Nate Lenz didn’t want another milquetoast gala or golf tournament. 

He wanted the big annual fundraising event for his nonprofit, the Pikes Peak Athletic Foundation, to stand out. 

“Those are ubiquitous,” Lenz said of the aforementioned fundraising events. “I wanted to do something different that also served our mission and that’s elevate athletics in the Pikes Peak region.” 

As a result, Lenz’s foundation will host the inaugural Pikes Peak Kickoff Classic at Weidner Field downtown Friday.

It’s just the second time the Switchbacks’ home will be used in an official capacity for a sport other than soccer and the first time the 8,000-seat stadium will feature gridiron action. 

Weidner Field will be transformed into an American football field for a doubleheader. Fountain-Fort Carson will take on Colorado Springs Christian in girls flag football at 4:30 p.m. and Palmer Ridge’s boys football team will face La Cueva High School (N.M.) at 7 p.m. Tickets covering both matchups are $15 for adults and free for anyone 17 or younger. Proceeds will support the foundation’s mission to enhance the overall experience, opportunity and quality of athletic programs for student-athletes and coaches.

With a fan zone, food trucks and a live DJ, the Kickoff Classic seeks to herald the start of the fall football season for boys and girls with a bang. The hope is that each year, the event will feature premier matchups. For example, Lenz would love to see Valor Christian or Cherry Creek come play an area team or have Pine Creek host a team out of Texas or showcase a contest featuring reigning flag football state champion The Classical Academy.  

Lenz is also eager to share the love with all schools in the area regardless of size. He envisions smaller schools taking center stage at Weidner Field in future years. 

“I thought this is an elevated event that we don’t have in Colorado Springs and let’s celebrate our flag football and tackle football athletes in a venue that calls for it,” Lenz said. “It feels like a college bowl game or it feels like a first-of-the-season game that they have at bigger stadiums so I wanted to follow that model.”

Bottom line, Lenz wants the Kickoff Classic to be a staple in the community much like its venue has become. 

Built in 2021, Weidner Field has become a destination in Colorado Springs. The Switchbacks have made the USL Championship playoffs every year since moving downtown and in 2024, won the league title in their fourth consecutive home match that postseason. The venue hosts the boys and girls state soccer championships for the Colorado High School Activities Association, is the home of the annual City for Champions soccer match between Air Force and Colorado College and has twice hosted the Division II NCAA championships for men’s and women’s soccer. Last year, Weidner Field held the opening event for the inaugural Inspire Soccer League, the first yearlong competitive soccer league for athletes with intellectual disabilities.  

During the summers, Weidner Field has served as a concert venue hosting the Jonas Brothers, Jason Aldean, AJR and most recently Shinedown and Jelly Roll. The venue hosts miscellaneous events, company outings, picnics and more. 

Rarely though, does the location get used for a sport other than soccer. Switchbacks officials said that in 2021 Weidner Field hosted the Premier Lacrosse League. The opportunity to showcase the stadium’s versatility has come around again.

“Obviously, the people that are used to coming here are soccer fans,” Jeff VonHolle, the Switchbacks’ director of sales, catering and events, said. “The more that we can reach out and let people know, who aren’t used to coming to the stadium, that we can do events like this, I think that’s just going to lend itself to being able to have other events like this in the future.”

Transformation

But what goes into the process of transforming Weidner Field into an American football field?

Tiny robots, apparently.  

The Athletic Foundation is using TinyMobileRobots US, a company that uses robots with GPS line-marking technology to efficiently and precisely paint fields.

According to Joel Currey, the Switchbacks’ vice president and general manager of Weidner Field, the process for the robot to paint the lines takes about 2 1/2 hours. 

That’s the somewhat easy part. Currey and the Switchbacks staff will be responsible for removing the football markings and making sure the pitch is back to the standards of the USL Championship when the Switchbacks return for action Sept. 11.  

“The concern is going to be the ghosting that’s going to happen so as that paint comes off the field you’ll still see a little bit of white. Trying to prevent that as much as possible on the broadcast is going to be the big concern,” Currey said. “It’s a tedious process of going through and scrubbing each line, having to wash the field several times. Also trying not to disturb or create pits where the infield is going to be displaced from scrubbing on those lines.”

