Enshrined: Richburg Grateful for Every Step of Life
Family life in the country fits perfectly
Mike Brohard
In a lifetime, there are so many points one finds themselves.
At each and every stage, Weston Richburg has felt grateful.
To be afforded the chance to become a Division I football player. The kid out of Bushland, Texas hoped he see the field somehow, someway. He proved himself to be so much more. Through four standout years at Colorado State, he showed one of his greatest abilities was being reliable, starting 50 consecutive games in an All-Conference career.
It was a tenure where he proved he was capable of so much more than his simple dreams, becoming a high NFL Draft pick which led to a seven-year NFL career, unfortunately cut short by injury.
Which brings his to his current stage of life.
Retirement. Yes, he’s grateful for that, too.
“I am retired. I am unemployed, and I’m loving it,” Richburg said. “I’m looking forward to what’s next. What’s becoming more and more evident to me is our kids and raising a family. The fact Marlee and I sacrificed a lot as student-athletes and then as a professional athlete to be where we’re at now, to be in the position we are now to give our kids a really awesome upbringing in a great part of the country on a very cool piece of land is great.
“It’s funny, we’re so used to living out in the country, we took them on a little vacation to Oklahoma City and there was a TV in the bathroom and motion-sensor sinks and the trash was cut into the countertop. I love that. Our son, Cash, is out in the middle of nowhere really, sees cows every day and has a little pony he rides on occasion. My daughter will get to experience those things too. This next phase of life I’m in, I’m a husband, a child of God and a father to my children, which is awesome that that’s my job. That’s just awesome.”
He will be part of a nine-person class recognized during the annual All-Sports Reunion weekend, with the Hall of Fame Induction set for Friday, Oct. 27. The following day, the entered class will be recognized on the field during the State Pride football game with Air Force.
He redshirted his freshman season at Colorado State, but by the end of spring camp that year, then-CSU coach Steve Fairchild predicted to the media Richburg would be the team’s starting center in the fall. He was right, but Richburg also became a College Football News and Phil Steele first-team freshman All-American.
He won the Thurman “Fum” McGraw Award and was considered so valuable by his final college coach, Jim McElwain, that McElwain wanted to make the unprecedented move to nominate him for Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year.
“They’re just letting anybody in now. Huh,” said his offensive line coach at CSU, Pat Meyer, now with the Pittsburgh Steelers. “He showed up and you knew he was a player. He was a good kid, too. But he was a good player when we got him, and he worked and became a great player. More than that, he was a great teammate and a good leader. He was a student; he studied the game.
“The good ones, that’s the way you want it to be. I’m not surprised he went on and had a great career in the league. They come in and make themselves better, but they make their team better. The good ones are always like that, even off the field. He’s going to be a success away from the field.”
I’m seeing things through the eyes of a kid again and being able to share those experiences with them. That’s pretty cool.Weston Richburg
All you have to do is listen to Richburg to understand all he really wants to be is happy. The how and where will figure themselves out, and he know he has a fantastic guide in his life – his wife, Marlee.
He calls her “the brains” of the operation down in Texas, where the night skies run deep, and the stars shine bright. It’s a peaceful life.
Perfect, even.
“It’s just kind of funny. Out here in the middle of nowhere, no neighbors or anything,” he said. “It’s just us, so we hang out together all day which is cool. It’s so quiet, so dark. It’s funny. The only sirens we hear are sirens mounted to pickups of people to call their cows. That’s the only kind of emergency sound we hear, and it’s not an emergency. We love that too.”
In 2021, he and Marlee made a historic donation to Colorado State athletics, their way of paying back the place where they met and the people who made an impact on their lives.
Figuring out what’s next is exciting for the two of them, especially doing it as a couple. It’s most definitely centered on being parents, with son Cash now 3 and daughter Weslee (a combination of their names) having just turned 1 recently.
As athletes, they understand what being a game-changer means. As parents, the first stage is when the children become mobile, but it won’t be the last.
“It’s very different. The roles are really different,” Weston said. “As an athlete, you’re trying to be the best of what you’re doing. Now it’s channeled into me trying to be the best dad and husband I can be. That’s my purpose. I’m first a child of God, and I have to live that way. But I’ve been tasked with stewarding my wife and kids, so it’s cool to channel all that competitive desire and motivation into them, trying to be the best dad and husband I can be.
“It’s definitely work. I have grown an appreciation for Marlee and the way she’s so patient with our kids. It’s a job. I kind of underestimated what it would be like. I knew it would be lifechanging, but it changed everything, and it’s for the better. It’s so fulfilling. I’m seeing things through the eyes of a kid again and being able to share those experiences with them. That’s pretty cool.”
Taking the call he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame took him back, and once again, made him grateful for the life he lived and where it has led him.
The present is built on memories, and for him there are too many to count. Making it more special is most of his memories are a shared experience with Marlee.
“I really didn’t know how to handle it. That was always kind of in my mind that I would be so honored to be selected to that, but I didn’t know how to handle it,” Weston said. “It’s such a huge deal, and it’s made me very retrospective in looking back. When I first got to CSU, my initial hope was to be on the team for a couple of years and maybe get on field goal a couple of times. To see what happened and how crazy of a five years I had there was, it blows my mind. I was speechless. What an honor. You look at a lot of the names in there and it’s hard to believe I was what I was when I got there and 10-plus years past that I’m in the Hall of fame.
“It's cool because a lot of the teammates I’ll get to see, she’ll reminisce with them too. She had memories with them as well. When we met as sophomores, it was history. We hung out all the time with each other and our mutual friends. That’s the cool part. It’s not just my thing, it’s our thing and the genesis of our story together.”
An amazing and wonderful point of life to reach together.