Cut Traded Fired Retired

He grew up in a small town in Colorado, stayed in state for college, was drafted 20th overall in 2007 and tripled the length of a typical NBA career by staying in the league for 12 years.   Jason Smith thought he was going to be the only “short” person in his family when he got to 5’10” in middle school and started at that same height his freshman year of high school. By the end of that school yea...

Kapri Bibbs was raised by a single mom in a very large family which instilled his commitment to family and his faith. He relied on both to guide him through rough times as a kid and when his football talents began to turn heads. Kapri also realized his faith would teach him lessons when he made certain choices, like cheating on the ACT his senior year of high school. That was a choice that landed...

Ryan Sutter's name is usually connected with a reality TV show, but before the words "Trista and Ryan" became a household phrase, Ryan was a Vail firefighter who grew up in Fort Collins, played football at the University of Colorado as a walk on and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.   His NFL career didn't last very long, in fact on the field it was just a few seconds of a regular season game a...

14 years in any professional sport is an eternity, especially in the very physical National Hockey League. John-Michael Liles grew up in Indiana and by the time he was in high school, it was apparent that hockey was his sport. He played on some elite teams during his teenage years and after high school had a successful college career at Michigan State.   During his time with the Spartans, he was d...

Montee Ball’s story was supposed to be something like this: “Star running back and Heisman Trophy finalist out of Wisconsin goes on to break rushing records in the NFL with his favorite team growing up.” Instead, it was “Star running back and Heisman Trophy finalist out of Wisconsin goes on to be drafted in the 2nd round by his favorite team growing up and fizzles out of the league after two seaso...

Bobby Pesavento entertained the idea of football once when he was in middle school. When he couldn’t up seed the coach’s quarterback son, he moved on to basketball. Then one day in high school, his football buddies asked him to throw some passes their way when their quarterback didn’t show up for spring practice. A football coach saw his arm talent and recruited him to start playing football.   It...

After batting .557 and setting a school record with 13 home runs his senior year of high school in California, Garrett Atkins was drafted by the New York Mets. He was also courted by several colleges including Oklahoma State, USC, Cal State, Pepperdine and UCLA. Garrett chose to wait for Major League Baseball and head to UCLA. He became the Bruin’s first 3-time All American in baseball and spent t...

Had he grown up where he was born, chances are Dan Hinote would not have experienced a decade-plus pro hockey career. Afterall, Florida isn’t really a hotbed for hockey players. Case in point: Dan became the first Florida born player to score a goal in an NHL game.   When Dan was very young, he moved from Florida to Minnesota where ponds are plentiful and eventually everyone laces up some ice skat...

Keith Bishop chooses his words wisely: when he speaks, people listen. That came in handy during his decade career with the Broncos as an offensive lineman, especially when the Broncos were on the 2-yard line in Cleveland needing a 98 drive to tie the Browns in the AFC Championship game in 1987. Keith noticed the Browns defense snickering, so he got ticked and told his huddle “We got those mother f...

Had someone told a young Tyrone Braxton that one day he would be a two-time Super Bowl Champion and earn a PhD in his late 50’s, he would never have believed them. Had someone told him he’d get involved in alcohol, drugs, be arrested and almost lose his family… well, he may have believed that because that’s what happened to everyone he grew up with in Madison, Wisconsin. The fact that ALL of that...

He was born and raised in Colorado, yet when Scott Elarton was told he was being traded to the Rockies from the team that drafted him while he was in high school, his first emotion was shock. The pitcher thought he would be an Astro for life. But as Scott would learn over the next almost decade: “for life” is extremely rare in Major League Baseball.   Growing up in Lamar, Scott excelled in many sp...

Enjoy 14 stories from the NFL Draft Days of Von Miller, Louis Wright, Daniel Graham, Champ Bailey, Simon Fletcher, Steve Atwater, Terrell Davis, Rick Upchurch, Howard Griffith, Peyton Manning, Gary Kubiak, Steve Foley, Tyrone Braxon and Bubby Brister. Many of these players also have full episodes on the Cut Traded Fired Retired Podcast (or will someday). If you haven’t listened to them, search the...

