The much-anticipated installation of the personalized bricks outside CSU’s new on-campus stadium has begun, making the north entrance a must-see stop for stadium watchers.

The bricks, the sale of which began in October of 2015 and concluded Dec. 31, 2016, arrived recently and workers are busy putting together what essentially is a massive jigsaw puzzle that will surround the iconic Rocky Mountain Rumble sculpture that was placed last week at the north entrance. When fully installed, the bricks will spell “RAMS.”

Joe Parker, CSU’s director of athletics, is looking forward to seeing the bricks – 4,725 of them – when they are all in place.

“The brick campaign was important to provide an opportunity for broad participation in the stadium project,” he said. “It was a grassroots engagement initiative that allowed anyone to state their support of the project and CSU through a tangible act.”

Variety of messages

The messages cover pretty much every facet of Ram fan-dom. There are tributes to Ram families – grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren. There are tributes to campus memories. There are tributes to former Ram student-athletes. And there are simple expressions of the author’s love for CSU.

Parker said the brick program was a huge success, generating a net profit of close to $700,000, which will be used to help pay for the stadium project.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the response,” Parker said, noting that sales were 57 percent beyond what was expected. “As we considered the brick paver project, we established a goal of 3,000 donations. The idea really captured the attention of many more people than we expected. We surpassed our goal by 57.5%.”

Global participation

Fans from 49 of the 50 states (Delaware? Hello!) purchased bricks, along with a handful of foreign countries. Several sales originated from members of the military stationed at bases around the world.

The vast majority of the 4”-by-8” and 8”-by8” bricks were purchased by alumni or on behalf of alumni.

The installation is expected to take a couple of weeks and should be complete by mid-July.