Dear Buffs Fan,
As the calendar year comes to a close, I wanted to reach out to you one final time before we all ring in the New Year!
Construction Information
The light is at the end of the proverbial tunnel: we are approximately two months away from completing the third and final phase of our Athletics Complex Expansion. The indoor practice facility, including a state-of-the-art 300-meter track and the underground parking garage are all nearing completion, expected toward the end of February.
Competition Update
Our all sports record against Division I competition this year currently stands at 303-81-4, a 78.6 winning percentage. The largest contributor to that mark were our cross country teams, which both claimed the Pac-12 and Mountain Regional titles with runner-up finishes at the NCAA Championships. They combined for a 199-3 record this fall. Mark Wetmore continually rakes in coach of the year honors at most every turn, but he was honored with the ultimate: he was selected as the coach on the all-time Pac-12 cross country team, quite an accomplishment considering CU has been in the league all of five years. Then again, his teams have won seven league titles and two national championships in that time.
The men’s basketball team is off to a terrific start, going 11-2 with the only setbacks in the opener against now No. 2 Iowa State and in the championship game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic to No. 18 SMU. Those losses were by a combined 10 points and in-between, Tad Boyle’s troops ran off 11 wins in a row, the fifth longest streak in school history. Senior Josh Scott is one of three players in the nation averaging 18 points and nine rebounds while shooting at over 60 percent, one of the reasons we are on the verge of cracking the nation’s Top 25.
Linda Lappe’s women have played one of the nation’s tougher non-league schedules (57th out of 349) and completed play with a 5-6 record; now the tough Pac-12 looms on the horizon. The relatively young team (seven underclassmen) is showing improvement and has solid leadership with senior Jamee Swan enjoying an All-Pac-12 kind of a season, averaging 15 points and eight rebounds per game.
Nelson Spruce finished off one of the greatest careers ever by a Buffalo, earning second-team All-Pac-12 honors on the field and second-team Academic All-American honors in the classroom. He set and/or tied a total of 43 school and conference records in his time at Colorado, and he became just the fifth player to earn our MVP honor – the Zack Jordan Award – twice. The future for him is obviously bright, he has represented us well and we wish him the best in the upcoming NFL Draft. Chidobe Awuzie also earned second-team Pac-12 honors and he’ll be one of our team leaders again in 2016.
Mike MacIntyre is wrapping up his annual evaluation of all things in the program; we had aspirations of getting back to the postseason for the first time since 2007 but obviously fell short of that goal. While there were many positives to the season, a 4-9 record and not qualifying for a bowl game is not what we want and we will continue to work hard to get our football program back to its traditional winning ways.
Staff Changes
There have been a couple of staff changes to date, one of which brings back a very popular former player, Darrin Chiaverini, as the co-offensive coordinator and receivers coach. Since he retired playing professionally, he’s has a meteoric rise in the coaching ranks and we’re excited that he is returning to Boulder.
Volleyball finished with a 19-13 overall mark, with an 11-9 record in Pac-12 play; despite those numbers, the NCAA did not issue an invitation to the team to return to the tournament a third straight year. By now you likely know that we have named a new head coach, Jesse Mahoney, who had tremendous success down the road at the University of Denver. He’s a Boulder native who got his start coaching our men’s club team 20 years ago. As I stated when we hired him, when I met with our volleyball student-athletes, I told them that we would go out and hire the best coach, mentor and leader for them. I have no doubt that we accomplished all three in making what I felt was a needed change in leadership for the program.
Accolades
Senior Alexis Austin earned honorable mention AVCA All-America honors, capping a fine career which also saw her earn AVCA All-Pacific South Region and All-Pac-12 team accolades for this past fall.
How about freshman soccer player Sarah Kinzner? She helped her native Canada to the silver medal in the Women’s Under-20 Championships in Honduras earlier this month. The Calgary, Alberta native plays midfielder for the Buffaloes and had a goal and two assists in appearing in all 20 games; she scored two goals in the five tournament games as Canada posted a 3-1-1 record.
