Colorado State will retire No. 14 across all sports in honor of Lt. Col. John Mosley, CSU’s first Black letterwinner, the school announced Thursday. The number will go up in Canvas Stadium on Sept. 7, and any athletes currently wearing No. 14 for the Rams will get to keep their number through the end of their eligibility.
Mosley, a Denver Manual High School product, arrived in Fort Collins in the fall of 1939. He was the first Black football player at CU since 1906 and the second Black wrestler in school and state history. The National Merit Scholar went on to win all-conference honors in wrestling and was a three-year letterwinner in football.
After graduating from CSU, Mosley enrolled in the Tuskegee flight training center. As one of the first Black fighter pilots in U.S. history, Mosley served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He died in 2015 at the age of 93.
Since 2011, CSU has operated the Lt. Col. John Mosley Mentoring Program, a resource for Black student-athletes on campus. Mosley was inducted into the Colorado State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.
The Rams will officially retire Mosley’s No. 14 during the Ag Day football game on Sept. 7. CSU will host Northern Colorado at 5 p.m.
