By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
New Montana Grizzly football coach Bob Stitt is well aware of the high expectations that come with being the head coach at UM. The last 6 Griz football coaches have averaged 9 wins in their first season. Four of the last 7 Griz football coaches have either matched or exceeded the previous seasons win total in their first season at the helm. In addition Griz head coaches have a tradition of a strong record in their final season on the job. The last six Griz head coaches have averaged more than 11 wins in their last season at Montana.
Boosting Stitt credentials is the fact that CSU-Pueblo won the D-II title a fellow member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. Stitt’s Orediggers lost 20-12 to Pueblo. By the way, CSU-Pueblo’s only league loss was to Fort Lewis College 23-22, Fort Lewis is coached by former Idaho, Utah State, Louisville and Arkansas head coach John L. Smith
For the first time in 18 years the top 2 seeds in the FCS playoff seedlings will meet for the title game when North Dakota State faces New Hampshire on January 10th in Frisco, Texas. Griz fans will recall the last time 1-2 met for the title it was 1996 as Montana went to Huntington, West Virginia to face Marshall on the Herd’s home field (so much for a neutral site).
All good things must come to an end and so it was in the case of Wayne Tinkle’s 8 game winning streaks against the Bobcats. Tinkle didn’t lose to the Bobcats after February 27, 2010. Sunday Tinkle’s new team Oregon State fell to the Bobcats of Quinnipiac University in Boston.
Lady Griz forward Carly Selvig is working herself back from a severe knee injury that occurred last March. Selvig apparently hasn’t lost her touch as a shot blocker as she is currently ranked 23rd in the nation in blocks per game.
The top ranked Big Sky conference player in a stat category is Northern Arizona’s René Coggins who is sixth nationally among Division I women in free throw per centage at just under 96%. Coggins may never go pro in basketball but she may make more money as a commercial artist as she has already sold several of her stained glass creations.
It used to be when you saw a woman on the field during a college football bowl game she was in a long dress and a tiara. Times have changed and this was especially true in last Saturday night’ Camellia Bowl game in Montgomery Alabama. The game featured two female referees whose rules in officiating the game were more crucial after the “side Judge” had to leave the field after being hit by an errant whiskey bottle. The two women working the game had worked Big 12 games during the regular season.
In 1951 Princeton star running back Dick Kazmaier won the Heisman trophy as college football’s outstanding player. Kazzmeirer helped established a prestigious award to be given annually to an outstanding student-athlete. Kazzmeirer’s daughter Patricia was a star hockey player at Princeton in the 1980′ s who tragically lost her battle with Leukemia at the age of 26. Kazzmeirer helped established an award in women’s college hockey to honor an outstanding hockey player that also excelled in the classroom and in the community.
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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.