While standing alone in Norlin Quad waiting to walk into Folsom Field for commencement, a grayed Pete Brock sparked the curiosity of a group of CU students that could be his grandchildren.
“Apparently, I looked lonely or something, but two kids came up to me and said, ‘Come over and be with us and our friends,'” Brock recalled with a laugh. “I’m the only graduate with compression socks on and they’re wondering, ‘How in the heck did you get here?’
“My stoles said ‘student athlete’ and so they asked, ‘What sport were you in?’ I told them football. And then they were really confused. Like, how’s an old guy like you a student athlete?”
Brock, 71, was who went on to an accomplished NFL career with the New England Patriots. After that, he found success in broadcasting, served for 25 years as the founder and president of the Patriots Alumni Club, was a software entrepreneur, and was also involved in the mortgage industry.
But one “unchecked box” in his life brought him back to Folsom Field on May 2, when he graduated with a bachelor’s degree The feat came exactly half a century after he left CU, when the Patriots selected him in the first round of the 1976 NFL Draft.
“My degree was something I started and never finished, and it’s bothered me for a long time,” Brock explained. “There was a time when, after my rookie year with the Patriots, I bought a home in Longmont so I could go back to school. But it didn’t come to fruition. Then, life happened, and it never got it done.”
Brock explained this backstory to his newfound group of friends on graduation day, and they were stoked for the former offensive lineman. Especially considering Brock stuffed the 42 credit hours he needed to graduate into a single year, starting with 12 hours last summer, 15 in the fall and three in a compressed winter-break course before finishing with 12 this spring.
Brock’s wife, Emily Brock, sees parallels between her husband’s football achievements and his determination to finish college.
“He learned that discipline when he was a pro football player and he carried that through his whole life, no matter what he’s done, in any endeavor he’s taken on,” Emily Brock said. “It’s that discipline from those years that has carried him through to the greatness that he is, including accomplishing this degree 50 years after he should’ve finished it in the first place.”
CU great, ‘Mr. Versatility’
When the Patriots selected Brock with the No. 12 overall pick in ’76, it was at that time the highest a CU offensive lineman had ever been drafted.
Brock, a first-team selection to CU’s All-Century team in 1989, played for He played in 154 NFL games, with 88 starts, and “Mr. Versatility” saw time at every position on the line, including tight end, long snapper, and wing back. Most of his starts came at center, where he played in New England’s loss to the Chicago Bears.
was highlighted by several accolades, including the Patriots’ Unsung Hero Award in 1979, the Jim Lee Hunt Award for best Patriots lineman in ’84, the Ed Block Memorial Courage Award in ’85 after coming back from midseason knee surgeries and the Miller Lite NFL Lineman of the Year in ’86. All of that led to Brock being named to the Patriots’ All-Decade Team for the 1980s.
“Pete was one of the all-time great players in CU football history,” said Cherry Creek High School head coach Dave Logan, a wideout who was in Brock’s class at CU. “And you don’t play that long in the NFL unless you’re a hell of a player. Incredibly smart, very tough, a good athlete who could move around. Look at how many different things the Patriots asked him to do — that speaks to his football acumen.”
With the Buffs, the Portland, Ore., native was a pillar on the 1975 team as a senior when CU went 9-3, was ranked inside the Top 10 and lost to Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl. Brock was one of 12 in ’75, including three in the first round. But there’s one game from that season he wants back — a 21-20 road loss to No. 1 Oklahoma, the defending national champions who went on to repeat.
“With about three minutes to go, we got the ball down 21-14 and we drove the length of the field just pounding them,” Brock recalled. “That was a tough defense, and we flat wore them out, we ground them down. When we put it into the end zone to make it 21-20, I’m thinking, ‘These guys are done. Let’s go for (two).’
“And out trots the kicker. I wanted to call a timeout and go discuss this with anyone who would listen to me. We missed the extra point. If it were up to me, we would’ve called a (smashmouth run up the middle) and I still believe we would’ve won the game on that play.”
Brock’s younger brother, Willie Brock, played on CU’s O-line with Pete that season. They were two of four football-playing Brock brothers, three of which (Pete, Willie and Stan) went on to the NFL. Three Brock sisters were also prosperous — two were executives at Nike, and one has run a daycare center for about 40 years — so Willie says it’s no surprise that Pete felt compelled to finish his degree.
“There’s a lot of grit and determination in the Brock family,” Willie Brock said. “Once he set his goal and once he told the family that he was going back to school, we knew it would get done. I just didn’t think it would get done that fast.”
An ‘above-and-beyond’ student
Pete Brock, who lives in Kingston, New Hampshire, finished his degree over the last year by taking classes online. He took advantage of the for retired players, so the league paid for his classes.
, who taught Brock in an introductory geology course this spring, noted online classes are “generally all about distance” with little or no interaction between the professor and the students. But that wasn’t the case with Lester and Brock, as the professor found his senior-citizen pupil eager to engage.
“He went above-and-beyond to interact in this class, whether it was chiming in with cool discussion posts or just talking about geology with me,” Lester said.
“… You go to college because you get exposed to a lot of different subjects and it helps you learn how to think. And it’s all about perspective. That’s what I think was driving Mr. Brock when he went back to get his degree. He wanted the (degree) to put on his mantel, of course, but he really wanted to dip his toes into a bunch of different knowledge.”
, who taught Brock in tropical marine ecology over the fast-paced, condensed winter semester, also says Brock stood out in her course for his paper on an anthropogenic effect on the ocean. He studied “the dual value of oyster aquaculture in both food production and ecosystem improvements.”
“He had such a passion for the project that it was a pleasure to work with him and fascinating to read the final product,” Furman Dougherty said.
Efforts like that led to a 3.57 GPA over the last year, a stark improvement from his approach in the classroom at the end of his CU playing career, as Brock lamented how he “goofed off and blew off my senior spring” while skipping classes and letting his GPA slide. His academic prowess at age 71 raised his cumulative GPA to 2.5.
“I didn’t go into this to (show off) or to evangelize the world of an education,” Brock said. “But I hope that it might inspire somebody like me, someone who is maybe thinking it’s too late to finish college, to do this.”
Now what?
Brock, who is retired, has no intention to use his degree in the workforce. But what is for sure is you won’t find him loitering in his recliner anytime soon.
In recent years, he’s become a budding carpenter and has recently built a greenhouse in his backyard. Brock plans on spending lots of time in there this summer, planting a vegetable garden and helping his wife cultivate a collection of annual flowers. He’s also got big plans for trips into the wilds of New Hampshire with his “best friend,” a German Wirehaired Pointer named Jäger, hunting upland birds.
“He had never built anything before in his lifetime before he built that greenhouse, and that’s only the start,” Emily Brock said. “He’s going to build a bed for the spare bedroom. He’s going to build shutters for the home. That’s just how he’s wired — you put it in front of him, he’ll do it.”