In the final Learfield Cup rankings for the fall sports, we’re ranked No. 20 on the strength of the runner-up finishes by our men’s and women’s cross country teams at the NCAA Championships. The Pac-12 has six schools in the top 20, as does the Atlantic Coast Conference (which has two more teams). No other conference has more than three (the rest of the Power 5: Big Ten 3, Big 12 0, SEC 0).
And earlier this week, the CU Boulder Office of Advancement announced that our own associate director of development for the Buff Club, Marcus Palas, was the 2015 Charles McCord Award winner for the CU-Boulder campus. This award is given by the CU Foundation in recognition of development staff for their dedication, teamwork, collaboration and service to the organization.
Winter Sports Info
And with winter officially upon us, that means our ski team is finishing preparations to defend their NCAA title and make a run at the school’s 21st national championship in the sport. Did you know that with 88 individual titles in the sport, alpine and Nordic, that CU has had more individual champions than any other school?
Notable
Most of you probably saw that football signed a top junior college receiver last week – Kabion Ento. He is from East Central Mississippi Community College; now here’s something hardly anyone might remember: his coach there was Ken Karcher, who was the third-string quarterback on the Denver Broncos behind John Elway and Gary Kubiak in the 1987-88 seasons. How that’s for a Colorado connection!
We’re currently counting down the “Top 15 in ’15,” some of our top moments of the calendar year on CUBuffs.com. Speaking of the website, former Boulder Camera sportswriter Neill Woelk is completing his first six months as our contributing editor to the site, and he’s been pretty busy – to the tune of nearly 200 stories to date. I hope you’re enjoying his perspective that he’s added to our content, not to mention the volume.
As always, a friendly reminder that you can check the progress of our construction and learn more about our Sustainable Excellence Initiative by visiting www.cusustainableexcellence.com, with additional information on how you can support us in a number of areas at www.cubuffclub.com (and you can always call the Buff Club office, 303-492-2200).
All of us in athletics wish you a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year. Go Buffs!
Go Buffs!
Collaboration and Unity,
Rick George
Athletic Director
As the calendar year comes to a close, I wanted to reach out to you one final time before we all ring in the New Year!
Construction Information
The light is at the end of the proverbial tunnel: we are approximately two months away from completing the third and final phase of our Athletics Complex Expansion. The indoor practice facility, including a state-of-the-art 300-meter track and the underground parking garage are all nearing completion, expected toward the end of February.
Competition Update
Our all sports record against Division I competition this year currently stands at 303-81-4, a 78.6 winning percentage. The largest contributor to that mark were our cross country teams, which both claimed the Pac-12 and Mountain Regional titles with runner-up finishes at the NCAA Championships. They combined for a 199-3 record this fall. Mark Wetmore continually rakes in coach of the year honors at most every turn, but he was honored with the ultimate: he was selected as the coach on the all-time Pac-12 cross country team, quite an accomplishment considering CU has been in the league all of five years. Then again, his teams have won seven league titles and two national championships in that time.
The men’s basketball team is off to a terrific start, going 11-2 with the only setbacks in the opener against now No. 2 Iowa State and in the championship game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic to No. 18 SMU. Those losses were by a combined 10 points and in-between, Tad Boyle’s troops ran off 11 wins in a row, the fifth longest streak in school history. Senior Josh Scott is one of three players in the nation averaging 18 points and nine rebounds while shooting at over 60 percent, one of the reasons we are on the verge of cracking the nation’s Top 25.
Linda Lappe’s women have played one of the nation’s tougher non-league schedules (57th out of 349) and completed play with a 5-6 record; now the tough Pac-12 looms on the horizon. The relatively young team (seven underclassmen) is showing improvement and has solid leadership with senior Jamee Swan enjoying an All-Pac-12 kind of a season, averaging 15 points and eight rebounds per game.
