By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
As the dust has begun to settle on the penalties imposed on Grizzly football by the NCAA points need to be made about “vacating wins”. The five games from the last half of the 2011 season that the NCAA vacated are not wins for the opposing schools nor losses on the Grizzly record, which now for 2011 is officially 6-3. Thumbs up to both Montana State and Northern Iowa who quickly made the clarification to their fans (number 3 in a row for the Cats in the rivalry) and a big thumbs down to schools that proclaim a win over the Griz.
In the 1993-94 men’s basketball season the MSU bobcats won 16 games, but were forced to “vacate” 15 of those victories because of the use of an ineligible player. Back in 1976-77 when UM was forced to erase 11 basketball wins because of an ineligible player, the Big Sky Conference declared those games as forfeits thus giving MSU 2 extra wins that allowed the Bobcats to qualify for the Big sky tournament.
The task of rebuilding the image of Rutgers Scarlett Knight Athletics Program falls to former Louisville associate Athletic Director Julie Herman. You likely remember the footage of former Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice throwing insults and basketballs at his players. Hermann began her career coaching volleyball including a short stay at Big Sky member Northern Arizona in the early 1990’s. Herman left Flagstaff to try and turn Tennessee into a powerhouse, which unfortunately didn’t happen.
Pro golfer Hunter Mahan was the halfway leader at the Canadian Open when his wife went in labor leading to a Mahan withdrawal from the golf tournament. Both Tiger woods’ and Phil Mickleson were in the battle for a major title on the days each of their wives went into labor with their first child. Both Mickleson at the 1999 US Open and Tiger at the 2007 US Open finished second in the tournament but were home for the birth of their first child.
For over 40 years the first football to usher in a new year on the gridiron was the College All-Star football game from Chicago matching the reigning NFL Champs against a team of college all-stars from the previous season. Eight times over the series the college boys beat the pro champions. The last time the Former college stars beat the champs was fifty years ago this week as the Green Bay Packers fell to the college All-stars 20-17. One of defensive heroes for the College all-Stars was recent UM grad Terry Dillon who had ranked among the national leaders in punt and kick-off returns and in punting. Dillon deflected 3 passes to help preserve the win. Dillon would spend one season with the Minnesota Vikings showing promise of a bright future. Dillon would die in a May 1964 Construction accident near Superior.
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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.