I came as a young man refugee from the plains.

Looking for higher ground.

where the sun shines through the rain.

Where the mountain folks & the old cowpokes foud a peace of mind.

I guess loving Mother Nature makes a naturally kind Colorado everywhere I go I'm in your shadow.

You're calling to me.

Colorado The sun's melting the snow M aking the river flow to the sea.

She swings down like the flourish of a pen.

Signing a signature in white on white.

The silence of her skis reciprocates the silence of the world around her.

Wind is her one competitor in the cool, winding and unwinding down on incandescent feet, she falls, unfurling, trailing white foam white fire.

You work in an office, the square in a building that's square on a street that's straight and your body is round.

And I don't think you fit in there.

You fit out here.

And that's the attitude that I've had my whole life.

People say, well, what do you do?

What do you make?

What are your movies about?

And simply stated, they're they're movies of what people do from sun up to sundown on a weekend without a score or a court.

We don't film tennis or golf or football or basketball or baseball or anything like that.

We film what people do on weekends and they're all freedom oriented sports.

We put a little cliff jumping in them.

We put a lot of laughs in them because the world really wants to laugh and I'm left people let them or have the ability to make them laugh.

Snow is nothing more than frozen water on the side of a hill.

So the when we're up there skiing, we're kind of gliding around on the surface of the water, almost with a god godlike sort of subconscious feeling.

And if I was trying to explain that to somebody who lived, for example, in the Solomon Islands, I would say, well, gee, if you went up to the highest mountain in the Solomons and found a waterfall and dove off and could glide down to the pond below at whatever speed you wanted to go, one mile an hour, 50, 70.

That's kind of what skiing is all about.

It doesn't really matter whether the person you're skiing with is spinning pizzas down in Avon, or they're presidential candidate, or they're an astronaut, or who they are, or what they've done with their life.

When you're standing at the top of that hill and you say, okay, let's go, everybody is is playing with the same deck of cards.

I don't care what you're doing, whether it's skiing or mountain biking or windsurfing or fishing or anything.

If you exceed your own ability by a little increment, you get a little adrenaline pump.

And if you don't scare yourself at least once or twice a day when you're skiing, don't go.

And I think that adrenaline is what really keeps people going.

We're all taking the risk.

And two years ago or three years ago, I got on the gondola with a woman who turned out to be 84 years old, and her great grandchildren had given her a learn to ski week for her birthday.

I got off the gondola at the top with she and her ski instructor.

We went over to the where the beginning area is and she was going about three miles an hour, and she was getting the same adrenaline pump that an extreme skier gets going off of a big cliff.

And in her mind, she was an extreme skier.

They want to exceed their known ability.

They want to let it all hang out.

The risk is where the fun is.

If you don't take the risk, then you know it's the old couch potato surfing with his clicker on the TV screen.

And let's hope he's stopped on what we're doing.

The careful angler chose his nook at morning by the lily brook and all the noon.

His rod he plied by that romantic riverside.

Soon as the evening hours decline tranquilly, he'll return to dine.

And breathing forth a pious wish will cram his belly full of fish.

In Colorado we have some of the prettiest waters I think of anywhere in the world, and I fish all over from the Bahamas to Alaska, Montana, I mean all over.

And when I come back to Colorado, it makes me realize that this is the best place to be.

That this is the most beautiful place there is in the world.

The rivers are so unique and so beautiful, and each river has its own personality.

And you get to where you know your river.

I love to fly fish.

It's a graceful art form.

It's a sport that anyone can learn.

It takes you to beautiful, beautiful places like this.

This is the blue River near Dillon.

One of the probably one of the prettiest rivers we have in Colorado.

But it's not just the places that fly fishing takes you.

It's the escape.

It's when you get in the river and you feel the water against your legs, and you see the fish, and you see them come up for a dry fly.

It's just it's the ultimate.

And I guess that's why I fish, because I love it.

I do it professionally and I do it for fun.

My escape and my vacations are fly fishing, so I guess I'm addicted.

I'm Rhonda, my husband and I own and operate the Colorado Angler in Lakewood.

