Brian Ricon, prosecuting attorney for Castle Rock, is loving life as a Boise State Broncos fan. The football program is enjoying some good times in recent years, the best in its modest history. Like how small shifts in tectonic plates can create gigantic tsunamis, many small victories have compounded to propel Boise State to the forefront of underdogs that might actually achieve greatness. In world dominated by BCS blue bloods like The Ohio State, Alabama, and Oklahoma, this has proven a monumental task, but one worthy of devotion, sacrifice, and faith.
Ricon knows this doctrine all too well. He comes from humble beginnings, the son of a Basque sheepherder from Elko, Nevada. His family has been grazing sheep in Nevada and Idaho since before the Great Depression.
“My daddy and grand-daddy had to work hard to provide for us. The sheep company would put them up in the mountains all by themselves with two-thousand sheep, a few dogs, and a rifle. That desolation, isolation, lack of human interaction can really get to you. We have a word for that kind of loneliness, ‘txamisuek jota,’ which literally means ‘struck by sagebrush.’ The herders might only be re-supplied once a month, and that was it.”
Through this same kind of hard work and dedication Brian was able to gain acceptance to Boise State University and studied Political Science there. And, of course, cheered for the Broncs.
“I loved going to games, Boise, the blue field, thousands of fans…it was nothing like home. Small town kid goes to the big city, I guess.”
Ricon even endured three years of ridicule while earning his law degree from the University of Idaho in Moscow.
“The Idaho fans, they’re something else. Vicious drunks mostly.”
As if he hadn’t endured enough, Brian’s mother holds a biology degree from University of Nevada-Reno, and she let him know when the Wolf Pack kept Boise State from being invited to the BCS Championship game last fall.
“Yeah, she rubbed it in. She called me when Brotzman missed that last one. I couldn’t hear what she was screaming but I could hear cheers and gunfire in the background. We still haven’t spoken since.”
Still, Ricon’s resolve is solid. And he has high hopes for his boys in blue this season.
“I think if we get our kicking game straightened out, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t see us in the big game next year. We deserve it.”
