Colorado isn’t exactly synonymous for “hospitality” when it comes to Nebraska football fans, who have seen the intensity when NU and CU get together the day after Thanksgiving and lived the horror stories after venturing into Folsom Field.

Add that to the contrasting landscapes, and Colorado and Nebraska sometimes seem like polar opposites.

Until you stumble down a Rocky Mountain trail and into a store that sells practically nothing but Husker gear, that is.

Big Red of the Rockies is doing just that in Estes Park, Colo. - a quaint mountain town of 6,268 people that gets about 3 million visitors per year, thanks to its skiing resorts.

Colorado may seem like an unlikely spot for a Husker shop, but there is enough support to fuel the business, which has been open for more than ten years.

Former Nebraska punter Jesse Kosch is the proud owner of Big Red of the Rockies and three national championship rings. One of the best punters in NU history – Kosch started for the 1995, 1996 and 1997 teams - he moved to Colorado in 2002 to live in the mountains and bought the store in 2006.

“It’s been fun,” Kosch said. “You meet people from all over the place,” Kosch said.

Originally from Columbus, Kosch took family vacations to Estes Park growing up and noticed Nebraska license plates all over the town. So he knew going in a lot of Nebraskans vacation and move to Colorado.

But what surprised him was the Husker fans that visit his store from other states.

“Those are the fun ones,” he said. “The (fans) with no ties to the state.”

Husker nation definitely has a pulse in Colorado.

Tim Carrothers, the president of Coloradans for Nebraska, said no similar association for Husker football in the country – including those in Lincoln and Omaha – share the popularity of the Colorado chapter.

More than 180,000 people saw at least one game at one of the six Coloradans for Nebraska watch parties last year, Carrothers said.

The organization also raises money for the NU scholarship fund and will be sending 24 Colorado high school students to the University of Nebraska next year.

Everybody remembers the bad stories, Carrothers said, like the one from 2005 when frustrated Colorado fans started launching trash onto their own field and the student sections had to be removed. But Coloradans for Nebraska have brought some respect to the rivalry, he said.

“We’re working with Colorado (alumni) chapters to kind of calm it down,” Carrothers said. “We want to bring both fan bases together to calm this thing down so it isn’t so nasty.”

Kosch still has to deal with being a Husker fan behind enemy lines. But it's not Buffalo fans who ridicule him the most.

“The doors are always open and there are always a few knuckleheads that yell,” Kosch said. “’They say ‘Go Sooners’ or ‘Go Longhorns’ more than anything.”

It’s important to have a place to get Husker gear when your living in Colorado said Katie McLeay, an Omaha native who recently graduated from Colorado State University.

McLeay has a boyfriend from Boulder, “and on game days or when I want to make (my boyfriend) mad I always put on my Nebraska sweatshirt.”

But more important than that, McLeay said she enjoyed running into people with Husker clothes on as she tried to get accustomed to living away from home. She said she remembered her roots, and always tried to say hello.

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