. Butkus stayed local during his college years and attended the University of Illinois before being drafted third overall by his hometown Bears in 1965. Butkus would go on to make eight Pro Bowls, two NFL All-Decade teams, the... Read More

To call the weekend football games disappointing would be an understatement. To call them disheartening wouldn’t quite be enough. To call them a disaster – now we are getting close. The Colorado Buffaloes and Deion’s boys faced off against tenth-ranked Oregon in Eugene. The Buffs showed up with their usual swagger – dancing on the opposing team’s logo and talking trash. But in the end, it would be Oregon dancing in the endzone, and letting their performance do the talking for them. Oregon coach Dan Lanning screamed in his opening speech to the team – “They’re fighting for clicks.... Read More

The National Football League kicked off on Thursday, and as usual, it failed to disappoint. In Kansas City, Travis Kelce was dropped from the lineup, Kadarius Toney dropped everything in sight, and the Detroit Lions dropped the defending Super Bowl Champions. In Denver, the Broncos are kicking themselves after losing to the Raiders in Sean Payton’s coaching debut. And in New York, Aaron Rodgers will still be playing with the Jets – but that’s assuming the team’s rehab facility comes with a hot tub. A look at the wacky first week of the NFL. • Tony! Toni! Tone! Has done it again.... Read More

Historically speaking, the running back position has always dominated the first round of any Fantasy Football draft room. The logic is sound. A quality running back receives more opportunities (overall touches) than any other player besides the quarterback. A quality running back piles up fantasy points by running the football, catching the football, and generally due to goal-line situations, even scoring the football. And while there are hundreds of quality wide receivers to fill your draft board, there are only a handful of running backs that are so successful in what they do – they avoid... Read More

The Colorado Buffaloes didn’t expect much as they drove their 2011 Subaru Outback into the repair shop off campus. The Subaru had plenty of wear and tear on it with all those road trips to Corvallis, Palo Alto, and Tucson – but not a lot of memories to go along with it. Once shiny and new car smelling, the black and gold vehicle was now rusty and slow to start, presumably after years of fender benders around Westwood, radiator trouble in Tempe, and a flat tire in Spokane. The break came when the Big 12 saw the broken-down Subaru and somehow thought it would look good on their lot, somewhere... Read More

When I initially started to brainstorm ideas about what my first article for About Boulder should be, my mind crafted all manner of different approaches: football analysis, social commentary, feature piece etc. etc. However, I decided that instead of delving into something multi-layered and thought provoking, to start with something light: a list of 10 things. Judging by the amount of the traffic Buzzfeed and Facebook achieve with these types of articles, if I can’t craft something where you won’t even click the link for a lists article, even if it is out of sheer curiosity to see what it is,... Read More

Seneca, the great Roman Philosopher once wrote – Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. But no one could have been prepared for this. Elias Diaz was a no-name, journeyman catcher for the Colorado Rockies, batting .270 with just 9 HRs and 45 RBIs. He spent his days calling pitches for a staff that had a league worst 5.66 ERA, and his nights thinking about being on a team that was dead last in their division, 18.5 games out of first place. And it was only July. The original plan was to probably go fishing, visit some relatives, or simply rest at home with an ice pack on his right... Read More

Timofey Mozgov was a seven-foot-one center that played five years for the Denver Nuggets before being shipped to Cleveland during the 2014-15 season. The slow-footed Russian averaged less than seven points and five rebounds per game, but surrounded by a roster that included Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and Lebron James, Mozgov fit right in. The Cavaliers would end up losing in the NBA Finals, but Mozgov proved his worth by averaging 14 points and 7 rebounds in defeat, and the future looked bright. Mozgov’s second year with Cleveland didn’t go quite as well. While the Cavaliers would go to win... Read More

As the Denver Nuggets rolled through the downtown streets of LoDo, champagne filled and shirtless, the confetti flew, and fans cheered. A franchise that began back in 1967 had finally captured its first NBA Championship. A victory parade of epic proportions. But as the fire engines stopped, and thousands packed into Civic Center Park, I realized that Denver’s victory parade was also a goodbye parade. A goodbye to sports for quite some time. Forty-one days to be exact. Starting with the NBA draft on June 22 (in which – spoiler alert – the 7’5 French guy is going first) and ending with... Read More

Yesterday, Boulder hosted its inaugural Ironman triathlon! Usually a host for the Half Ironman, the endurance capital of the world finally welcomed an official Ironman competition to the city. An inspiring and challenging triathlon in its own right, the Boulder community came together to cheer on nearly 3000 professional and non-professional athletes well into the night. Starting at the Boulder reservoir and finishing at 13th and Pearl, hard working athletes crosses the finish line after over 12 hours and 140.6 miles of work. Celebrated and cheered on by friends, family, and the community, it... Read More