What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

'20 TNFR SDE Antonio Alfano (SIGNED and ENROLLED with COLORADO)

Howell just asked HCKD about it. He said that he last met with Alfano in October, and that a number of people have tried to reach out to him this fall. Did say COVID is why the testing has been postponed. Howell followed up and HCKD said they had already responded but again noted it is a two way street as to contact.

Basically, sounds like the kid is lonely, possibly avoided contacts earlier in the year, and got put on the backburner.
 
I agree to a point, but saying communication is a two way street when on one side is a scared kid with compromised health and on the other side is a 56 year old grown man/leader of the team is a weird dodge. I don't think that's a good look. KD is between a rock and a hard place possibly, but not reaching out to Alfano is not great. I hope someone from the university contacts him soon. As a member of the team he ought to be able to get healthcare at the very least. It's not like Alfano can raise money for treatment if he ever wants to play college ball again.
 
I agree to a point, but saying communication is a two way street when on one side is a scared kid with compromised health and on the other side is a 56 year old grown man/leader of the team is a weird dodge. I don't think that's a good look. KD is between a rock and a hard place possibly, but not reaching out to Alfano is not great. I hope someone from the university contacts him soon. As a member of the team he ought to be able to get healthcare at the very least. It's not like Alfano can raise money for treatment if he ever wants to play college ball again.
It's not a denial of care issue. It's a COVID issue. According to both parties.
 
It's not a denial of care issue. It's a COVID issue. According to both parties.
Covid pushed back his testing (although it seems like it should have been handled in the intervening 9-10 months, but that's neither here nor there)... the real problem is the lack of communication on the part of the university.
 
Covid pushed back his testing (although it seems like it should have been handled in the intervening 9-10 months, but that's neither here nor there)... the real problem is the lack of communication on the part of the university.
Is it on the part of the university alone? If so, why?
 
Is it on the part of the university alone? If so, why?

Because while Alfano might look like a grown man, he's 20 years old. He's a kid. According to what he said he was told he needed a test to get some answers and it got postponed and he's just never heard from anyone at the university for months and months and months. He's right for feeling neglected because... well, the athletic department is neglecting him.

I don't blame anyone in particular, it's just a ****ty situation. Should KD or George or someone have given AA a call over the last few months? Yeah, obviously... but it's easy to understand that with everything going on people got too busy with their own ****. This year has been crazy for everyone and KD and the whole staff are doing the Herculean task of running the program. Dorrell should call him today. Wilson should call him. Whoever else on the staff was part of his recruitment or has any relationship should call him and apologize for not reaching out sooner and just generally check in on him.
 
Because while Alfano might look like a grown man, he's 20 years old. He's a kid. According to what he said he was told he needed a test to get some answers and it got postponed and he's just never heard from anyone at the university for months and months and months. He's right for feeling neglected because... well, the athletic department is neglecting him.

I don't blame anyone in particular, it's just a ****ty situation. Should KD or George or someone have given AA a call over the last few months? Yeah, obviously... but it's easy to understand that with everything going on people got too busy with their own ****. This year has been crazy for everyone and KD and the whole staff are doing the Herculean task of running the program. Dorrell should call him today. Wilson should call him. Whoever else on the staff was part of his recruitment or has any relationship should call him and apologize for not reaching out sooner and just generally check in on him.
Are you sure your facts are right?
 
This whole thing is so weird. For reference, I work at University of Colorado Hospital. I'm not a neurologist but I'm fairly certain the test to which he's referring is an ambulatory EEG. That means he goes to the clinic, they put electrodes on his scalp which are attached to a recording device that he carries around for a few days and records his brain activity. I can't imagine why they would push this off because of COVID as we (and nearly all medical clinics everywhere) are still open for these types of procedures. Maybe he means he doesn't feel comfortable going to the clinic because of COVID (giving him the benefit of the doubt), but I'd lean towards placing this claim that THEY won't let him get the procedure because of COVID squarely in the "patently false" category.

EDIT: This procedure very well could have been postponed during the spring spike when everything was closed, but not any more, and probably not since late April, early May.
 


