Montana fans find place they can call home
MISSOULA SOUTH
You have to love a scene where the first-grade teacher is screaming every snap, imploring college football players on a large screen television to “Put him into the ground!”
That was one of the kinder things Katherine Lightner had to say about the Richmond Spiders on Friday night, and one we could actually print.
“This is what you do,” Lightner said. “You live in the moment. But this isn’t our (team) tonight. This is not what we do.
“We looked really good against them on paper.”
Did you hear the one about two guys walking into a bar and asking if the owner could find a Montana football game on satellite?
It happened to Bob Bonner in 1992, and from that encounter grew a following that has converted his pub into a home for those who believe maroon and silver are the colors God intended us all to wear.
Torrey Pines Pub opened in 1991 and stretches over part of a strip mall along Lake Mead Boulevard. Many say it is now the most popular sports bar in all of … Montana.
Who knew the neighborhood would extend some 800 miles?
They played the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) national title game Friday, and Richmond was better from the beginning in a 24-7 victory over Montana.
The Division I-A level could do this too, of course. It could have a 16-team tournament that culminates with a championship game and not have the travel and academic headaches used as excuses by university presidents who foolishly stand behind the current bowl system. Montana and Richmond each played 16 games this season. The world didn’t end and countless athletes didn’t flunk out of college. Imagine that.
A tournament of major college teams would annually rank among the most popular times in sports and, if we’re lucky, it might even rustle up the same level of passion shown by those who gather here to cheer on Montana.
But that would take some doing.
Bonner estimates around 20 fans made their way to his pub weekly during the 1992 season, shortly after friends David Kearns and Pete Marinkovich inquired about watching the Montana-Idaho game.
The two Montana alums were at the bar again Friday, just like 16 years ago.
“They walked in that first day and asked if I could get the Griz game,” Bonner said. “I said, ‘What’s a Griz?’ ”
That was then. This season, when Montana played rival Montana State, there were over 200 in the place. Friday night there were about 100.
There are some Saturdays when as many tourists as locals cheer for (lots of that) and drink to (even more of that) the Grizzlies. Maybe because it reminds them so much of home.
The wood paneling is all Montana. So too are the license plates hanging from one wall, which also includes framed posters of past Grizzlies teams and a large Grizzlies head painted in those sacred colors.
In one trophy case are letters of thanks to Bonner from the governor and a state senator, both placed around a piece of the goal post from the 2001 national championship game and a slice of turf from Washington Grizzly Stadium.
The Alumni of the Year certificate is placed in another case at the opposite end of the pub. Bonner was awarded the honor even though he never attended Montana. He’s a UNLV alum who arrived in Las Vegas in 1980, a marketing major who obviously learned a few things about attracting and keeping loyal customers.
“It has grown to amazing proportions,” said Bonner, a west Philadelphia native. “I wasn’t thinking about where it might lead. I was just helping out a few customers who asked to watch a game. But around 1995, I realized I had something. I’ve met a lot of great people.
“It’s not your hard, tough, neighborhood crowd. This is just good ol’ fashioned football and fans who love their team.”
He has halftime giveaways of hats and shirts from Missoula bars. His iPod includes not only the school fight song (which is played after every Montana score) but also the team’s public address announcer loudly declaring every first down. It’s a scene, all right.
Fewer than four minutes remained in Friday’s game when Sherry Halley wandered by. She had spent most of the night slapping maroon Thunder Sticks together and instructing fans when to put on and take off their magic Montana beads depending on how the game was progressing.
“Could you report in the paper that we won anyway?” she asked.
I told her that wouldn’t be possible and yet realized it wouldn’t matter, that I was fairly certain Sherry and most in attendance wouldn’t remember much of what happened all night.
Last I saw, Richmond was celebrating its win on the large television screen and the Grizzlies fans were still dancing (some), drinking (lots) and singing (everyone) the fight song.
It was a good time to depart, because Lord knows what the first-grade teacher might say after a loss.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at (702) 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.
