For Colorado State football, this year has been full of firsts.
A new head coach. A first season in the Pac-12. A new uniform apparel partnership with Adidas. Tucked among those firsts is a coach who is no stranger to firsts herself.
Mickey Grace, CSU’s director of player development, pass rush specialist and assistant defensive line coach, is one of the first women to hold an on-field coaching position at the National College Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level.
It’s always been an upward climb for Grace, and football wasn’t originally in the plan. It was the one sport offered at her high school during the fall. She had already been working as the office aide for the head coach, handling the team logistics before she ever considered playing.
“It was a joke for a long time, and he was like, ‘Well, you could if you wanted to,’” Grace said. “I took that and ran with it, and I was like, ‘Well, don’t invite me to go do something that no one’s done before.’”
Taking that chance and running with it would be the underlying theme of her career. In 2012, during undergrad, she laid her groundwork for coaching. Dartmouth was where she found her first Ivy league championship, and then she worked with the Los Angeles Rams, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons and Washington Commanders through Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowships.
She’s also careful about what those opportunities actually mean.
“Some people really just mean ‘come visit’ and other people really allow you to maximize your opportunity,” Grace said. “The idea of preparation, meeting and opportunity is really the answer to it all.”
In 2023, she began to lead the pass rush development at UConn under head coach Jim Mora, and the results spoke for themselves. Between 2021 and 2025, there was a 208% increase in sacks.
That resume would make anyone assume her climb was easy, but Grace said being the first can be isolating.
“It’s kind of just like any other job,” Grace said. “You’re the first person to do something, but really, when you’re doing it, you’re really by yourself. … There’s not people cheering you on. It’s just you doing your job. When you finally get to a place where you want to be in life, a trajectory that is upward, it starts to get really lonely. You realize that no one’s coming to save you, and you have to be over-prepared for everything you possibly have to do that day and be ready for sudden change.”
When Mora took the job at CSU, Grace was one of the first people he brought with him: An opportunity that has been brewing over the past five years of seeing her work.
“Mickey’s a football coach,” Mora said. “She understands techniques. She understands how to motivate. She understands how to hold a high standard and hold people to a high standard. She’s incredibly dependable (and) someone I rely on as much as anybody I can think of. She takes care of the blind spots that I might have with regard to what’s going on on the field.
Not only is her coaching skill valued, but her ability to push a standard and keep it solid has become one of the biggest skills needed when a team is developing.
“Nothing gets by Mickey,” Mora said. “She’s going to hold a high standard, and our players really react well to that. You know, they have great respect for (her). They have great admiration for her and doing what she’s doing. More than anything is that there’s just a level of trust and fear that our players have for her that I think is really really really healthy for this program in general.”
That level of trust extends into how Grace interacts with her players and how she gets them to the places they want to be. Her role extends far beyond the defensive line; she’s also the team’s pass rush specialist and director of player development.
“She’s our director of player development,” Mora said. “It’s so important that we do a great job off the field of mentoring these young men. When they go in and sit, and they talk to her, for many of these young men, they see someone that could potentially be a mother figure, who’s a hard ass, but also is compassionate, empathetic, understanding but still is a hard ass.”
Grace said the players she works with aren’t projects to her, but instead people she’s invested in getting somewhere and pushing hard.
“It doesn’t matter how much I care,” Grace said. “I care about winning; if you care about winning, I care about getting you to where you’re trying to go, and if that’s what you want to do, then I have the tools for you.”
Three games into her first season at CSU, the Rams are 2-1, and Grace’s expectations haven’t shrunk.
“For me, success is nothing short of minimum six wins,” Grace said. “Like we got to get to six, you know, and, like, that’s the goal. We gotta focus on one team at a time and respect each opponent and give them our full attention each week, or else we’re doing ourselves a disservice.”
Grace knows what it takes to be the first. It requires building a standard not only for herself to be the best but also for all the young players growing through the sport of football. A standard that will be kept as the program discovers who they are this season.
“You don’t go into situations to learn and watch,” Grace said. “You’re ready to see where you could be of value — so when you are given the chance, you’re fully prepared for the moment.”
Reach Abigail Wood at sports@collegian.com or on social media @Abigaiil_Wood.