Nelson Spruce finished off one of the greatest careers ever by a Buffalo, earning second-team All-Pac-12 honors on the field and second-team Academic All-American honors in the classroom. He set and/or tied a total of 43 school and conference records in his time at Colorado, and he became just the fifth player to earn our MVP honor – the Zack Jordan Award – twice. The future for him is obviously bright, he has represented us well and we wish him the best in the upcoming NFL Draft. Chidobe Awuzie also earned second-team Pac-12 honors and he’ll be one of our team leaders again in 2016.
Mike MacIntyre is wrapping up his annual evaluation of all things in the program; we had aspirations of getting back to the postseason for the first time since 2007 but obviously fell short of that goal. While there were many positives to the season, a 4-9 record and not qualifying for a bowl game is not what we want and we will continue to work hard to get our football program back to its traditional winning ways.
Staff Changes
There have been a couple of staff changes to date, one of which brings back a very popular former player, Darrin Chiaverini, as the co-offensive coordinator and receivers coach. Since he retired playing professionally, he’s has a meteoric rise in the coaching ranks and we’re excited that he is returning to Boulder.
Volleyball finished with a 19-13 overall mark, with an 11-9 record in Pac-12 play; despite those numbers, the NCAA did not issue an invitation to the team to return to the tournament a third straight year. By now you likely know that we have named a new head coach, Jesse Mahoney, who had tremendous success down the road at the University of Denver. He’s a Boulder native who got his start coaching our men’s club team 20 years ago. As I stated when we hired him, when I met with our volleyball student-athletes, I told them that we would go out and hire the best coach, mentor and leader for them. I have no doubt that we accomplished all three in making what I felt was a needed change in leadership for the program.
Accolades
Senior Alexis Austin earned honorable mention AVCA All-America honors, capping a fine career which also saw her earn AVCA All-Pacific South Region and All-Pac-12 team accolades for this past fall.
How about freshman soccer player Sarah Kinzner? She helped her native Canada to the silver medal in the Women’s Under-20 Championships in Honduras earlier this month. The Calgary, Alberta native plays midfielder for the Buffaloes and had a goal and two assists in appearing in all 20 games; she scored two goals in the five tournament games as Canada posted a 3-1-1 record.
In the final Learfield Cup rankings for the fall sports, we’re ranked No. 20 on the strength of the runner-up finishes by our men’s and women’s cross country teams at the NCAA Championships. The Pac-12 has six schools in the top 20, as does the Atlantic Coast Conference (which has two more teams). No other conference has more than three (the rest of the Power 5: Big Ten 3, Big 12 0, SEC 0).
And earlier this week, the CU Boulder Office of Advancement announced that our own associate director of development for the Buff Club, Marcus Palas, was the 2015 Charles McCord Award winner for the CU-Boulder campus. This award is given by the CU Foundation in recognition of development staff for their dedication, teamwork, collaboration and service to the organization.
Winter Sports Info
And with winter officially upon us, that means our ski team is finishing preparations to defend their NCAA title and make a run at the school’s 21st national championship in the sport. Did you know that with 88 individual titles in the sport, alpine and Nordic, that CU has had more individual champions than any other school?
Notable
Most of you probably saw that football signed a top junior college receiver last week – Kabion Ento. He is from East Central Mississippi Community College; now here’s something hardly anyone might remember: his coach there was Ken Karcher, who was the third-string quarterback on the Denver Broncos behind John Elway and Gary Kubiak in the 1987-88 seasons. How that’s for a Colorado connection!
We’re currently counting down the “Top 15 in ’15,” some of our top moments of the calendar year on CUBuffs.com. Speaking of the website, former Boulder Camera sportswriter Neill Woelk is completing his first six months as our contributing editor to the site, and he’s been pretty busy – to the tune of nearly 200 stories to date. I hope you’re enjoying his perspective that he’s added to our content, not to mention the volume.
As always, a friendly reminder that you can check the progress of our construction and learn more about our Sustainable Excellence Initiative by visiting www.cusustainableexcellence.com, with additional information on how you can support us in a number of areas at www.cubuffclub.com (and you can always call the Buff Club office, 303-492-2200).
All of us in athletics wish you a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year. Go Buffs!
Go Buffs!
Collaboration and Unity,
Rick George
Athletic Director