(Free)

ON ANTONIO ALFANO'S TWEET​

“I did see it, and a lot of what he posted is very truthful. It is one of those unfortunate situations as a football coach. You have heard about this player and what his capabilities as a player are. You've heard really good things about him. But really, I haven't had a chance to see any of his attributes that actually brought him here. The seizures started to happen back in February and it has never occurred before. But why now? So there's a lot of questions about why these things are occurring. We haven't had progressive solutions to have this under control.
“The one thing I would say that's incorrect is we have a number of people that have tried to reach out to him over this fall. And I had a meeting with him earlier this fall, in October. He is in school and trying to deal with school and deal with these things that he's dealing with from a personal side. It's hard, it really is. He was scheduled to do some testing and then COVID hits and that gets postponed.
“It is hard for me to comment more on what I just said because a lot of it is out of our control. It is out of the football area control. It is more of a medical issue. So that's why it has been taken me this long to be able to comment on it or show you more about what his progress is. As you know medical information is very confidential. But he put a lot of that out there so that everybody knows what he is dealing with.
“It is unfortunate, it really is. We have to find a way to get him where he feels good about his life. That's the most important thing right now. That's where I am, because I haven't seen him play a down of football. I'm more concerned about just seeing him as a human being to live a normal life and to get things under control. That is first and foremost to me. It is unfortunate we haven't found the right solution or done the things to work down that path.”

ON IF IT IS IMPORTANT FOR CU TO REACH OUT TO ALFANO TO MAKE SURE HE IS DOING OKAY​

“Absolutely. But a lot of our communication has to be both ways. He has to be responsive to us. Obviously he's seeking for us to be more responsive to him and we've responded. Believe me, we have. Chris Wilson has been been trying to stay in contact with him. Our academic coordinators and all the people that deal with school have been trying to keep in contact with him. Our mental health services area have been trying to do things to keep him in the loop of things, too, because we're all concerned what this does to a young man mentally. He's not playing football, something he loves to do. He doesn't understand why he is having the issues he is having. Can you imagine the things he is going through? It is frustrating. So, I get it. I'm deeply concerned. We have to be better at trying to get some solution here and we just haven't been able to do that yet.”
 

I think the thing to keep in mind is that navigating the health care system in this country is hard - even if you have lots of experience in it, it's still challenging. Now imagine trying to navigate it as a 20 year old without strong family support, in an unfamiliar geographic location, unfamiliar facilities/coverages/ etc - oh, and it's a scary as **** medical issue you're dealing with...

The level of support and reaching out the team and AD has done probably would have been appropriate and more than enough had they been dealing with a 20 year old upper middle class kid with supportive parents nearby. But that's not what they were faced with, and they probably did not adapt their approach as well as they should have.
 
I really feel bad about the comment I made earlier in the thread, I truly did not know such serious medical issues being dealt with. I will go sit in the corner for a while.
 
Just from a personal standpoint, My wife had an RNS device implanted a few years ago to control her seizures. Before she could have the surgery she went through what I believe is every neuro imaging technique known to man, including a 5 day EEG on the her skull in the spring and one that they literally cut a hole in her skull to put EEG receptors directly the surface of here brain the week before the surgery to implant the device. So I can completely understand his fears because we have lived through it.

But it is also not like you just walk in and take some of these tests, some of them are more invasive than that. The most interesting one is when they went through her groin to her brain and put half her brain to "sleep" one at a time to find her memory and language centers.
 
Last edited:
I hope the young man can get some answers, and figures it out going forward. If he can't play anymore, sucks, but his life is more important. Prayers to you Antonio and your family.
 
So far AllBuffs has fired Jon Embree, stocked an asshole’s office full of Pepsi, and now we’re solving pressing healthcare concerns!!

Pretty sure one of you ****ers probably put that monolith out in Utah as well.

Now can we work some AllBuffs magic to revamp the suits situation at PAC12 HQ?!
 
I am personally with Alfano on this all the way. Even if he never touches the football field. I would hope the CU community would help any student dealing with these issues. Too much to ask for during Covid maybe? I think we can do better.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top