All week I’ve been reading stories about cities hosting Griz watch parties for the national championship football game between Montana and South Dakota. I’ve been on the watch party end plenty of times.
A Griz alum, I watched from Missoula in 1995 as Montana won its first national championship behind the leadership of Don Read (R.I.P.!) and the arm of future College Football Hall of Famer Dave Dickenson. The Griz beat Marshall 22-20, and we loved it!
The next year, I watched from Missoula as eventual NFL Hall of Famer Randy Moss nearly single handedly outran the Griz in his Cat and The Hat Socks on December 21, 1996, as Marshall redeemed themselves with a win.
Randy Moss and his socks.
Photo courtesy of The Heralder
Don’t get me wrong. Staying behind had plenty of cheers for the Boys from Montana. I was “Up the Blackfoot,” as they say, drinking at a Bloody Mary bar my friend Sandee had put together in her house. Her husband had gone to the game. My friends had gone to the game. We drank Bloodies all day and puffed cigars and sang to Rod Stewart and Tina Turner on tape deck by night.
By 2000 I was an official alum and had moved to Anaconda. I watched the Griz lose to Georgia Southern, 27-25, from a stool at Sladich Bar, an historic gem open since 1896 that closed in the early 2000s.
The next year, the Griz won again, 13-6 over Furman behind the arm of Billings’ Johnny Edwards and head coach Joe Glenn (who went on to coach at Wyoming).
By 2004 – the next time the Griz were in the championship – Bradley had been born, and I was back in Missoula watching the game at Paradise Falls. The Griz lost to James Madison, 31-21. James Madison is no joke.
This year, the Dukes completed a second year in the FBS with an 11-1 overall record (7-1 in the Sun Belt Conference). The Dukes finished alone atop the Sun Belt East Division for the first time (they tied for first last year). They played their first bowl game in December.
By 2008, I was teaching in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and had traveled to Kalispell for the holiday season. We watched the Griz lose to Richmond, 24-7. The next year, they lost 23-21 to Villanova. I watched both losses from Fatt Boys in Kalispell. (Maybe I should have changed locations!).
The Griz made seven national championship appearances from 1995-2023 (shout out to the Missoulian for the game recaps). I watched them all from Montana.
This year, though, I’m skipping the watch party and going to the real thing. I'm flying to the Big D to watch the game live and in person in Frisco, Texas.
Instead of writing a blog about cool bar events, I’m writing a blog about what Griz fans read. #Bookblog. It's not 1995 anymore, and I blog about books. This is what you get, bookish readers.
Manager of Stadium Sports Bar in Great Falls Jennea Morris claims, “The Griz games here in the bar are almost like you’re at the stadium. It’s crazy. It’s wild." Griz reading fans are just as wild and crazy.
Earlier this month, I conducted a mostly reliable crowdsourced research study one day and found out what Griz read. And it’s crazy and wild.
Griz fans love their fiction with 67% of the readers listing a fiction book in traditional book format as a current read.
In the west where the Griz are located, there is a mix of nonfiction, historical fiction, and national bestsellers. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver is the most popular title (this was also recommended by Sage Hobbs, an author, speaker, coach, mom, podcast host, “retired” school counselor, proud teacher’s wife, super loyal friend, adventurer, cancer survivor, philanthropist, and beach-loving-book-nerd. Sage’s work is about powerful coaching, training, and mentorship to create connected leadership, engaged organizations, and positive social impact (with lots of fun, curiosity, encouragement).) [All of Sage’s info is copied from her website sagehobbs.com. Check it out!].
In the southwest, our friends in Anaconda read fantasy. One reader listed the local newspaper The Anaconda Leader. Is that fantasy or reality? Blame the water. Blame the arsenic. Or blame the general “good ol’ days”, but they love their fantasy. Briefly living in an alternate reality is what our Copperheads love. Returning quickly to the cool bar scene, expect the Club Moderne to be busy with hometown boy Braxton Hill (#35) starting for the Griz.
Lastly, to my friends (and mostly family) in the eastern part of the state. Watch out for these folks because you’re dead meat out there. For real.
People vanishing without a trace, peaceful rural communities upset with unsolved murders, victims mauled beyond recognition, time travel to stop an assassination. Penance on the prairie. No. Other. Words. Necessary.
Imagine these readers scouting the perfect coulee miles from the nearest house, choosing a buffalo berry thicket no one would be willing to crawl into, or finding a one-inch-deep creek (pronounced crick) to hide a body and blame the coyotes (or Sasquatch or UFOs) for the disappearance.
A mix from the east and the west, I read Black Forest by Laramie Dean. Laramie graduated a year behind me from Richey High School (enrollment 47 in 1993) and lives and teaches in Missoula. He has talked about his writing and settings being influenced by where he grew up. He writes about ghosts and vampires – gothic rural noir – with the brilliance of someone who lived it.
Every current read by an eastern Montana Griz fan makes sense. Blame the isolation. Blame the wind. Too many sheep. Not enough fast-food joints. Penance on the prairie.
In many ways, stories write themselves. Griz football history has written itself and will continue to do so. Every Griz fan has their own story to tell through these historic years. Griz fans have their favorite tales to tell and read. Most of them are crazy and wild.
Now for the game. We know those Jackrabbits won’t be nearly as fast as Cat in the Hat, so let’s shut our books and yell, Go Griz!
Books Griz Read
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (also, great on audio!)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
11/22/63 by Stephen King
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Story by James McBride
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside by Katrina Firlik
Unnatural Death by Patricia Cornwell
We are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry
The Race of the Century by Kid Toussaint
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini
Chop Wood, Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great by Joshua Medcalf
The Anaconda Leader
Winter’s Fury (Furyck Saga) by A.E. Rayne
Penance on the Prairies (The Vangie Vale Mysteries), R.L. Syme
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