UM Sports Trivia | Week of Aug 1

By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN

The measure of how old newly crown PGA Champ, Jimmy Walker is, he was born before Robin Selvig became the head coach of the Montana Lady Griz–but just barely. Walker was 5 months old when UM selected a high school coach from Plentywood to lead its women’s basketball program.

Oh yes, it is hard to imagine going to game and not seeing Selvig directing his players and providing free tips for the referees. The last time UM played a women’s basketball game without Selvig was March 4, 1978–a loss at Eastern Oregon. Ten years to the day later Selvig’s Montana team would be the last remaining Division I undefeated team, men’s or women’s, and ranked No. 13 in the power polls.
It is funny now to recall this, but when Robin Selvig was hired it was widely assumed the short stint with the women’s program would have him moved up to the men’s program. By the way, over the last 38 seasons while the Lady Griz were winning 865 games the Griz men were winning 716 (still a very solid 19 wins a season.)
At this writing Selvig’s successor has not been announced but the new regime opens with an exhibition game on November 1 with MSU-Northern.
Five-time defending FCS National Champs North Dakota State has another meeting with an FBS program this season. Big Ten runner-up and Rose Bowl participants Iowa hosts the Bison on September 17th.
A sports/political trivia. A good Omen for the Philadelphia 76ers: the last time the Sixers Arena was used for a national political Convention (2000 GOP) the following June the same arena was the site of the 2001 NBA Finals.

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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.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2016 at 7:11 am
Category Archive: All Sports & Recreation, Blogs, Spectator Sports, UM Athletics, University of Montana
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