When I think back to being 12 years-old I picture being concerned about food getting stuck in my braces, studying seventh grade geometry and listening to Jay-Z’s newly released The Black Album on the bus ride to middle school while my fellow classmates talked about the next new artist coming up; some guy who went by the name “50 Cent.”
That was the scene happening in my life during 2003, the same year the CSU football team ended a regular season with a record as impressive as it did on Saturday — kind of crazy what can change over the course of a decade.
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Are you ready for another fun fact?
The CSU volleyball team just closed out its schedule wearing a 28-1 record. I’m no mathematician by any means, like most journalists, but when you calculate the Rams’ winning percentage it translates into approximately 97-percent.
If you took 97 percent of Colorado State University’s entire student population, it gives you a number big enough to sell out Moby Arena (with a capacity of 8,745) over three times. That big of a mob has consecutively filtered into the whale’s doors only once in its 48-year history – not too shabby, huh?
And now is quite the time to examine the numbers and realize that the record books have constantly been rewritten multiple times since the semester began.
Over the weekend it all snapped into perspective that the current state of Colorado State athletics is soaring at an all-time high, reaching heights which haven’t even been a wishful twinkle for years and years. The biggest reason for drawing this conclusion is based on the sole fact that CSU athletics have rejuvenated hope and desire to be Ram fans.
For the first time since 2008, we no longer have to wait until Sunday to keep an interest in football. For most Fort Collins residents, Saturdays have shifted into top priority because Jim McElwain has given the Rams boxing gloves, and a fighting chance in the ring with their Mountain West contenders.
Quarterback Garrett Grayson and running back Kapri Bibbs feed off of each other and perform as well together since one brave soul decided to see how well peanut butter and jelly would mesh together.
The two are firing on all cylinders and continue to get hotter with the passing of every game. Considering the fact that Grayson was fighting for a starting position and Bibbs was listed at the bottom of Coach Mac’s depth chart at the beginning of the season, it’s hard to say anyone could have honestly predicted they would be standing as the most effective dynamic duo in school history. Both top the charts for single-season yardage in what they do and show no signs of stopping.
On the other hand, there’s some squad that plays volleyball here on campus too.
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However many had written them off because this was the rebuilding year. I mean, no gambling man in his right mind would have put his money down on this year’s team and told the dealer he intended on going for broke.
The Rams walked off the court with 86 set victories over the course of the regular season while their opposition mustered only 18; rounding up, that brings a 5:1 ratio.
Those same odds would be all it would have taken for one courageous student to put down a semester’s worth of tuition on CSU at the beginning of the season, and earn enough dough to drive away in a 2013 Ford Mustang with the elite package.
At the end of the day, it’s apples and oranges. But the bottom line is the fact that the fall sports at CSU have beaten the odds, and damn, it feels good to be a CSU Ram.
Why not go all in?
Sports Editor Quentin Sickafoose can be reached at sports@collegian.com. Follow him on Twitter @QSickafoose.