One of the exciting things about fly fishing is no matter how often you go, no matter how many times you fish, you'll never completely learn it.

It's a constant challenge because everything is continually changing.

And as things change, conditions change and you have to change or you won't catch the fish.

When I'm fly fishing, I get completely lost.

It's an escape to me.

I get completely absorbed with what I'm doing and I have no conception of time.

The sun is my only indication of how much time has passed.

Sometimes when I land a big fish, someone will say, well, how long did it take you to land that fish?

I have no clue, I don't know.

You just get so in tune with what you're doing.

You get so in tune with the current and just everything around you that you totally lose track of time.

I do a lot of fly fishing in the summertime.

I'll get catch fish through the ice when I'm holding my pole and jigging a lot of times, but a lot of times you can't catch them that way, so you have to leave the poles just sit still on the ground.

Just let them hang there.

And with fly fishing, you're working the fly across the water trying to attract them.

And it's a lot different.

Ice is about 20in thick and I drill the ice with a the hole with the power auger, and it'll drill a hole through the ice about three feet thick.

Hi.

My name is Bennett Fennell.

I'm a resident of Grand Lake, Colorado, and I'm out here catching a little a few fish.

I just like it because it's relaxing.

I like being outside an outside person no matter what the weather's like.

If I got time, I'll go out there.

There's open water on Grand Lake in the winter, so you've got to be cautious about where you go on the ice.

You have to know it's thick enough to support your weight.

I'll wait till the snowmobilers start riding on the lake.

And then I figure once the snowmobilers ride on it, then it's probably thick enough for me to go out and ice fish on.

And then I just come out with the auger and punch a hole and see how deep it really is.

And you never know.

Up here, you know, Kyle might decide to come out on the lake or something while you're out here.

I've had it happen.

Had eagles land on the ice over there by the open water.

And you just never know.

Up here in this country.

This is where you ought to be.

You think about other things in the world that are a lot more important than the day to day grind of of earning a living and other things.

You start to wonder about nature.

You wonder about the universe.

You wonder about other things.

And it's just days sitting on a on a five gallon bucket, on a frozen lake, or standing in a stream are a lot better than being cooped up in I-25 traffic or behind a desk.

Once I get in the river and I feel the current, I'm able to take a deep breath.

And once I start fishing and I get keyed in on the river, you just forget everything.

That's why you come out and do this here.

Out here, you're alone.

You're with the elements.

A perfect day of fly fishing doesn't necessarily have to include the capture of any fish.

A perfect day of fly fishing for me, is just being out there doing it.

And I come away with a better sense of self, a better peace of mind, and a closer relationship to nature I tell people that I used to ride bulls and I did, but I guess when I tell them when I'm being funny, I tell them I used to ride bulls until my brains came in.

I don't know why people ride bulls.

I think it's a macho thing for cowboy kids.

Not that they don't play football or but they don't play tennis.

Most of them.

And they don't play golf.

Rodeo is their sport.

And the ref stock riders are usually people who don't have enough money to haul a horse around.

And you know, when you're 17 and that's where you learn all this is where you start and you got to have a little backing.

You know, horses cost money and these trucks cost money.

And going down the road with the gas.

So for the price of a bear bag, rigging or bull rope, you can be a cowboy.

And I don't know why I did it.

I thought the girl would like it, I guess.

I mean, why do you do these stupid things?

But I never take it back.

You know, I loved it and didn't get hurt too bad.

The one thing I remember, even now is the perfect stillness that overcame you.

The instant he sat on his back.

It's like you're tying yourself to a cottonwood stump and having somebody push it over a cliff, you know?

But there is a there is a quiet there that just in my case, and I've heard other guys say the same thing.

It's just there's nothing there.

You can't hear the announcer, you can't hear it.

And maybe.

And then, boy, you screwed up.

When the gate comes open, you can't.

You don't know what's happening.

I mean, you're you just hope that there's a few grooves worn in the brain that you react automatically.

There's a little piece of finger on the fence out in Cheyenne.

They had a wild horse race, and I thought I'd lend a hand.

I gave a bite of ear lobe to a bronc in Calgary.

Souvenir, I reckon, so he'd remember me.

