Finding His "Next Thing"
As a high school senior in Longmont, Colorado, Nick Lopez had one goal: to play sports in college.
“I always knew what I wanted to do right after high school,” he shared in early 2025. “I played football and baseball growing up, and I had kind of a one-track mind.”
Luckily for Lopez, he was talented — enough so that he earned a football scholarship to Mesa State College, his first choice. In late summer 2007, Lopez arrived in Grand Junction for Maverick football training camp. At the end of camp, just as the college semester was about to begin, Lopez suffered a career-ending injury to his neck and back. His college football experience was over before it began. And Lopez had to figure out what college would mean to him without competitive sports.
Fortunately, Lopez was self-aware and recognized that he wouldn’t be satisfied sitting on the sidelines. He always enjoyed the leadership aspects of football, and he knew he had to find something to fill the void.
“I had an option,” he explained. “It was sit in my dorm and waste away, go home and call it quits, or go find what the next thing was.” For Lopez, the “next thing” was student government.
Lopez had always had an interest in politics, so when he saw an advertisement soliciting candidates for Associated Student Government (ASG), he submitted a letter of intent, ran unopposed, and became a member of the Mesa State College Student Senate. During his second year, he was elected senate majority leader. He became vice president during his junior year, and was elected ASG president for his senior year, graduating with a political science degree in 2011. Subsequently, he earned a law degree from the University of Denver.
Today, Lopez serves as a second assistant attorney general with the Colorado Department of Law, where he manages a team of litigators to defend employment claims against state entities and prosecute civil rights violations and discrimination cases.
Reminiscing about his time at Mesa, Lopez recalled how impactful he found the work of student government. “We managed a multimillion dollar student fees budget and reduced fees for the first time in decades,” he recalled, explaining that the state funding for higher education was declining and students were bearing the brunt of increasing costs. As ASG president, Lopez testified before the Colorado legislature’s Joint Budget Committee in support of Mesa’s annual budget appropriation, among other powerful experiences.
Lopez mentions three significant mentors that cemented his desire to enter public service: Justin Gollob, PhD, a professor of political science and ASG advisor, political science professor Tim Casey, PhD, and President Tim Foster, with whom Lopez recalls many long conversations while driving to and from Denver to meet with the legislature. “He offered me so much valuable guidance and career advice, and that’s forever ingrained in me and something that I truly value,” shares Lopez.
Now married with two young children, Lopez remains committed to public service and open to whatever future opportunities await him. He also remains convinced that one of the best decisions he ever made was to be a Maverick.
“I’m first generation everything in my family — first to go to college, first to graduate from college — and so it was a big step for me and my family. But it was an amazing decision, and one that I’m really proud of and really happy that I made."