Weidner Field inside the lines is 120 yards long by 75 yards wide per Currey. Typically, a football field is 120 yards long by just over 53 yards wide, meaning there should be plenty of sidelines room for teams and coaches. The Switchbacks staff will use tarps as something of a crash pad in the end zones. 

Unique event

Those end zones are where all area athletes want to be every week but Friday’s event is a unique opportunity, especially for those playing flag football, which is in its third season statewide as a fully sanctioned sport. 

“I’m super excited to see who comes out this Friday. I’m really excited to play in front of the whole community of Colorado Springs. I think that’s super cool,” CSCS senior Hayley Helwege said. 

Colorado Springs Christian wasn’t part of the classic originally. Fountain-Fort Carson was set to play Palmer but when that plan fell through, the Lions seized the opportunity. 

At Tuesday’s press conference, Lions coach Aaron Moore and Trojans coach Michael Clayborn expressed a mutual respect and appreciation for each other. Coaches and players alike on both teams emphasized the communal aspect of flag football in that even though both sides are competing there’s camaraderie regardless of the color of their jerseys. Clayborn said that he fully expects to see both teams play hard until a flag is pulled and then help their teammates and opponents up off the turf.

As one player put it, there’s less toxicity in flag football than in other sports.   

Foundation focus

The respect and appreciation of common values held by players is something Lenz holds dearly years past his time playing football as a third-grader for Colorado Springs Parks and Recreation or at the YMCA playing basketball.

A native of Colorado Springs who attended Cheyenne Mountain High School, Lenz has always been about uplifting sports in the region and pushing them to new heights. The lessons along the way served as a catalyst for what he’s doing now. 

“I think we were one of the first Gold Crown teams … it really was focused in Denver and family and a lot of my friends at Cheyenne Mountain, we created the first Gold Crown traveling basketball team,” Lenz said. “So we actually got people to come down. We got teams, big teams from Denver to come down and play Colorado Springs in the early 2000s. That was a big deal for us. 

“Growing up here, idolizing some of the legends of Colorado Springs sports and it just meant so much to me. As it took me farther away from Colorado Springs, I ended up in Southern California and the lessons that sports taught me, the relationships, all that really meant a lot to me.” 

It’s why he and his wife, Melissa, who was a figure skater at The Broadmoor Skating Club, created the Athletic Foundation four years ago after moving back to the region to raise a family. 

The journey has led him to this moment, but the Athletic Foundation has been a boon for the community long before the creation of the Kickoff Classic. 

In the foundation’s three years of operation, Lenz and his nonprofit have provided equipment, footwear and other needs for programs across 22 high schools in the Pikes Peak region, he said. 

In addition to that, the Pikes Peak Athletic Foundation has held events for adaptive and unified sports programs in Districts 11 and 49. One of Lenz’s favorites is a basketball event with District 11 at the end of the school year where, in partnership with Scheels, the foundation provides shoes for athletes and hosts a basketball game at one of the schools. 

The hard work and impact Lenz and his foundation made have not gone unnoticed. When he first began brainstorming the idea for the classic, he reached out to Teddi Domann, mother of Brock and JoJo Domann who played football at Pine Creek and went on to play college Division I and professionally. She is a co-founder of the annual Pro Football Camp. 

Someone already entrenched in the work of uplifting the Colorado Springs sports community herself, Domann immediately took to the mission of the foundation. 

At the core of her motivation is a firm belief in the power of athletics, particularly prep football. 

“Just given what we’re all about, which is giving back to the community — that’s why we started Pro Football Camp — this seemed like just a natural extension of what we’ve been doing,” she said. “I absolutely love Nate, the whole Lenz family’s heart for giving back to the Colorado Springs community. … As you know, I absolutely love football but preps football, I have a huge, big heart for it because I believe it can be the heartbeat of any community and it not just unites us as one big community but also unites us by all of our separate little areas of the community by where the high schools are at.”