Jersey retirement is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on an athlete.
At UCCS, just two basketball jerseys have been retired in the 59-year history of the athletics program. On Feb. 1, Abby Kirchoff’s #20 joined those two jerseys on the south wall of the Gallogly Events Center. She is the first women’s basketball player at UCCS to have her jersey retired.
But #20 was never the first choice for Kirchoff. She wanted #33.
Kirchoff’s story is one of sibling rivalry. She is one of five children and the youngest of three who played collegiate sports. Growing up, her goal was to play on the same team as her sister Anna and excel at everything like her brother Aaron, whose jersey number was #33.
When Kirchoff and her sister got to be on the same team in high school for one season, she let her sister have #33 instead and chose #20 for herself. Kirchoff took #20 in honor of her brother’s teammate in high school, Jason Richards.
“He played at Davidson [College], and he was Steph Curry’s point guard. He was #20 there,” Kirchoff said. “It brought him good luck, so it brought me good luck.”
In 2011, Kirchoff and her sister arrived in Colorado Springs to play basketball at UCCS. The sisters ended up in Colorado because of their older brother, who had recently graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy where he played Division I football.
After graduating high school, Kirchoff played two seasons at a junior college. That way, Kirchoff and her sister could be on the same collegiate team when Kirchoff graduated. Her sister chose to walk on to the women’s basketball team after Kirchoff signed her letter of intent.
But their time at UCCS together was brief — they only got to play half a season together. “She [Anna] was very homesick,” Kirchoff said. “I was very homesick, too.” She said the only thing that kept her at UCCS was her boyfriend, who is now her husband.
Right away, Kirchoff was a sensation on the court, scoring 21 points in her collegiate debut against Winona State. She scored a collective 373 points her freshman year in 2012, the best freshmen season for a women’s basketball player at UCCS since record holder Tara Newton in 1992. Things started heating up in her junior and senior seasons.
Going into her junior basketball season in fall 2013, Kirchoff was named the RMAC Women’s Basketball Preseason Player of the Year. The honor made her hungry for more. “If I’m preseason player of the year, I got to get player of the year,” she said.
In the 2013-2014 season, Kirchoff set the single season scoring record with 564 points, averaging 20.9 points per game. She recorded three double-doubles and led the conference in free throw percentage with 90.2%. She ended the season with just under 150 points shy of the UCCS women’s basketball all-time scoring record. She was rewarded with RMAC Women’s Basketball Player of the Year for her efforts.
In her senior year, Kirchoff broke even more records, including her own. She set a new single season scoring record of 633. She set a career and program-high single game scoring record of 39 points against Regis in December 2014 and crushed the all-time scoring record with 1,951 points across four seasons.
The Mountain Lions appeared in the RMAC tournament each year Kirchoff played, never making it past the semifinals. The team made the NCAA Division II tournament Kirchoff’s senior year and played three games.
Reflecting on her time as a Mountain Lion, she says her fondest memories are about spending time with her teammates. “When you were actually in it, things like long road trips, bus rides and random hotels weren’t that cool. But now looking back on it, those were so fun,” she said.
Kirchoff graduated in May 2015 with a bachelors in communication. In the years after graduation, she developed a passion for nutrition and personal training, “I found that I really just love working with people and helping people achieve their goals and push them past what they thought they could do,” she said.
Kirchoff says it’s hard to put her emotions about the jersey retirement into words. “It’s surreal. Honestly, it’s really, really cool,” she said.
Kirchoff advises current athletes to take advantage of the time they have. “It goes by a lot quicker than you think it does. And then, you’re looking back ten years later, and you wish you were still there,” she said.
While her time as a Mountain Lion may be behind her, Kirchoff’s legacy will live on forever. Her #20, right next to the scoreboard, will remind the students, visitors and the teams she was here.