Hank Harris clinging to a light pole in red tone, where he both went up together.

But I come down all alone in Omaha, Nebraska.

I left a chunk of chin.

I tried to find it later, but I forgot where all I'd been.

I left bone chips down in Tucson with a doctor, and his nurse gave blood out in Iowa just help me reimburse my partners.

I was owing for the gas to Angelo.

Be grudgingly donated a percentage of my toe and Oakdale, Corrientes took the tip off of my thumb.

And this cast I got in Denver.

He's a little cumbersome, a dog and steering.

Billings took a bit of this eyebrow when he thought he'd do some farming and used me for a plow.

A bull and Garden City took interest in my nose and peeled the top off of it for his scrapbook.

I suppose I've got trapped on my body from arenas far and near from Bismarck, Cedar City, Winnemucca and Fort Pierce, Pendleton, Ellensburg, Shreveport and Dubuque.

When I start to think about it, it makes me kind of spook.

So I've made quite a collection.

I only think it's fair because pieces of my body I left scattered everywhere, and I've had to make a regen, and I've heard a braid or rain and I have teeth to make a necklace.

Enough nerve to build a brain I'll have to trail of things I've lost.

Like heart and soul and mine.

But them that went before me left some of theirs behind.

So I borrowed them and used them like they meant for me to do.

And I'll leave them for the next guy.

If that next guy is you.

When you run short of courage or lose and get you down, remember them before you left something in the ground or in the shoot her roping box or floating in the air.

It's the ghost of every cowboy who, whoever entered their every riding roping outlaw left you.

Some will to win.

Just look around your partner.

You'll find a piece of skin.

The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.

Here we go.

Quick!

Whip it!

Whip it hard!

Come on, get it there.

Good, good.

Let's go.

It's got to have a wrist snap.

Wrist snap.

Let's go.

You've got to make sure that you're hitting each other in the hands.

Okay.

The worst place when someone's cutting is up here over their heads when we start moving.

Three man weave.

Concentrate here.

This is a position that we're going to catch the ball at.

Okay.

We got to end up up here.

All right, let's go.

Right hand.

Push.

Let's go.

Go work on your form, Isabella.

I think if I wasn't allowed to teach or if teaching wasn't a part of this job as a basketball coach, I really think I teach basketball.

I really think that's what my primary job is on the court.

It's communicating with the players.

It's understanding how to motivate each player.

It's understanding the game of basketball and how to teach skills as well as offense defense to the team.

I really relish that part of being a coach.

If it was just strictly recruiting or promotions or speeches or all the other things that come along with being a basketball coach, I'd probably struggle with the job.

But the part I really enjoy the most is coming to practice every day between 1:00 and 3:00 and interacting with the players.

I think that the spirit of Colorado is exemplified in our games.

The crowds, they get into it.

We have great crowd support, and I think basically that just comes from the spirit of Colorado.

When I think of Colorado, I think of Colorado women's basketball in particular, and the crowds that we get.

You know, we don't have the spectacular dunks, you know, the alley oop dunks.

But we do play hard.

And I think that we we bring in the fundamentals and we're very sharp in the fundamentals.

And so I think we bring that the back the fundamentals like James Naismith you know started out when he invented basketball.

When he gets rid of the ball.

Right down there and help Aaron just stay straight up though Isabel make them come in to you.

You don't go into them.

I would say to all the young girls players who look for an opportunity to play college ball just to to keep working hard and to stay focused if they're really serious about it and make sure that they enjoy it and they're playing, that they're having fun, that they're not doing it for their parents and they're not doing it for for anyone else with them, because that's a problem that I almost ran into one time, and they just got to really take things to heart and know if they want to get better, and that it's going to take extra time.

If they do want to get better, they keep striving for the best.

I think was was still kind of the innocent form of sport.

Our players aren't paid, our players aren't paying playing because they're going to go to the NBA.

Our players are playing because they truly enjoy competing and playing basketball, and that's still innocent in terms of women's sport.

And I think Colorado, it sort of embodies the Colorado spirit that you work hard and you appreciate good things after hard work and and good things will happen to you if you do work on.

