Sharpening Klawz

Next time you're in the market for a pair of guinea pigs, a Ford pickup or a bag of jalapeño peppers, tune in to radio station KFKA in Greeley for Saturday morning's Swap Shop show. You might even wind up buying something on a whim -- like the black faux-fur jacket an eager seller says she has worn exactly once. "How much do you want for it this week?" Swap Shop's genial host inquired last Saturday. "Thirty-five," she answered. "Okay," the host said. "Down to thirty-five. Let's see. If I remember correctly, your phone number isŠ"

In the pecking order of Greeley's charms, tucking into a big porterhouse at the Stampede Steak Ranch outranks sniffing the feedlot perfume that envelops downtown. But until recently, a crown jewel of Greeley pride was the local college football team. The University of Northen Colorado Bears have been .500 or better in sixteen of the last seventeen seasons, and they won back-to-back national championships at the NCAA Division II level in 1996 and 1997. That was under coach Joe Glenn, now the head man at the University of Wyoming. Going into Saturday's sun-splashed game against visiting Idaho State, the Bears had run up a daunting home-field record -- 51 wins and five losses -- in the ten years since they moved into 8,500-seat Nottingham Field on the pretty UNC campus. Football teams from South Dakota State or Augustana or Morningside always knew they were in for a brutal fight when they visited Greeley. Play UNC at Nottingham, you get mauled by Bears.

On Saturday, though, the near-impossible happened. UNC, which had been blown away 38-0 at Maine the week before, lost at home for the first time in three years. While 4,080 fans and the furry team mascot, Klawz, looked on in disbelief, the Bears went down to Idaho State, 49-42 -- in double overtime. On the last play of the game, Bears wide receiver Jamar Farbes caught a pass from quarterback Tony Christensen at the ISU seven-yard line and was sprinting toward the touchdown that would have forced a third overtime when a defender popped him at the two. The ball squirted loose. End of game. Four hours and six minutes. End of record sixteen-game home winning streak. Time to call Swap Shop for a set of crying towels.

It won't get any easier. This Saturday the Bears travel to Missoula to face the University of Montana, a 2-1 team smarting from a shocking upset loss to Sam Houston State. That dropped the Grizzlies from the number-one ranking in Division I-AA to number seven, and they're sure to be in a foul mood on home turf. Their quarterback? None other than Craig Ochs, the former University of Colorado star who transferred to Montana last year.

"No one said this would be easy," UNC's fifth-year head coach, Kay Dalton, declared after Saturday's heartbreaker against Idaho State. "This" is the Bears' ambitious five-year transition from the Division II ranks up into Division I-AA, where the players are bigger, stronger and faster, the scholarships more plentiful. It will take three more seasons for the Bears to become full-fledged in I-AA, but you wouldn't know it from their 2004 schedule. Before leaving Greeley this summer for Northern Arizona University, former UNC athletic director Jim Fallis had booked what many say is the toughest slate of games for any I-AA team in the country -- featuring Montana, the aforementioned Sam Houston and Division I Florida Atlantic, which will visit Greeley October 16. "Probably not the best homecoming opponent," one UNC spokesman laments. The last time the Bears faced a Division I school was in 1986, when Colorado State beat them 46-14.

Division I-AA will be hurdle enough. In 2003, UNC played six I-AA opponents on the road but five Division II foes at home, which contributed to that Nottingham winning streak. This year, every Bears foe is I-AA -- except for that even rougher, David-and-Goliath match-up with Florida Atlantic. For a while, anyway, the football glory days may be over in Greeley. After twenty years on the UNC campus, the Broncos have moved their oft-maligned summer training camp to Dove Valley, and the Bears are suddenly in very tough.