Once a Buff, Always a Buff
I debated between the mimosa and the bloody mary.
On the morning of our 2021 graduation, my friend Rose and I sat in a tangerine booth at Snooze, dressed in caps and gowns, watching our virtual commencement on my phone. On the walk over, we soaked in applause from strangers as if Pearl Street were our stage.
At CU Boulder, commencement is more than tradition — it’s a ceremonial send-off into life beyond The Hill. It’s when you become not just a Buff, but a Forever Buff. But for us, that ritual was disrupted. Our journey began not with pomp and circumstance, but with pancakes and perseverance.
With no clear path after graduation, I soon found myself back at CU Boulder as a staff member at the Alumni Association. The next graduation season, I was up at 5 a.m. — this time helping set up Alfie, a 20-foot fuzzy inflatable buffalo, on Norlin Quad. I got misty-eyed watching from the steps of Old Main, coffee in hand, as soon-to-be alumni fixed their caps, took selfies with Alfie and snuck shooters up their sleeves.
Even after I stopped working at CU, I still returned for graduation — again up at 5 a.m. — but now as a volunteer. As co-president of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Alumni Chapter, I led AAPI graduation, an event I’d helped revive during my final months at CU. I stood alongside students who looked like me, celebrating a milestone I once dreamed of. I realized being a Buff wasn’t just about what the university gave me — it was about what I could give back.
That spring, Old Main stood fenced off, under restoration. For the first time in years, I wasn’t watching from its steps — I was standing in the crowd. Like the building, I had changed. My exterior had shifted. But underneath it all, the bones remained the same.
As the graduates made their way toward Folsom Field, I stepped across the wet grass in the same black leather boots I bought the summer before I became a Buff. I remember thinking: I need good walking shoes — sturdy enough for a Colorado winter, cute enough for the boys I’ll meet in class.
The boots are creased now, frayed at the edges. But I still move just fine.
What does it mean for something to last forever? Does it stay with us until we pass? Or is it what we leave behind that truly lasts?
I walked across the field, leaving soft footprints in the grass, following the next generation of Forever Buffs into whatever comes next.
Photo courtesy Christina Fang