Staff Directory
Plati, David
David Plati
- Title:
- Historian/SID Emeritus (Men's Golf SID)
- Email:
David Plati, after completing 40 years as a full-time employee in the University of Colorado’s athletic department, the last 38-plus as its director of sports information, entered semi-retirement on Jan. 1, 2023. He then shifted into a role as SID Emeritus, continuing as the SID for men’s golf and as the athletic historian (which he has technically held since 2001).
Overall, the 2025-26 athletic year is the 48th year he has been a member of the department, dating back to when he was a freshman in 1978 at Colorado, second only to the late Fred Casotti, who was associated with the school for 54 years including his time as a student.
On August 1, 2025, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame named Plati its first-ever official state historian, with his first task a mahor assignment of working with a select committee to determine the state's top 150 moments in sports leading up to the Colorado's Sesquicentennial on August 1, 2026.
Plati, 65, was named the 13th full-time sports information director in CU history on July 24, 1984, after serving for three years as the assistant SID (half of which while he was still a student assistant in the office). The youngest SID in the nation at the time of his hiring, he previously worked as a student and statistician after coming to CU as a freshman in August 1978. Only six people had served in the SID role since 1952, with Plati’s tenure in the position the longest in school annals by some 22 years.
Overall, he has completed 47 years working in the department, including his time as a student beginning in August 1978. He was promoted to assistant athletic director for media relations on July 1, 1988, and attained associate athletic director status in August 2005. His only time outside of CU in that time frame was when he was the full-time publicity director for the Denver Bears baseball team from May through August 1982 (though he had juggled both from January through April that year).
In June 2019, he was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame, the fourth Buffalo SID to be honored as he joined Fred Casotti (inducted in 1996), Mike Moran (2002) and Steve Hatchell (2018).
Overall, only one other was employed full-time by CU athletics longer than Plati, who was hired full-time on Jan. 9, 1983: cross country and track coach Frank Potts (41 years). He retired as the second-longest active SID in the country, behind Claude Felton (Georgia).
His primary responsibilities were with the football and men’s golf programs, along with overseeing the sports information efforts for all sports, and at one time or another he personally handled nine sports during his CU career. He has worked or covered over 2,300 CU events: 490 football games in person (511 overall, including a string of 410 in a row that ended in 2017 due to an injured leg, at the time the second-longest active streak by any SID in the nation). Streaks of 291 in a row in Colorado and 268 at Folsom Field came to an end after the 2022 season. Continuing as men's golf SID, he has written over 2,000 stories about the team.
He has coordinated numerous successful promotional campaigns and public relations programs for student-athletes and coaches. Plati has written two books on CU football, the first about the school’s 1990 national championship, and the second published in 2008, Colorado Football Vault, a coffee table style book with an awesome collection of photographs and reproduced keepsakes. He is working on a third book, Plati-'Tudes: The Book which he hopes to finish in the fall of 2025, and is simultaneously working on a fourth of a yet-to-be revealed project.
In addition, almost 100 of his former student assistants have gone on to work full-time in sports information or media relations for a college or professional team (including all "big four' in Denver: Avalanche, Broncos, Nuggets and Rockies).
The Football Writers Association of America recognized CU’s sports information office 13 times during his tenure, three times for an outstanding press box operation (1987, 1992, 1997; schools were eligible only every five years), and a record 10 times with the FWAA’s Super 11 Award (2010-13-14-16-17-18-19-20-21-22) for all-encompassing efforts with the nation’s football media with emphasis on press box operations. After the 10th award, the FWAA presented him with a special commendation, one of just a handful the organization has awarded.
In January 2019, Plati was presented with the FWAA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, just the sixth person to be honored with the relatively young honor. The organization also named him as one of two SID’s nationally to its 22-member “Access/Press Relations Committee” to oversee press relations with FBS Conferences ahead of the 2019 season. He chaired a panel of SID’s and national sportswriters to discuss how to approach the changing landscape for the media ahead of the 2020 season and implications from the coronavirus.
Plati was also an adjunct instructor in CU’s College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI), teaching a sports media relations class for 21 years (2001-21). Since April 2001, he has been a CU representative on the board of directors of the Colorado Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, and in 2006, he became a member of the District 7 Screening Committee for the Hall. In 2009, he was appointed to the board of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, and in 2010, he was named to the inaugural board of the Colorado Rock & Roll Museum and Hall of Fame (and was named the board’s secretary in 2020). In 2023, he was added to the selection committee of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame (and was named the 22-person committee's chair a year later).
In 2015, Plati was a recipient of the Robert L. Stearns Award, presented to current members of the CU-Boulder faculty and staff for extraordinary achievement or service to the university. In 2005, the Denver Buff Club recognized him as its “MVB” choice (Most Valuable Buff). In 2009, celebrating his 30th year covering CU golf, the team instituted a “David Plati Mr. Buffalo Award” honoring the player for his dedication and commitment to the program. The NFF/Colorado chapter presented him with the 2018 Keith Jensen Award for service to the organization and the 2023 Jim Saccomano Award for great and lasting contributions to amateur football in Colorado.
