FORT COLLINS – Left foot. Stop. Right foot. Stop.

Slowly, steadily, painfully, Mike Bobo walked 20 dreaded feet through a door, up a platform and to the podium after Colorado State’s Aug. 31 loss to the CU Buffs. Each step brought another heavy breath, while every eye and TV camera in the room was locked on his agonizing pace.

This coach, who collapsed his weight around the shoulders of his security personnel minutes earlier, looked unfamiliar. Not the man whose expression generally ranges from positive to stoic. This was a man nearing his breaking point. He glared with every question a reporter asked. He swore. He even belittled.

Again, this man was unfamiliar. But this man — who cannot feel his feet — was standing at a news conference, after walking the past four hours on a sideline while watching his team suffer a second straight blowout defeat. He didn’t have to be — he could have sent an assistant to talk to the media, he could have coached this game from a chair in the press box. Instead, he chose this course and this punishment, and his lashes didn’t end after walking out of that room, or even the next morning skimming headlines.

Throughout Labor Day weekend, all he had to do was open his phone to see the flood of Twitter notifications telling him how bad he is at his job.

“Fire @CoachBobo_CSU!!!!”

“@CoachBobo_CSU your players deserve better than this.”

“God we (bleeping) stink @CoachBobo_CSU.”

“Mike Bobo has managed to be worse every season. I officially am on the #fireBobo wagon. This is an embarrassment.”

And I thought my mentions were bad.

Bobo was stuck in a hospital bed for 10 days shortly before the Rams’ season opener against Hawaii and didn’t get to take time off. He was constantly on the phone with his staff, reviewing and critiquing practice film, while doctors ran test after test to figure out the source of his peripheral neuropathy. He chose to sit in the press box for the opener but decided he’d rather be on the field against CU.

Despite the pain, he was there again Saturday. Bobo paced the sideline for another four hours against Arkansas as the Rams pulled off the greatest win of his tenure. Afterward, the scene was similar when he walked into his press conference, except this time, he wore a smile.

“I want to give thanks to God, I really do. There has been some trying times, and he humbles you,” Bobo said.

College football coaches don’t get the luxury of sick leave. They get a few weeks off after spring camp ends in April, and then it’s back to the grind. If a medical emergency doesn’t fall in that window, tough — find a way to deal with it. Bobo has, along with the heat that accompanies a struggling team.

No one has been tougher on Bobo than I have — his cushy contract and just-above .500 career record make him an easy target. But the more I try to place myself in Bobo’s shoes, the more I realize I can’t. What he’s doing in his health is nothing short of remarkable.

All that matters in major-college athletics is the bottom line. Did you win, or did you lose? The Rams sit at 1-2 and will be hard-pressed to even their record next weekend at Florida, and that’s not lost on Bobo. But there is something to be said for dedication, and Bobo is nothing if not devoted.

“I think I can speak for the rest of the guys when I say we see that he’s hurting, it’s definitely tough for him to be out there and he’s going through some pain just like his players,” Quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels said. “It’s incredible to have a leader like that.”

Said receiver Preston Williams: “He’s a warrior, man. He has no quit.”

Give this man some credit. Even if the Rams somehow finish this season as poorly as it started, consider for a moment what he’s going through, then remember a point of your adult life when you were at your weakest. How’d you respond?

Bobo hasn’t wallowed — not even behind closed doors — because no matter how bad things look, he’s committed to getting the Rams right.

He doesn’t have to be on the field, he doesn’t have to answer our questions and he doesn’t have to sit quietly as Twitter delivers its weekly demoralizing critiques. Bobo chooses to show that strength because that’s the man he is, and that’s worth our respect.