A Colorado sports nut for life, Erin Hickey takes his obsession to a new level with the best seat in the house, covering local hoops, hockey, the Rox and everything in-between scene.

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For the Love of the Game

3 comments

June 29, 12:11 PM

by Erin Hickey, Denver Sports Examiner

The Buell Brothers do Europe!

I love professional sports. But every once in a while, when I hear about training camp hold-outs, strike threats and off-season DUIs, I start to think that sport has taken a back seat to money and fame. And I become just a little disenchanted. Ask most star athletes, and they’ll tell you that they play for the love of the game and their only concern is winning. But how many of them would stick with it if they had to take a pay cut to, say, $40,000 a year; or give up their sports cars; or relinquish their celebrity?

Whenever I start to get frustrated about the state of major professional sports, I find it helpful to think about the hundreds of thousands of athletes out there who actually do compete for nothing more than the love of the game and thrill of victory – folks who commit their lives to their sport for a shot at the Olympics, or an occasional $500 prize at a weekend race. This is easy for me because I grew up with two such athletes: aspiring professional mountain bikers, Michael and Brian Buell.

The Buell brothers, who hail from a small mountain community above Jamestown, Colorado, love mountain biking. They live mountain biking. During race season, they travel thousands of miles to and from races all over the United States, Canada and even across the pond in places like Andorra, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. (I haven’t heard them complain once about gas being $4.00 a gallon.) And in the off-season they spend their time working as mountain bike track builders in El Jebel, CO. They, of course, do it all without million dollar salaries and shoe contracts, and they manage to find time for other important endeavors… like attending college full-time – Michael recently graduated from CU-Boulder, the same school at which Brian is currently enrolled.

This summer the brothers have been touring around Europe, competing at the highest level of the sport in various World Cup races. If you have any interest in their great European adventure, or if you’d like to send a quick word of encouragement and support, I highly recommend you visit the brothers’ blog, which chronicles the trip. I think you’ll get a kick out of it. Heck, at the very least, it’ll give you a break from the bizarro world of money-hungry celebrity athletes and greedy owners.

Thank you, Michael and Brian, for keeping it real.

P.S.
Check out the official Buell Brothers Promo tape.

Topics: Denver , Sports , Buell Brothers , mountain biking

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