Damien Goddard always had a passion for school spirit at DU.  In 1985, as an undergraduate at the Kappa Sigma house, he started the Bleacher Creatures, a student fan group. Once he graduated from DU and entered the pre-Internet era, school spirit on campus waned. Goddard moved back to Houston and DU Hockey’s fortunes took a turn for the worse in the late ’80 and early ’90s.  In the mid-1990s, he tried to keep track of Denver Hockey by following the Denver Athletics website, reading the Denver Post, and contributing to one of the then-few outlets for college hockey fan interaction – the United States College Hockey Organization (USCHO) fan forum. He saw the need for more information about DU hockey and more Denver fan interaction.

During the 1990s, internet websites were static, seemed inadequate, and lacked reader interaction. Years passed and Goddard explored various ways to bring the DU community together online – Goddard’s humor and strong opinions needed a home. In 2004, Goddard’s vision became a reality. That is when LetsGoDU was born – in Houston, Texas – not Denver.

Goddard leveraged humor, inside DU sources, strong hockey knowledge, and an unbridled love of Denver athletics to create a ‘must-read’ for DU fans and opponents alike. North Dakota and Colorado College were regular targets and their fans became readers, commenters, and dare we say friends as well.

In 2004, fresh off of DU’s first NCAA hockey championship since 1969,  he was joined by DU alumnus and sports historian “Puck Swami” and a host of regular contributors on this new blog. Along with input from other DU fans, they wrote a well-received report on the elevation of DU fan spirit and engagement and worked with then-DU Athletic Director Peg Bradley-Doppes on ways to build school spirit.

In 2010, Goddard told The University of Denver Magazine:

“The blog’s entire mission is school spirit. The blog is all about hockey but its theme is school spirit…”

The University of Denver graduate, blogger and DU-uber fan doesn’t always toe the school line but his devotion to the hockey program, the hockey fans and ultimately to DU school spirit is unquestionable.”

Indeed “doesn’t toe the school line” was Goddard’s secret sauce.

Goddard pushed the boundaries, poked at the administration’s missteps (especially the somehow still ongoing issues around school identity) and provided interesting content that readers loved, including popular features such as the BadBoyz report (recounting bad behavior and police incidents from other college hockey schools) and the annual LetsGoDU Super Poll, an annual preseason hockey poll in which DU is always placed first, CC is always placed last and every other school is placed according to expected finish. There was no other DU blog in existence then (or now) with that exact blend.  The most amazing part? All of this was executed more than 1,000 miles away from campus.

Goddard always treated DU coaches and student-athletes with respect. After all, the goal was always to entertain his readers while supporting Denver Athletics. School administrators who got in the way of that mission were sure to be on the receiving end of Goddard’s public barbs and satire. His satire was never out of pettiness but out of a desire to make things better for coaches, student-athletes, and fans.

While Goddard was the first DU athletics blogger, there is some disagreement among researchers as to what qualifies as the first known example of a “blog.”

Many researchers credit Dave Winer with creating the first Internet blog. Winer, though, credits Tim Berners-Lee with creating the first functional blog-type Web site in 1991, roughly 5 years prior to Winer’s. However, the ascension of blogs into their current prominence did not begin until around 2000, with the introduction of user-friendly blogging software, which first became publicly available in the summer of 1999.

An analysis of blogging statistics before and after 2004 supports the notion that 2004 was “the year of the blog” – and the year of LetsGoDU’s birth. There were an estimated 30,000 blogs in 1998, but at least 3 million active blogs by the end of 2003. From April of 2003 to January of 2004, the number of Americans writing a weblog increased to over 14 million.

Goddard also continued to build school spirit, over and above LetsGoDU. In 2009, he crowdsourced the launch of the Denver Boone mascot costume.  Raising some $6,500 from fellow blog readers and DU fans, readers participated in the design process via design progress reports on the blog.

“But you have to know that we did this for the DU community; we really wanted to help (build spirit)” Goddard said at the time.

Goddard and his team of fellow Pioneer fans also paid for Denver spirit events at local watering holes and provided mascot training to DU students by sending them to mascot camp with the former Philly Phanatic creator, as well as paying for mascot travel all over the country to cheer on DU teams at key events. He even paid for a large photo mural (along with DU athletics) in 2013 that went up in Magness Arena, only to be removed a few months later when higher-ups in the DU administration decided they didn’t want a picture of the DU’s Boone on the mural (identity issues…identity issues everywhere). The school replaced the Boone mural with a photo of a skier.

Contrary to popular belief, Denver Boone is not banned by DU. Masks were banned on campus property in 2018 as a roundabout way to eliminate the former alumni mascot. DU alumni were given the right (in writing) to use the Denver Boone image by former Chancellor Robert Coombe in 2008.

One thing is clear – Goddard has made an indelible mark on Denver Athletics and his legacy continues in this, the 20th year of LetsGoDU.

Goddard still makes occasional encore visits to LetsGoDU and volunteers, sometimes reluctantly, for our satire pieces.

Today and this entire year, we pay tribute to Goddard with our 20th Anniversary banner acknowledging Damien Goddard’s launch of LetsGoDU and his unmatched contribution to DU school spirit.

Thanks for everything, DG!