FROM EQUIPMENT MANAGER TO QB: Former Rancho Bernardo High signal caller Sessions gets improbable shot to play at Colorado

By Michael Bower

Trent Sessions is leading touchdown drives again.

The 2012 Rancho Bernardo High graduate thought his football playing days were over when he turned down a Division III scholarship offer to Linfield College in Oregon to attend the University of Colorado as a student only.

But after spending a year as the Buffaloes equipment manager, a string of odd occurrences landed the sophomore a spot on the spring roster and under center last week in Colorado’s Black vs. Gold spring game at the 53,000-seat Folsom Field.

“There were about 10,000 people there and I had Colorado on my chest and Buffaloes on my helmet,” said the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Sessions, who went 3-for-5 and hit a 42-yard pass to setup a 1-yard touchdown run for the Black team. “I don’t know. Words cannot describe it honestly.”

Some on message boards poked fun at Colorado, a Division I school in the Pac-12 Conference, for putting a former equipment manager on the spring roster. But Sessions is more qualified than one would think.

He has played at the quarterback position since he was 6 and was selected to the All-North County First-Team Offense by the North County Times in his senior year after throwing for over 2,000 yards.

“People don’t know too much about me here,” he said. “Conference player of the year, 2,000-plus yards. They don’t know that stuff. I don’t get that many reps in practice so it was nice to go out there and do well. It definitely felt good.”

Sessions found his way back to football after filling out an application online to become Colorado’s equipment manager last year. The job drew his interest because it had perks such as traveling with the team, attending practices and getting free Nike gear.

“I figured I had some free time so why not go check it out,” Sessions said.

He handed out equipment to players, helped setup drills at practices and even threw passes to the wide receivers. But the thought of playing again did not seriously enter his mind until a flurry of Colorado quarterbacks left for one reason or another.

“One tore an ACL, one transferred and two quit,” Sessions said. “That’s when I started thinking, ‘wow, maybe this is fate.’”

That left Colorado with just two signal callers for spring ball. The Buffaloes needed an arm to take on some of the load in practice so head coach Mike MacIntyre added Sessions to the roster in February without a tryout.

He has been working with the team since and now he is holding on to the hope that he can make the fall roster.

“I understand I was playing a role this spring,” said Sessions, who is pursuing a degree in business and hopes to work in football operations one day. “I know they just needed help. I came in expecting the worst, knowing that I might get cut and I might never see the field. But this was a chance of a lifetime and a dream to play at the University of Colorado.”

Colorado is expected to have three more quarterbacks join it in the fall, but just having a chance at a spot is more than Sessions ever imagined.

“I would love to be able to suit up on Saturday afternoon with the Colorado uniform,” he said. “I just want to do anything I can to help leave the program better than when I came in. I want to do anything I can to help get the program back to where they were in the 90s.”