FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Earle Bruce, a Buckeye forever, is wearing green and gold, teaching Ram Pride to a Colorado State football team that has gone 2-21 over the past two seasons.

This is not Columbus, Ohio, and this is not Ohio State. That much is for sure. There are far fewer hands to shake and backs to slap, but don't think that bothers Bruce, who never has been much for that.

There are people downtown here, but there are no People Downtown, no contributors who wield more influence than an athletic director, and sakes alive, no one who would be disappointed in 9-3 seasons, which is the worst Bruce gave Ohio State in his first eight seasons there.

"If he went 9-3 here, he could become mayor . . . " said Gary Ozzello, Colorado State's assistant athletic director for media relations.

This is not the Big Ten. Success here would be contending for the Western Athletic Conference title. Wild success would be winning the Holiday Bowl. But it is Division I football, and it is what Bruce is left with at 58, in the twilight of a career that has seen him compile the eighth-best winning percentage among active coaches.

That mark is on a downward curve now. Bruce could have preserved it, could have put it in a glass case or etched it indelibly by walking away after his swift and perplexing firing from Ohio State in 1987, when he was banished from the job and the school he loved.

But what is a man to do when his own lesson turns on him, demanding that he adhere to it or make himself a hypocrite?

That's what happened to Bruce, and partly in order to avoid becoming a hypocrite, he remained a football coach.

After a lifetime of telling players to get up after being plowed over, never mind whose fault it was, and of expecting to see them at practice Monday, he was dealt the biggest blow of his own career. After winning 75 of 97 games in his first eight seasons, he was fired in 1987.

His firing was one that stirred emotions. The athletic director, Rick Bay, resigned in protest before the firing was announced by university President Edward H. Jennings.

After it was announced, the Ohio State Marching Band showed up in Bruce's neighborhood, marched down the street and played "Across the Field" for the former coach.

Bruce, a gruff, bristling, cursing, pot-bellied man who can turn gentle at a moment's notice, stood in front of his house with his wife and wept.