While attending CU, Plati served four years as the information director for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. He also worked for the Colorado Golf Association and for the Rocky Mountain News.
He spent his senior year in college (1982) as the public relations director with the triple-A Denver Bears Baseball Club of the American Association. He was a member of the Denver Broncos statistics crew for 40 seasons (1980-2019), where he created and maintained miscellaneous statistics (he received game balls from the NFL team for their back-to-back Super Bowl wins in the 90s). He worked 408 Bronco games as a member of the crew, and among the many innovative numbers he is credited with first charting was “scoring percentage inside-the-20,” which is now commonly known as the Red Zone. In the 1980s, he worked as a statistician for TBS for NBA telecasts, creating a wave of now commonplace statistics, and still occasionally works freelance in a similar capacity, most notably as the talent statistician for home Bronco games on KOA-Radio (the latter since 1998). In 2004, he was appointed by major league baseball to serve as one of the official scorers for the Colorado Rockies baseball team, and scored 334 games before bowing out after the 2019 season.
Plati was the Hula Bowl's director of game week communications for four years (1995-98). He has also worked five BCS National Championship games (2002-06-09-10-13 seasons), all 11 College Football Playoff title games (2014 through 2024 seasons), 16 Rose and two Fiesta bowls for a grand total of 57 postseason games when including CU’s 19.
He worked as the media relations liaison for the Bolder Boulder 10K from 1987 through 2015 (and has worked in some capacity for the race all but two of its 45 events), and also served as the media relations assistant for the Colorado Open Golf Tournament for 12 years (1980-91). He was the media coordinator for the 1985, 1989 and 1996 NCAA West Regionals, and was the local media coordinator and NCAA liaison for the 1990 Final Four, all in Denver.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Journalism/Public Relations, along with a minor in Geography, from CU in December 1982. He was a member of the journalism student council and wrote for The Campus Press.
Born April 19, 1960 in New Rochelle, N.Y., Plati graduated from Woodlands High School (Hartsdale, N.Y.) in 1978, where he lettered in football and golf (and was also the school's SID his senior year). In 1984, he was awarded an “Honorary C” for his service to Colorado athletics. An avid "bogey" golfer, he won the 2005 Rocky Mountain Golf Writers Association fourth annual tournament.
One of his proudest moments in his CU career came when late golf coach Mark Simpson asked him to present him for induction at Simpson’s Golf Coaches Hall of Fame induction ceremony in January, 2005. He is also an avid concert goer, having attended some 390 in his lifetime (led by 40 performances by the late Jimmy Buffett), and one of his hobbies is memorizing song lyrics (over 2,700). His younger brother (Mark, a top music engineer) was nominated for two Grammy Awards with David Bowie in 1998 (he was a bass guitarist in Bowie’s band for six years), and also engineered the Song-of-the-Year for 1997 (Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home").
Overall, the 2025-26 athletic year is the 48th year he has been a member of the department, dating back to when he was a freshman in 1978 at Colorado, second only to the late Fred Casotti, who was associated with the school for 54 years including his time as a student.
On August 1, 2025, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame named Plati its first-ever official state historian, with his first task a mahor assignment of working with a select committee to determine the state's top 150 moments in sports leading up to the Colorado's Sesquicentennial on August 1, 2026.
Plati, 65, was named the 13th full-time sports information director in CU history on July 24, 1984, after serving for three years as the assistant SID (half of which while he was still a student assistant in the office). The youngest SID in the nation at the time of his hiring, he previously worked as a student and statistician after coming to CU as a freshman in August 1978. Only six people had served in the SID role since 1952, with Plati’s tenure in the position the longest in school annals by some 22 years.
Overall, he has completed 47 years working in the department, including his time as a student beginning in August 1978. He was promoted to assistant athletic director for media relations on July 1, 1988, and attained associate athletic director status in August 2005. His only time outside of CU in that time frame was when he was the full-time publicity director for the Denver Bears baseball team from May through August 1982 (though he had juggled both from January through April that year).
In June 2019, he was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame, the fourth Buffalo SID to be honored as he joined Fred Casotti (inducted in 1996), Mike Moran (2002) and Steve Hatchell (2018).
Overall, only one other was employed full-time by CU athletics longer than Plati, who was hired full-time on Jan. 9, 1983: cross country and track coach Frank Potts (41 years). He retired as the second-longest active SID in the country, behind Claude Felton (Georgia).
His primary responsibilities were with the football and men’s golf programs, along with overseeing the sports information efforts for all sports, and at one time or another he personally handled nine sports during his CU career. He has worked or covered over 2,300 CU events: 490 football games in person (511 overall, including a string of 410 in a row that ended in 2017 due to an injured leg, at the time the second-longest active streak by any SID in the nation). Streaks of 291 in a row in Colorado and 268 at Folsom Field came to an end after the 2022 season. Continuing as men's golf SID, he has written over 2,000 stories about the team.
He has coordinated numerous successful promotional campaigns and public relations programs for student-athletes and coaches. Plati has written two books on CU football, the first about the school’s 1990 national championship, and the second published in 2008, Colorado Football Vault, a coffee table style book with an awesome collection of photographs and reproduced keepsakes. He is working on a third book, Plati-'Tudes: The Book which he hopes to finish in the fall of 2025, and is simultaneously working on a fourth of a yet-to-be revealed project.
