FORT COLLINS — He just wanted his hair to look good more often, and that’s the irony of it all.

Nate Ryken asked for weekly haircuts when he was at Berthoud High School, and his mom noted how expensive that was, so for his 16th birthday, she gave him a pair of clippers as a gift.

“Before that I was playing around with some old clippers we had. So I started cutting my hair and thought I was doing all right,” Ryken recalls. “Then I sat my little brother down; he didn’t really have a choice. It was a learning experience for me. He’d sit in the chair for an hour and half, two hours, and I was trying to do a good job. He’d walk away with some not-so-good haircuts at times.”

It’s all been by trial and error, that and watching YouTube videos. He lived through some bad hair days, but he eventually became better. Then he branched out to his high school buddies in his garage, with a free clip being their main incentive to allow him to expand his skills. Now in his junior year as a Colorado State fullback, Ryken has pretty much opened shop in the locker room.

Thursdays after football practice, a makeshift barber shop opens in the CSU locker room and Ryken is ready with his clippers and razor, but it took a while for Ryken to muster up the nerve to offer his services outside his normal friend group.

“At CSU, first I wanted to feel it out before I advertised my barber skills,” Ryken said. “It was second semester my freshman year, I had some guys on the team I started cutting. I had a clientele for about a year, then I started branching out to (Dalyn) Dawkins. He allowed me to start cutting his hair. From there, I pretty much got a lot of guys on the team.

“I can do it all. Shape up, taper fades.”

Ryken ponders, but he believes Colton Foster was the first on the team to sit in his chair. Many of them were skeptics who had to be converted, and that included Dawkins, his roommate.

“I told him no for the longest of times. I kept watching him cut other people’s hair and then I let him,” Dawkins said. “I explained to him what I wanted to see if he could do it. He didn’t do it perfect the first time, but he got better. I let him keep doing it because he didn’t mess it up. It wasn’t terrible. If it was terrible, I wouldn’t have let him touch my hair again.”

Ryken estimates he’s cut the hair of about 70-80 different people, and he has a list of 20 teammates as regulars. Running back Marvin Kinsey Jr., is a weekly customer, as is Dawkins, who gets his cuts for free in return for rides from home to campus. Cameron Butler and Scott Brooks are also regulars.

He wants to branch out to other CSU teams, even females. He’s confident he could, but while some young ladies have expressed interest, none yet have taken the final step.

“I told them I’d watch YouTube videos,” he said, which may not be the best sales pitch.

They’re not alone. Jake Schlager gave an emphatic “no” as to if he’d ever let Ryken touch his hair. If you ask Dawkins, he said Ryken is pretty good at it, but it’s not a universal opinion.

“It also depends on who you ask. Emmanuel (Jones) would probably be out of the question, but a lot of people go to him, so I’d say he’s pretty good,” Dawkins said.

The mention of Jones makes them both cringe. And laugh.

“I got Emmanuel Jones about two months ago,” Ryken said. “I cut his hair and I picked it out, and it looked good when he left. Then when I saw him the next day and the hair had gone back to its natural state, it didn’t look good in the back. He has not come back. He was pretty upset about it. Other than that, most people get a decent haircut out of me.”

Ryken still cuts his own hair, and that of some friends, and it gives him a little walking around money. On Thursdays, if the line is too long, he heads back to the apartment to finish his customers, which isn’t always ideal.

“I basically tell him to go somewhere else; don’t bring everybody in our small apartment, because it makes me mad,” Dawkins said. “Three or four guys is cool, but 10, 15 people, no. I’ve got to study.”

By no means will this lead to a career change, Ryken said. He enjoys doing it, and is glad he’s developed the skill, but his plans are still focused on law enforcement down the line, the ideal job with “hopefully a three-letter acronym on the federal level.”

But for now, on Thursdays, if a teammate is feeling a bit shaggy, he can step into the locker room and get a trim.

The barber shop is open.

Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard