FORT COLLINS — Sonny Lubick was in attendance the night his statue was unveiled in July, a towering seven-foot bronze figure inside the north end of Colorado State’s new on-campus stadium, but the legendary Rams coach didn’t fuss over it. Lubick, 80, said: “To be honest with you, I don’t get carried away with all those things.”
However, when the college football world turns its collective attention to Fort Collins at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, the first kickoff of the 2017 season when CSU plays Oregon State, Lubick’s likeness will be difficult to ignore. Programs across the country honor former greats with stadium statues. None quite like this.
As part of its sponsorship with the stadium’s northside porch, New Belgium teamed with CSU in paying tribute to Tour de Fat with a bronzed man in platform shoes, bell bottoms, and suit jacket riding atop a penny-farthing bicycle. Its creators, Fort Collins based Joseph Studios in conjunction with New Belgium’s internal design team, took a molding of Lubick’s face for the statue, and then mostly covered it with a fearsome Rams head mask that snarls beneath the soft glow of human eyes.
Creepy? Jarring? Beautiful? All of the above, because as CSU Athletic Director Joe Parker puts it, “Everyone is going to have their opinion of art, right?” But consider Lubick’s role in raising CSU football to prominence in contrast to the program’s latest evolution, and the strange yet stunning Tour de Sonny makes for a perfect yet complicated metaphor.
What are Lubick’s emotions a week from kickoff? He pauses.
“Let me see if I can get the right word here,” Lubick said before trailing off.
Over 15 seasons (1993-2007) as CSU’s head coach, Lubick won or shared six conference championships and his teams played in nine bowl games, compiling a 108-74 record. In the dozen years before Lubick’s arrival, the Rams totaled just two winning seasons. Hughes Stadium, outdated or not, was home for CSU football and Lubick was content.
“We never had time to really dream about a nice, new stadium like this on campus,” Lubick said. “We were pretty happy with what we had out there at Hughes to be honest. I think maybe that’s one of the reasons we did have some little bit of success there.”
In the wake of Big 12 and Pac-12 realignment, pulling TCU and Utah from the Mountain West, Lubick was a voice of reason to maintain the status quo, writing in online chat with fans hosted in 2011 by The Denver Post: “Of course, there are two sides to every story, but I would prefer that CSU and Wyoming, teams like that, just go about their business and succeed at their level.”
CSU’s push to become a contender in another round of Big 12 expansion last summer and the construction of its on-campus stadium signal a different approach. Lubick won’t stand in the way of progress. He doesn’t serve an official capacity with the athletic department but he did join several leadership committees in developing the on-campus stadium project. And he is a director of community leadership outreach for the business school.
CSU has done its part to honor Lubick’s impact, too, with a Hall of Champions display in the west side of the stadium in addition to getting an anonymous $20 million donation for naming rights to Sonny Lubick Field.
“Sonny is an institutional treasure,” Parker said. “I think that’s the best way to describe it.”
Lubick has toured the stadium often since this summer. He’s often joined by former players or coaches who say they’re “thrilled and excited” for the future of Rams football. Lubick plans to attend as many games as possible this fall.
“It’s a terrific asset for the school and the whole community,” Lubick added. “As far as my emotions go, I’ve got a real warm and good feeling to see something like this on our campus.”
But it’s undoubtedly strange looking out from the glass behind the west suites in the new stadium, as out in the distance is a small glimpse of Hughes Stadium, a building full of memories that sits vacant.
CSU still owns the facility, including the 160 acres where it sits, and doesn’t have any immediate plans for its use. But a logical scenario, per Parker, would be offering it for resale to a developer, who might turn the space into residential development in a fast-growing real estate market.
What if Lubick had it his way?
He laughed: “That’s beyond my pay scale.”
Much like his statue on the New Belgium Porch, the results of change can be odd and wonderful. Lubick has never participated in the Tour de Fat, but is now an honorary rider for life, whether he approves of his attire or not.
“Hey coach, I didn’t know you wore shoes like that,” joked Tom Milligan, CSU’s Vice President for External Relations.
“Yeah,” Lubick said, “I didn’t know that either.”
