From football standout to storyteller

With just over a minute left in the third quarter of the Western Colorado University Mountaineers’ biggest football game of the season, senior wide receiver Sage Yazzie took his place on the line of scrimmage and waited for the snap. 

With it came a flurry of action as the defense swarmed the quarterback. Three steps off the line, Yazzie cut hard across the middle. Through a forest of defensemen, the quarterback hit him on the run at the 30-yard line. Yazzie pulled the ball in close and rolled across the turf, a defender clinging to his back. With the catch, he’d dashed any hope the Colorado School of Mines had for a comeback. 

But something wasn’t right. When he got up and stepped on his left foot, he hesitated, and then took another step, a pronounced limp in his stride. While Western would go on to win against Mines, the game was over for Yazzie. With an ankle sprain, it was doubtful that he would make it back for what remained of the 2024-25 season. It was one of those moments when it became clear that, for Yazzie, one part of life was over, but another was just beginning.

Finding strength in football

Sports, and football in particular, have been a big part of Yazzie’s life for as long as he can remember. It was a pastime that had taken on a special significance for what it provided his father and four uncles, who all played basketball and football growing up in Ganado, Arizona in the Navajo Nation. 

As a kid, he spent every summer on the reservation, where sports were part of the fabric of life. As he made his way through high school in a Denver suburb — playing football, basketball, and baseball for the Longmont Trojans — he grew into a 6-foot-2-inch, 200-pound frame that was made for the game.

During his senior year, Yazzie was projected to be an all-conference pick in football. He had Division I potential and was thinking about San Diego State. But just as the future started coming into focus, everything changed. 

In the fourth week of his last high school season, his father fell ill and died, leaving him without the inspiration that had always been there — someone behind every catch. The day of his father’s funeral was the first time he had ever missed a practice or a game. Still in mourning, he returned to the field and delivered standout performances.  

“After he passed away, especially in the middle of football season, football just became the activity that showed him how hard I was working, even though he wasn't here anymore,” Yazzie said. “That gave me a lot of pride and motivation, with him always watching over me.” 

Connecting with tradition

Yazzie knows how lucky he is to go to college to play football and represent the Native population. On the reservation, he knows of kids who had to balance school and work to keep their families afloat. 

The contrast was apparent in his own life. His mother and her sister had college degrees. His father was a professor at Oklahoma State University, but had come from much different circumstances. 

“My dad was 100% Navajo, and I definitely grew up around my Native side more,” he said. “That's what I value from a traditional standpoint.” 

But those relatives lived a hard life. He had seen many family members die before they were old, including his own father. Others had to make a herculean effort to have a comfortable life. One uncle drove eight hours to Phoenix every week for work because there was none on the reservation.

The summers were hot on the arid edge of the Colorado Plateau, without much reprieve from a cool breeze or a shade tree. The winters were cold and snowy, with wood-burning stoves the only source of heat. 

“I loved going back there as a kid,” he said. “We lived so secluded from everybody and it's quiet. You're just kind of living off the land.” 

He chopped wood and lived simply, letting the problems he dealt with back home fade away. As confining as the reservation was in some respects, it was also freeing and immense, with unfathomably huge spaces, an endless blue sky and a deep silence. As hard as that country was, he said he saw the beauty in it, too. 

“I had a pretty rough childhood growing up with my family situation. I saw counselors, but therapy wasn't really for me,” he said. “I just always used the outdoors as my escape.”

The rise of Native Nature

As his search for the right college narrowed, he was split between San Diego and Western. San Diego is a private college that doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, while Western was surrounded by mountains and the open space he had been drawn to as a boy. Here, he knew he could chase his passions for snowboarding, backpacking and fly fishing year-round. 

He was only in the Gunnison Valley for 24 hours before he committed to the Mountaineers. 

“I couldn't be more happy. I just immediately felt at home,” he said. “It was the perfect fit.”

After settling in at Western, where the football team had a big-family feel, he looked over the course catalog and settled on a clinical psychology major with an emphasis on outdoor environmental education. He’d seen how wild places and open spaces had helped him on his own journey. Yazzie saw his experience in life and in the outdoors as an opportunity to help others. 

Not long after, he discovered that the photos and videos he’d been taking on his phone for years had become more than just digital memories. They’d become an art form he was increasingly passionate about sharing with others. 

Two years ago, Yazzie received a coveted internship in the marketing division of Gore-Tex, the famed textile brand, which put him in contact with Oakpool, Gore-Tex’s third-party marketing team. Soon, he was a contractor and worked with brands like Gore-Tex, Boulder Boatworks, Vortex, Bear and Burton, Trout Mount and the American Fly Fishing Museum. 

It was a relationship that served him well. It motivated him to start his own photography and videography company, Native Nature, LLC, which offers marketing services through Oakpool. He still works for the company as a contractor, keeping a foot in the door of a growing industry and working on a storytelling craft that he hopes to build into a career that helps others find peace in the outdoors.

Next summer, Yazzie said he hopes to start working on a project that will tell his own story of struggle and triumph. 

“My dad would be most proud of my sense of purpose,” Yazzie said. “He never really was a hard ass about me being good at football or getting recruited to play in college or anything like that. He just always wanted me to be happy. That's all. And I’m genuinely happy with where I stand and what I've done.”

 (Seth Mensing is the media and communications manager at Western Colorado University.)