Female coach seeks program

Nederland’s tough season still worth it

Beth Buglione, who become the first female head football coach in Colorado high school history this past fall, is on the job hunt once again after Nederland announced the cancelation of its football program Jan. 17.

“It’s my passion — I can’t not be coaching football in the fall, even if it means I just have to walk up somewhere and volunteer,” Buglione said. “I’ll be finding something around the Denver metro area.”

Nederland’s decision to cancel the program, effective for the upcoming 201819 school year, replaced the school’s 8-man football team with boys soccer.

Under Buglione, the Panthers struggled to field a team in 2017, forfeiting two games while losing their other five games by a combined score of 258-44. The team averaged 10 players on its roster for each game and competed in several games with just seven or eight players.

The Panthers also weren’t a part of any CHSAA league, meaning they had to travel long distances — up to 14 hours round trip — just to play a game.

But even with the wounds from a winless season being intensified by the subsequent shutting down of the program — which Buglione said she and her players “didn’t realize was being discussed” — the coach believes there were positives.

“These kids aren’t going to have things handed to them in their lives — they have to work for them, they have to show up for them, they have to train for them,” she said. “What this season taught was a real-life lesson in going after something you really want, even if it’s initially denied to you.”

Nederland students who desire to continue playing football can try out for Boulder High School, the same school that offered to allow the Nederland players to be absorbed into their 5A program after the team’s second forfeit in mid-September.

“They even offered me a paid assistant job, but we talked to the kids, and they didn’t want to do that — they wanted to stay with their school and play for Ned. I was 100 percent behind that,” Buglione said. “We finished the season. It may not have been pretty, but we finished that season as a team.”