For every Boise State football home game, as much as 5 percent of the population of Riggins rolls down the highway in a single bus.
They are anxious to see one player in particular, whose last name is in foot-high letters on the front and side of the 40-foot machine —Leighton Vander Esch.
Former Boise State running back Jay Ajayi was nicknamed “J-Train.” But he doesn’t have a locomotive with his name on it. Let’s call it the Vander Esch Express, as hard to miss as the junior linebacker himself.
“We get a lot of thumbs-up and people honking at us on the road,” said Darwin Vander Esch, Leighton’s father and the bus driver.