Enshrined: Pears Creates His Own Never-Ending To-Do List
Family, property keep former lineman plenty busy
Mike Brohard
He was honored. He was humbled. Then Erik Pears was horrified.
A normal day in his life was presented with a very perplexing twist.
“I was actually out messing with cattle, and I answered the phone before I looked who it was, so it caught me by surprise. He told me and it was a pretty cool deal,” the former standout offensive lineman for CSU said about receiving the call from Director of Athletics Joe Parker about his induction into the Hall of Fame. “It’s not something you expect. Honestly, it was cool but at the same time it was a little frightening. I’m not a big social person, and I went to Joel Dreessen’s induction and he’s up there giving a 15-minute, fantastic speech and everybody is on the edge of their seat, and I’m thinking, hell, I can’t do that. So, a little bit of panic and excitement.”
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.
For Pears, now somewhat retired after an 11-year NFL career which started with him being an undrafted free agent by the Denver Broncos, every day is a personal to-do list. That comes with the territory of a 90-acre ranch in the Larkspur area. They moved there because in their old neighborhood, the HOA constantly balked at all the equipment he had at his house.
“I like to tinker. I can’t sit still,” he said. “I always have to have something to do. Moving to a place like this with the cattle and the other stuff we have going on, it’s a never ending list of things to get done.
“I don’t pay to get much stuff done. I end up figuring out a way to get stuff done myself. I enjoy it. It goes back to when I was growing up. My mom always had a project going on, be it remodeling a kitchen or tearing something up outside. I probably got that from her.”
“Tinkering” for Pears means building a dock for the pond on the property – the pond they recently expanded from small and shallow to a couple of acres and deeper. It means building corrals for the cattle, building fences and converting the barn to an indoor sports facility with batting cages and a weight room the four children he and his wife, Ashlee (they recently celebrated their 15th anniversary) have use for their athletic pursuits.
Because of them – Lukas (15), Makenzie (13), Levi (10) and Sydnie (8) – he considers himself an unpaid Uber driver, spending his afternoons carting them from school to whatever practice is in season.
This is the person former CSU football coach Sonny Lubick has always known – looking for work to do and then doing it well. They wanted Pears badly; he just wasn’t sure they had a chance.
Lubick remembers pulling out all the stops to make the return visit to the Pears’ home (older brother Morgan was already on the team), with Lubick going with four other coaches.
“We go into the house, and we sit down and we’re going to do our big pitch, and before we start, he says, ‘I’m going to CSU,’” Lubick recalled. “One of my coaches puts on his recruiting hat, and I said, ‘don’t say a word. Let’s get out of here before he changes his mind.’”
I don’t pay to get much stuff done. I end up figuring out a way to get stuff done myself.Erik Pears
Even with the best recruits, Lubick knows there’s no guarantee for a professional career. Pears definitely had the frame to be a pro, but it requires more than just pure athleticism and strength.
Throughout his time at Colorado State, Lubick watched as Erik developed and pushed himself to earn his shot.
“It’s hard to get to the NFL. Every kid has that dream, and it’s so darn difficult,” Lubick said. “It’s luck, it’s hard work. You have to have everything going for you. He was around a pretty good crew of guys at that time, and as you get going, you start to think he looks the part, but there’s still no guarantee.
“More importantly, he worked at it and got better and did everything he was supposed to do. He was always there, on time. We used to come in during the summertime and back then, we didn’t have the money for the players to go to summer school. We had a drill, and before you could practice, you had to pass it. It was 16 110s – I don’t know who the hell came up with that – in a certain amount of time. I could sit in my office in the summer and look out my window, and it’s hot, and there he is out there working and running with some other guys. He was not going to fail that test. He was going to do the extra work, and you could see his confidence just soar, and the last two years, we could not beat him in a pass drill. We even tried DBs. Nobody could get around him.”
To this day, Erik still likes the work. If he can combine it with his play, even better.
He runs a small cattle operation, one which expanded beyond his original ideas to where he and a partner are now flushing and inserting embryos, but he’s still having fun with it. There’s another side business – Outwest Adventures – which he and former teammate Patrick Goodpaster became involved with through Anthony Cesario and Jeff Travis. It is an outfitting hunting company, but they have since shed the big-game side with the focus being on waterfowl and turkey hunts.
“I figured my wife couldn’t yell at me for hunting too much if it was my job,” Erik said.
He and Cesario are linked in a lot of ways. Pears happens to be the last offensive lineman at CSU to be a two-time first-team all-conference performer since Cesario, who is also in the Hall of Fame.
He insists his life now couldn’t be drawn up any better.
What the phone call from Parker gave him was a reason to reminisce. It’s an easy trip back to his time at Colorado State, to remember those who made the unexpected phone call possible for him.
“While you’re playing at Colorado State, it’s not like I’m walking out to practice thinking I’m going to practice extra hard today so I can get into the Hall of Fame,” he said. “That’s the farthest thing from your mind. It’s a culmination of all the things, hard work, your teammates you played with, especially on the offensive line. They play a huge role, because you’re depending on the guy next to you for a lot of stuff.”
He’s never been afraid of work. Not as a player, definitely not as a rancher. He can’t find enough to do, and none of it makes him fret.
Writing a speech and delivering it, well, that’s going to feel like a chore.