October 5 marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Dwain Weston. Weston was known in extreme-sports circles as a star BASE jumper; the abbreviation stands for building, antenna, span and earth — which participants leap from with parachutes. Last year at this time, Weston was a featured performer in…
Here’s some of what you learn during your first half-dozen years as an animal-cruelty investigator: That if enough animals are kept for an extended time in a house, the sheer amount of urine and feces can collapse a floor; That the smell of concentrated ammonia contained in animal urine, confined…
Dreamers live in a fantasy world. So what do you call a person who dreams of impossible things and then does them? Tom “Chico” Chicovsky. When Chico and his twin brother were nineteen, they and a friend decided to sail across the ocean after their freshman year of college –…
On a recent afternoon that threatens rain, Thomas and Anthony are already waiting when the black and yellow Compass truck rolls up to Argo Park. The two boys race their BMX-style bikes along 47th Street parallel to the truck, skidding to an impressive, rubber-laying halt as the big vehicle noses…
Tony Dispense grew up small, which is how he gained the lifelong habit of trying harder than just about anyone else. This was especially true in sports. When he played tennis, he’d stay out late practicing his strokes. While mountain biking, he seemed to push just a little more than…
Only a handful of newsworthy memories survive from my early teens. But out of the momentous headlines of that time — Vietnam, Watergate — one of the clearest is of a child’s contest: The Soap Box Derby scandal from the summer of 1973, 31 years ago this week. Jimmy Gronen,…
Fifty years ago, the athletic director of Gunnison’s Western State College, a 950-student school in south-central Colorado, made history when he convinced the National Collegiate Athletic Association to add skiing as an official intercollegiate sport. The idea stuck, and a few months ago, skiers from more than three dozen colleges…
In 1973, high school athlete Julian Nabozny was playing goalkeeper for his Winnetka, Illinois, soccer team when he collided with a boy on the opposing side. As Nabozny knelt down to receive a pass, David Barnhill came hurtling toward him, kicking him in the head. Many agreed that Barnhill could…
If you’re lucky in this life, you’ll experience that magical moment when you fall in with a group of people whose core beliefs are so compatible with your own that you immediately know you have arrived home. “Well well…fellow chipmonk gruge holders,” wrote Sassy Rebel42, an Oklahoma gardener, on my…
People say you make your own luck. That seems to apply to bad luck, too, and Curtis Franks has made more than his share. His mother, Jamie, believes that her son’s losing streak began when his father left home, in 1990. Curtis was ten at the time; he started doing…
The biggest news in men’s professional tennis recently occurred over a two-week span and involved a single player. Andre Agassi, whose bald head, startled expression and thick brows make him the world’s most recognizable American men’s player, lost in the first round of the Grand Prix Hassan II, a minor…
When parents and potential players gathered earlier this spring for the inaugural meet-and-greet with the coaches and founders of the Colorado Impact girls’ basketball club, the main message was all about…losing. And not just letting a few squeakers slip away, either. “We will get thrashed,” coach Gary Anderson promised. “And,”…
Almost two decades ago, as she was recovering from yet one more painful shoulder surgery, Andrea Jaeger had a dream. “I was in a wide-open field,” she recounts. “Groups of people were gathering around, calmly conversing.” When she began to leave, she continues, “my stepping away from the crowd caused…
America, some critics have noted recently, is falling behind its rivals in the developing world. Our dependence on technology and a decadent ease of living have dulled this country’s once-sharp competitive edge. They are speaking, of course, of the depressing plight of the American marathon runner. Once the swift pride…
The town of Branson’s baby boom started last spring, although at the time, no one knew that Kate and Jaxon Autry’s pregnancy portended anything special. By summer, when the number of expectant families had grown to five, all of Branson was abuzz. As residents gathered at the single-story post office…
One of the great things about sports is that you never know where a story will take you. An account of a couple of professional football running backs, one supernaturally talented, the other a plugger, can morph into the life lessons offered in Brian’s Song. More often than you would…
Like everyone else, I was impressed when the University of Colorado announced a series of football recruiting reforms last week. But I had no conception of how drastic those changes would be — until I received an unmarked envelope that contained the following draft memo. To: University of Colorado Buffaloes…
The ever-vigilant Colorado Senate recently passed a bill that would ban so-called Toughman contests — three-round pick-up boxing matches that pit untrained fighters against each other, generally in front of drunken fans. The proposal, which has since been PC-ishly amended to address “Toughperson” contests, now awaits a hearing in the…
Just minutes before the kickoff of Super Bowl XXXVIII, John decides to fill up his plate with Swedish meatballs and cold cuts at a game-day party in an Aurora home. “Sorry,” he murmurs as he cuts in front of the TV screen, intruding on everyone’s field of vision. John is…
Creekside Sports has been in the horsehide-swatting business since Gerald Ford was president. Softball in Denver has been around in one form or another since bell-bottoms were hip — the first time. And Crestmoor Park Softball Association opened its doors when John Travolta was dancing in white leisure suits. Now…
Amid the nourishing chaos of city life, we urban dwellers find ourselves brain-deep in startling juxtapositions. Mid-morning one Tuesday, a formation of squawking geese sweeps its shadow across a used-bookstore window, dimming the dog-eared covers of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, and Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol. An instant later,…
This holiday season, many of you no doubt basked in the shared warmth of the same comforting customs that people have enjoyed for centuries during this festive and peaceful time of year: Sipping a warm glass of port, wearing your fanciest clothes, spending quality time with your friends and favorite…