Defenseman can be onery. They are defensemen after all. Kyle Quincey was no exception and had his moments, however many were justified. Like the time he pinned a hockey stick between the eyes of Redwings head coach Mike Babcock and “requested” respect during his second stint in Detroit after coming off 3 solid years with the Avalanche. Babcock obliged and put Kyle on the power play the next night....

He had no plans to play football in the same town where he grew up, in fact Dallas Davis fully planned to leave Fort Collins and become a Badger in Wisconsin. Then he got a visit from head coach Sonny Lubick and a couple other coaches who put a new thought in his head: did he really think he’d catch many passes with future Heisman Trophy winning Ron Dayne running the ball on most plays? Dallas swi...

He grew up on a horse ranch in a small town in Manitoba, Canada. Rick Berry thought it was perfectly normal that his family had some 200 pure bred Belgian horses and when those horses urinated, it was collected (by Rick and his brother) for the Premarin in the urine and sold to pharmaceutical companies. He later found out that wasn’t so normal.   What was normal for Rick: having a pond nearby and...

His biography is filled with basketball. What’s not in Ricardo Patton’s bio is his childhood which included being raised by his grandmother after his mom left him and his sister when he was just 9 months old. His father wasn’t present either, so Ricardo figured out how to navigate life through basketball.   His college career at Belmont kept him close to home in Nashville. After college, he stayed...

Charlie Blackmon had no illusions of grandeur once he realized his days as a left-handed pitcher were numbered.  He’d been a pitcher in high school and junior college and figured when he transferred to Georgia Tech he’d ride his time out on the bench, get a degree and find a job. Life worked out a bit differently.   It all changed when Charlie spent a summer in the Texas Collegiate League and got...

In 2025, Lisa Van Goor will finally be inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. A long overdue honor for the first player in the history of the University of Colorado (man or woman) to score 2000 points and snag 1000 rebounds in a career. She also averaged a double-double for her career as a Buff, all of this despite missing several games due to injuries her junior and senior seasons.   Lis...

Sometimes the road to professional football takes a non-traditional path. Colorado native Gabe Knapton knows that trail well. After playing linebacker for his dad, who demanded a lot as the head coach at Skyline High School in Longmont, Gabe had his choice of many colleges to continue his playing career. It came down to Wyoming and Colorado State. He chose to be a Cowboy because of alumni in his f...

He thought he would be a basketball player and never considered football until high school where he learned the game on his 1A high school team. First on offense, then moving to defense. His team was good, regularly beating larger schools and garnering large home crowds. The college scouts didn’t stop by often, however Nate was still offered a few scholarships.   He chose North Carolina State wher...

He’s not the typical professional athlete, but his resume reads like one: he was on the payroll of a professional team, he entertained fans and he performed athletic feats many would never dare. He also wore a mountain lion costume. Kenn Solomon was Rocky, the Nuggets mascot, for over three decades and while he kept his mascot code of silence when in costume, now he’s “just Kenn” and has plenty to...

When a life lesson presents itself, it’s usually best practice to learn and grow from it. Like Ricky Brewers’ junior year at Colorado State University. A year that he didn’t play football and instead was suspended and on the scout team.   Ricky is a Colorado native with roots in the Denver Public School system. In high school he played football for legendary high school coach Dave Logan and won a...

He’s one of just over 30 players who can say he played for the Broncos twice. Corey Nelson grew up in Dallas and was the 5A player of the year in high school as well as a 5-star recruit by Scout.com. He had numerous colleges offering scholarships and chose Oklahoma because of the connection he felt with the linebacker’s coach.   Corey started playing as a true freshman and gathered accolades as bo...

The chip on Chris Harris Jr’s shoulder began to form in high school. He’d lettered in three sports, been All-State in football and basketball and was honored for his academics. Yet he hadn’t been offered a scholarship after his senior year of football. Finally during the basketball season, the University of Kansas gave him an offer. Once other schools head of KU’s scholarship, they jumped on the b...

Even though he was making tackles left and right at William & Mary, Jim Ryan never thought about going to the NFL after college. He was getting his Business Management degree and heading into the real world. That is until a scout from the Broncos contacted him.   The scout knew Jim wasn’t going to be drafted but saw his talent and wanted to be on the linebacker’s radar when he was picking out...