Brooke Fox

Walking home through campus on a Friday night last spring, Max Demby heard screams and ran toward them to find a man pinning a young woman up against a wall. He scared the attacker off and walked the woman home, making sure friends were there before he left.

It all "happened in a matter of seconds. It began and ended before I could even comprehend what was happening,” Demby says of the event.

Last Friday, Demby’s intervention became the centerpiece of Vice President Biden’s speech about ending sexual assault at the University of Colorado, where Biden wrapped up a Week of Action campaign -- part of the White House’s It’s On Us initiative -- as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Initially, Demby had been asked only to give a short speech prior to the vice president’s appearance, but in a surprise move, Biden brought him up to the podium and praised his courage.



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“It’s not so easy ... he prevented a sexual assault. Max is a hero. Like my son Beau, who just passed away ... when he was a sophomore at Penn, did the same thing,” the vice president said.

After the attack last spring, the CU-Boulder Police chief also called Demby a hero, telling the Boulder Daily Camera that the "event would have ended much worse than it did." The police eventually caught the 27-year-old assailant.

Demby, the fifth-year concurrent accounting student, disagrees.

“I guess I don’t think of myself as a hero as much as someone who did the right thing," he tells USA TODAY College. "Not right by my standards, right based on what everyone should do. Because I truly believe everybody should do what they can to intervene in a situation like that."

He says he strongly agrees with the It's On Us campaign's call on men to help change the culture. At his speech on Friday, Biden said that anyone who sees someone "walking an inebriated freshman up the stairs, (should) walk up and say 'not in my house, Jack.'"

"Every guy has a woman in their life they care about. And as soon as you realize that sexual assault could happen to a loved one, like a sister or girlfriend or someone’s mother, it hits a lot closer to home. I think that would be the way I would try to involve men on campuses nationwide,” Demby says.

Before the event even started, something even more exciting than being introduced to the crowd took place: Demby was awarded the Vice Presidential Coin of Courage.

It happened after Demby, CU’s Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano, Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), the student government’s tri-executives and star basketball player Josh Scott greeted the vice president.

“Joe Biden arrives, it's this larger than life thing, this shining moment when the second-most powerful person in the world is walking in the same room you’re in and you’re trying to take it all in,” says Demby, who didn't expect the vice president to know who he was.

But the vp gave him a hug -- and then the Vice Presidential Coin of Courage.

“The tradition is that if someone gives you one of these coins, only the president and vice president have them," says Demby, who adds there are string attached. "If I should ever meet him again and I have it with me, drinks are on him. If I don’t, drinks are on me.”

Demby is a student athlete who participates in a unique sport. Tradition at CU mandates that Ralphie, the school’s live buffalo and mascot, run around the field of the football stadium prior to each half. Running alongside the buffalo are six lightening-fast students in traditional cowboy garb, admirably referred to as the "Ralphie Runners."

And athletes, he says, play an important role on campuses.

“As college students, sometimes we’re not very receptive to things. It’s tough to relay messages if you’re an adult, if you’re a (school) administrator. And for better or worse, (sports are) what we pay attention to … and I think that student athletes are an excellent driver (of messages) because they’re popular on campus and students pay attention to them.”

According to CUs recent sexual misconduct survey, administered between Oct. 19 and Nov. 16, 2015, 28% of the 11,362 undergraduate women at CU were sexually assaulted, or about 3,181 women in total. According to the CU-Boulder Police Crime Statistics, only 16 sex offenses were reported in 2014, which would indicate an approximate reporting rate of about 0.5%.

“Imagine if 75% reported, imagine how much that alone would lower sexual assaults," says Demby. "That has to happen.”



Brooke Fox is a student at University of Colorado at Boulder and a USA TODAY College digital producer.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.