Sport is one area where no participant is worried about another's race, religion, or wealth, and where the only concern is have you come to play?

Haxtun's just a spot in the roa on highway six.

It's a friendly little community where everybody knows everybody else.

I always like to think this is the last place in the world.

You don't have to take keys out of your pick up at night.

Leave it set out on the street and you know it's there.

The next morning.

There are a lot worse places to live in Colorado.

My farm was homesteaded by my grandfather in 1913, and it's just it's a family operation.

I farm with my father and and my brother.

You know, we just liked the area and we settled.

These are our baby bulls here.

My name is John Stark.

I'm the football coach here at Paxton.

A farm for a living.

I come in in the afternoons and coach the football team.

Have for the past 16 years.

It may be a little odd that he works all day on his farm and comes in to coach us, but it's what he loves to do.

And I guess that's the way it'll be.

All right, here we go, guys.

Right when I came here, John Starkey was a legend in his own, in his own time.

And he continues to be that John happened to be a fairly decent football player at high school and at the college level.

As a matter of fact, he was a linebacker for Nebraska, drafted in the fourth round by the New Orleans Saints, did play professional football and then came back back home.

And he's been here ever since and we're glad he's here.

Yeah, here we go.

There you go.

A few years ago, we used to be a little bit larger than we are now, which forced us into 11 man football based on student population.

So our population has had dropped.

So did our classification.

And currently we're at the top of the 8 man classification.

So we're kind of like the big fish in the little pond.

It's not really a different game.

I mean, it's still blocking and tackling and basically you line up the same in 8 man man as you do in 11 man, the field is compressed a little bit.

You're running lanes, you're passing lanes are basically the same.

So it seems like a more wide open game.

But fundamentally the kids really have to be more sound almost in eight man than they do 11 man.

All right guys, this is what we talked about right here.

And when we step on that field guys it's nothing but business.

You know like I told you, yesterday You know I've never had a good team that didn't love a challenge, guys.

And if you guys want to be one of the good ones you got, accept this challenge and get it done.

Okay?

Come on now.

Let's go, let's go.

Let's go.

As you can see, when you come to the small town, there's not enough a lot of other things to do actively.

We don't have a theater.

We don't have a mall for the kids who go hang out and we don't have fast food.

The school is the center of the community, and people flock to the school.

They support the school.

They support all the activities.

And as you'll see later on, even like tonight's game, we have a great following.

We have almost as many people in the way game as other teams will have at home.

My name is Rosie Phillips, the name of my antique store is Cowboys & lace Antiques we are closing early today.

Our Bulldogs play in Stratton and we don't want to miss that one.

My name's Del Barrio.

I read the barrel.

Okay.

And it says on the front of the menu, home of the Bulldogs.

We depend on the public support is.

Why be open when the whole town went to the football game?

We're used to driving out here.

We have to drive 30 miles for our closest pizza.

So two hours away is not any big deal for us.

So we'll travel that far to see our Bulldogs win tonight.

We're going to step out of this door, guys.

And next time we step back in hey we're going to have the lead at halftime.

Hey.

And when that game is over.

We're going to be conference champs.

Guys you know you guys said it.

Now you got to make it stick.

Hey it's just a matter of going out and getting them there.

Right, guys?

They're ready to be beaten.

Let's go out.

Let's.

Go.

Let's get it done tonight.

Come on now.

Let's go.

Come on.

Red.

Red.

My guys.

Come on.

For this, kids, I think it's really important.

Maybe not have the physical talent some other teams have had in the past here.

But there are hard working group.

And then they've held together and they.

They've overcome quite a few things over the years.

And for them to win tonight would be a great accomplishment.

It doesn't really make any difference whether our boys win or lose tonight.

It matters a lot to them.

It makes them feel really good.

But win or lose or draw, the people of this community will stand behind their boys.

They have proven beyond a doubt that they are winners.

Got nothing to be ashamed of.

Whatever happens, you know, I think it's Haxton team and these kids are representing the town of Haxton.

And whether they win, lose or draw, it doesn't matter that people are still going to be proud of them and proud of what they've accomplished.