No matter how many times she makes the drive into Boulder to cover a game at the University of Colorado, Ashley Adamson feels a wave of emotions.

“Every time I got to go back there, I would be reminded and all of a sudden, like, I’m thinking about that little pipsqueak 11-, 12-year old who was going to a CU football game all these years ago,” Adamson, who grew up in Denver, told BuffZone. “And now here I am, and I’m on the field, and I’m looking around and getting to talk to Prime, who is the coach, and I’m like, ‘What is going on?’”

A 2000 graduate of Mullen High School in Denver, Adamson has gone through a lot of emotions over the past year as the Pac-12 Conference has fallen apart and the Pac-12 Network has gone dark.

A lead host and reporter for the Pac-12 Network since it launched in 2012, Adamson, like so many of her colleagues, is moving on from a job she has loved because she really has no choice.

Two summers ago, UCLA and USC announced they would leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024. Efforts to save the rest of the conference ultimately failed when last summer CU announced it would leave for the Big 12, kick-starting a domino effect that has left the Pac-12 with only two schools: Oregon State and Washington State.

“Since that moment (that UCLA and USC announced their departure), every day, especially people on the league office side, they’ve been in triage,” Adamson said. “The thing that is so sad for us, from the people who worked at this place, from just a personal note, the unfilled potential of what we all thought we were going to be able to hold together that we couldn’t.

“It’s really sad, not for a lack of people doing everything that they thought they could do to try to save it.”

Sadness is one of the many emotions Adamson has felt throughout the past year as she knew the end was near. The Network broadcast its last live event on May 24 at the conference baseball tournament. Adamson’s last official day will be June 28.

“I’ve been through a lot of different stages … but I am in full gratitude right now — and nostalgia for sure,” she said as she drove to the office in San Ramon, Calif.

After Mullen, Adamson graduated from Boston College and then got her master’s in broadcast journalism from Boston University. She then worked for local stations in Syracuse, N.Y., and Indianapolis before landing the job with the Pac-12 Network.

“I had no idea what the next 12 years of my life was going to be like,” she said. “I could have never known, like, truly and I feel emotional even thinking about it, but I could have never known the gift that was about to unfold.”

Adamson was on camera for the launch of the Pac-12 Networks on Aug. 15, 2012, and was on site or in studio for so many events throughout the past 12 years — including football games at Folsom Field.

“I grew up and would go to CU football games,” she said. “My younger brother went to CU. I grew up in Denver and it was home. Boulder and Colorado has a special place in my heart. Colorado football has had a very major role in my life.”

Throughout the past 12 years, though, Adamson had cherished the connections she has made with people — especially the student-athletes — at all 12 Pac-12 schools. Going forward, she will particularly be rooting for the two schools left behind: OSU and WSU.

“My heart is just going to be with those two schools forever,” she said, “and I hope and pray and I’m confident that they are going to find their way through this.”

Along the way, Adamson enjoyed not only football coverage, but her two favorite events every year: the conference men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. She was the lead host of exceptional coverage that got overshadowed by the network’s lack of distribution, which, ultimately, was the downfall of the conference.

“Yeah, we needed more people to see it,” she said. “The product was never the problem. It was the distribution.

“Every single year of the Pac-12, you were trying to do more with fewer people. When I think about that and just pause and step back, there was so much care and love and passion that was put into it, which I think ultimately came through on camera. And it wasn’t just from the people on camera.”

That love and passion for the job is why Adamson is now filled with gratitude as she looks ahead. She has equated the past year with being a senior in high school, knowing the end was coming and having many “final” moments along the way.

“Endings are so important because they make you realize how important something was or how meaningful it was,” she said. “If we didn’t have graduations, and if we didn’t have retirement parties and funerals, even, you don’t ever take a time to sit and reflect on what something has meant to you. That’s been the gift of what this last year has been. As bitter as it’s been, it’s been really sweet because we’ve had time to think about and share the memories.”

Like a graduating senior, Adamson is now ready to take the plunge into something new and somewhat unknown.

“I will be involved in broadcasting at some level, but also there’s a lot more that I am excited to do,” she said.

Adamson will forever view the past 12 years as some of the best of her life, however.

“When I think about it holistically, and how much my 12 years there changed my life, and the people that have been brought into my life, I think that’s the biggest thing that I get to take with me,” she said. “I will get to keep those people with me as I move on.

“What I hope for everyone in the world is that they get to work and have a job and a career in which there is like real, true meaning and purpose and mission behind what they’re doing. I got to feel that for the last 12 years.”