In addition, almost 100 of his former student assistants have gone on to work full-time in sports information or media relations for a college or professional team (including all "big four' in Denver: Avalanche, Broncos, Nuggets and Rockies).
The Football Writers Association of America recognized CU’s sports information office 13 times during his tenure, three times for an outstanding press box operation (1987, 1992, 1997; schools were eligible only every five years), and a record 10 times with the FWAA’s Super 11 Award (2010-13-14-16-17-18-19-20-21-22) for all-encompassing efforts with the nation’s football media with emphasis on press box operations. After the 10th award, the FWAA presented him with a special commendation, one of just a handful the organization has awarded.
In January 2019, Plati was presented with the FWAA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, just the sixth person to be honored with the relatively young honor. The organization also named him as one of two SID’s nationally to its 22-member “Access/Press Relations Committee” to oversee press relations with FBS Conferences ahead of the 2019 season. He chaired a panel of SID’s and national sportswriters to discuss how to approach the changing landscape for the media ahead of the 2020 season and implications from the coronavirus.
Plati was also an adjunct instructor in CU’s College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI), teaching a sports media relations class for 21 years (2001-21). Since April 2001, he has been a CU representative on the board of directors of the Colorado Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, and in 2006, he became a member of the District 7 Screening Committee for the Hall. In 2009, he was appointed to the board of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, and in 2010, he was named to the inaugural board of the Colorado Rock & Roll Museum and Hall of Fame (and was named the board’s secretary in 2020). In 2023, he was added to the selection committee of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame (and was named the 22-person committee's chair a year later).
In 2015, Plati was a recipient of the Robert L. Stearns Award, presented to current members of the CU-Boulder faculty and staff for extraordinary achievement or service to the university. In 2005, the Denver Buff Club recognized him as its “MVB” choice (Most Valuable Buff). In 2009, celebrating his 30th year covering CU golf, the team instituted a “David Plati Mr. Buffalo Award” honoring the player for his dedication and commitment to the program. The NFF/Colorado chapter presented him with the 2018 Keith Jensen Award for service to the organization and the 2023 Jim Saccomano Award for great and lasting contributions to amateur football in Colorado.
While attending CU, Plati served four years as the information director for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. He also worked for the Colorado Golf Association and for the Rocky Mountain News.
He spent his senior year in college (1982) as the public relations director with the triple-A Denver Bears Baseball Club of the American Association. He was a member of the Denver Broncos statistics crew for 40 seasons (1980-2019), where he created and maintained miscellaneous statistics (he received game balls from the NFL team for their back-to-back Super Bowl wins in the 90s). He worked 408 Bronco games as a member of the crew, and among the many innovative numbers he is credited with first charting was “scoring percentage inside-the-20,” which is now commonly known as the Red Zone. In the 1980s, he worked as a statistician for TBS for NBA telecasts, creating a wave of now commonplace statistics, and still occasionally works freelance in a similar capacity, most notably as the talent statistician for home Bronco games on KOA-Radio (the latter since 1998). In 2004, he was appointed by major league baseball to serve as one of the official scorers for the Colorado Rockies baseball team, and scored 334 games before bowing out after the 2019 season.
Plati was the Hula Bowl's director of game week communications for four years (1995-98). He has also worked five BCS National Championship games (2002-06-09-10-13 seasons), all 11 College Football Playoff title games (2014 through 2024 seasons), 16 Rose and two Fiesta bowls for a grand total of 57 postseason games when including CU’s 19.
He worked as the media relations liaison for the Bolder Boulder 10K from 1987 through 2015 (and has worked in some capacity for the race all but two of its 45 events), and also served as the media relations assistant for the Colorado Open Golf Tournament for 12 years (1980-91). He was the media coordinator for the 1985, 1989 and 1996 NCAA West Regionals, and was the local media coordinator and NCAA liaison for the 1990 Final Four, all in Denver.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Journalism/Public Relations, along with a minor in Geography, from CU in December 1982. He was a member of the journalism student council and wrote for The Campus Press.
Born April 19, 1960 in New Rochelle, N.Y., Plati graduated from Woodlands High School (Hartsdale, N.Y.) in 1978, where he lettered in football and golf (and was also the school's SID his senior year). In 1984, he was awarded an “Honorary C” for his service to Colorado athletics. An avid "bogey" golfer, he won the 2005 Rocky Mountain Golf Writers Association fourth annual tournament.
One of his proudest moments in his CU career came when late golf coach Mark Simpson asked him to present him for induction at Simpson’s Golf Coaches Hall of Fame induction ceremony in January, 2005. He is also an avid concert goer, having attended some 390 in his lifetime (led by 40 performances by the late Jimmy Buffett), and one of his hobbies is memorizing song lyrics (over 2,700). His younger brother (Mark, a top music engineer) was nominated for two Grammy Awards with David Bowie in 1998 (he was a bass guitarist in Bowie’s band for six years), and also engineered the Song-of-the-Year for 1997 (Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home").
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