By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
It will be the UM soccer team getting the Griz sports off and running Saturday. The Griz host Carroll College in an exhibition at South Campus field.The Griz have won Big Sky titles each of the past two season, a tournament title and a trip the NCAA tournament in 2011, then a regular season co-championship. Carroll has won five of the last 6 Frontier Conference titles. Carroll’s offensive assistant is former UM star Heather Olson, who has continued playing semi-pro soccer during the summers. Montana features a popular assistant who is better known as an entertainer than coach. Sophie Clough starred at Oregon as a player and then came to UM to help turn the program around. Clough has been the host of the Annual Athletic department Talent Show which raises money for non-revenue sports at UM.
The Missoula Osprey have their work cut out for them if they are to make a run to the play-offs, currently 7 games behind Great Falls. One highlight for the O’s is that two Missoula players are in the top 8 in the Pioneer League with Daniel Palka second in Two-baggers and Strkler Trajan 8th with doubles. Missoula fans will get to see Pioneer League leading hitter Grand Junction Ramiel Tapia who leads the league in severall areas besides hitting for average.
Through much of the PGA golf Championship last weekend reigning Masters Champ, Adam Scott was among the leaders. It might surprise golf fans to know that the rarest of combination of major titles in a single season is winning a Masters in April and then the PGA in August. As a matter of fact over the last 60, the Masters PGA double has happened just twice as Jack Nicklaus pulled off the feat in 1963 and 1975. Five times Tiger Woods entered the PGA having already won Masters but has never pulled off that combo.
I Dusted off my copy of the 1973 “Smith & Street” college football preview and some items caught my eye. The Magazine’s “cover boy” and its favorite for the 1973 Heisman Trophy was UCLA quarterback Mark Harmon who had led the Bruins to an 8-2 year. Harmon led the Bruins to another 8-2 season in 1973 but was not a factor in the outcome of the Heisman balloting.
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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.