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When Phil Caragol arrived at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1971, he immediately felt like a fish out of water—the Hudson River, to be exact. “The only connection that most of [my peers] had to New Yorkers was watching mafia movies,” the Long Island native says.
The 72-year-old CU alumnus still stands out in a crowd of Buffs, though these days he’s an entirely different animal. During home games at Folsom Field, Caragol transforms into Buffalo Phil, the alter ego he conceived 15 years ago during a disappointing season for his alma mater. “All I saw on the faces of the fans were these long, sad expressions, and there was almost no cheering,” Caragol says. “The fans needed someone in the stands to fire them up.”
Caragol began assembling a costume, starting with a plastic Viking helmet covered with brown faux fur. Today, the Boulderite spends two hours applying a more elaborate version of his getup, which includes beer Koozies affixed to the helmet, a cape that resembles a buffalo pelt, and black and yellow mascara swiped through his beard and mustache. Caragol estimates that during each game, he takes as many as 300 photos with members of the Buffs faithful and tracks over 20,000 steps on his yellow-laced shoes, leading the crowd in cheers and socializing with fans.
Caragol hopes that his hype-man presence encourages positivity, no matter the score. “A football stadium is one of the only places where so many people have the same thing in common,” Caragol says. Sometimes, it takes an outlier to bring them together.
In March, Caragol released The Blunder Years, a collection of coming-of-age tales that highlight the comedy and chaos of his childhood—and his self-described “psychedelic hippie years” in Boulder. Snag a signed copy and meet the author on October 22 at the Boulder Bookstore.
