After Viral Sign, It’s Time For Greeley, Colorado to Own the ‘Smell’

I am a Greeley, Colorado native. Born, raised, and lived in Greeley for most of my adult life too, and I am proud of that. Greeley gets a bad reputation for being the stinky, Cowtown north of Denver, but you don’t find too many of us from Greeley that don’t love that little town. Said little town got all kinds of national exposure on Saturday, and as a native, I think it’s time for Greeley to embrace the reason for it!

During college football’s premiere pre-game TV show, College Gameday on ESPN, a University of Colorado Buffaloes fan raised a sign that was perfectly on camera that said, “CSU fans smell like Greeley.” Every time the camera was on a certain host the sign was clear as day to the national TV audience. 

For years Greeley has hid from it’s stench. As a native I’ve received a few tongue lashings from the cities higher-ups for even mentioning what everyone else was already thinking about our town. Many will argue that the town doesn’t actually smell (which is false), others will say there are other towns that smell way worse (which is probably true), and then there are those that want to hide it because they’re afraid it’ll give the town a bad look. 

Here’s the thing though, Greeley is never going to live down the smell thing, so instead of hiding from it, it’s time to start embracing it! We all know the smell comes from the cattle industry, and as they say in that business, “it’s the smell of money.” Maybe that should be the tagline for city. Maybe we should educate folks on why the town has a smell. Maybe, just maybe, we use a little reverse psychology and laugh with everyone, knowing our town is actually pretty cool, rather than whining every time someone cracks the same ‘ol smelly Greeley joke.