By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
The Montana Grizzlies football team ventures to Greeley Colorado to face struggling Northern Colorado. The Griz have won their last 10 against the UNC Bears. One bad memory that sticks with the Griz from the last visit to Greeley is the career ending arm injury suffered by senior quarterback Andrew Selle which was followed by 2 Griz losses in their final 3 games.
Speaking of Northern, a strange trivia involving schools with Northern in their name. Four of the last 7 Griz head coaches have picked up their final win at UM against schools with Northern in their name. Jack Swarthout’s final win was at Northern Arizona. In 1979 Gene Carlson got career win no. 16 at Northern Arizona. In 1985 Larry Donovan closed out his time with the Griz with a win at Flagstaff and Northern Arizona. Last December Robin Pflugrad’s final win with the Griz was in the FCS quarterfinals over Northern Iowa.
A game Griz mens basketball coach Wayne Tinkle has circled on his calendar is the December 2nd Battle between the Stanford and Gonzaga womens teams in Spokane. The game features Josclyn Tinkle starring for Stanford and her younger sister Elle Tinkle who will be trying to help Gonzaga to a major upset.
Of the ten teams headed to Major League baseball’s post-season only three have won World Series titles since 2000, the Yanks (2000 and 2009) and the Cardinals (2006 and 2011) and the San Francisco Giants 2010). The Texas Rangers are only the second team in 70 years to return to the play-offs after having lost in the previous two World Series (the Braves lost in the series in 1991 and 92 and then fell in the 1993 NLCS).
Randy Tangmo was one of the best Little League pitchers Missoula youth baseball saw in the 1970’s. Tangmo found pitching came easily to him as well as the mastery of a variety of pitches. Tangmo helped his teams advanced in the post-season in Little League, Legion and Junior College baseball. An arm injury cut short Tangmo career in baseball. Sadly, even former Little League stars can’t beat some medical problems and such was the case with Randy Tangmo who died last week at the age of 49.
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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.