By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
Newly crowned U.S. Open Champ Justin Rose was born on an auspicious day in golf history. On the day Rose was born–July 18, 1980–it was in the midst of the British Open, but “almost” more significant…it was the day the movie Caddyshack was released. Rose first challenged for a major title at the 1998 British Open when he led for much of the final round before being overtaken by Mark O’Meara.
If all goes well in the first two games of the 2013-14 season Robin Selvig will pick up career win number 800 against the University of Portland Pilots. Ironically the last time the coach picked up a “Century” win in Missoula it was against another team from Portland, the Portland State Vikings for win 600 in March of 2004. For only the second time, a team from Philadelphia will face the Lady Griz in Dahlberg Arena as the Temple Owls will visit Missoula on December 14th in a return game as Montana played at Temple to open last season. The LaSalle Explorers from Philly were in the 1985 Lady Griz Classic and faced the Lady Griz for the title on another Saturday–December 14th.
Twos notes on incoming freshman forward Mekayla Izaak. The Bend Oregon star has been assigned a special number “ 22” for the upcoming season, 22 is the number Coach Robin Selvig wore for the Grizzlies from 1971-74. Izaak is the first player to sign with the Lady Griz who wasn’t alive the last time the Lady Griz won a game in the NCAA tournament (Montana beat San Diego State in March of 1995 and Mekayla Izaak was born in May of 1995.)
Sean “SJ” Touhy was portrayed in the film The Blind Side which was the story of his taking in Michael Oher and helping him succeed in school and football, and now it is “SJ” turn to play college sports. Touhy will be a freshman on the basketball team at Loyola University of Maryland. The Greyhounds reached the quarterfinals of the Collegeinsider basketball tournament this past March before losing to eventual CIT Champion East Carolina.
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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.