2,000 Montana fans making trip to Maui
By Stephen Tsai
Honolulu Advertiser Staff Writer
9/5/2001
Where do
Grizzlies sit?
Just
about anywhere, it seems.
Last
year, 8,000 Montana football fans made the 169-mile trek
from Missoula, Mont., to Spokane, Wash., accounting for more
than half the crowd in a victory over Eastern Washington. In
1999, 5,000 Montana fans crammed into cars, buses, vans and
RVs for the 423-mile trip to Portland.
Saturday,
more than 2,000 fans — they'll be the ones in maroon
singing, "Up With Montana" — will attend the college
football game between Montana and Hawai'i at War Memorial
Stadium on Maui.
"Griz
fans are nuts," Montana coach Joe Glenn said. "They'll
follow this team anywhere."
In
Missoula, a town with a population of 56,000, more than 500
vans and motor homes will line up at dawn for a 1 p.m.
kickoff.
Last
year, the Grizzlies averaged 19,157 fans per home game — in
the 18,845-seat Washington Grizzly Stadium.
The fans
create a sea of maroon and silver. One fan brings a trumpet.
Everybody else sings the school's fight song after each
Grizzly touchdown or field goal.
Across
town, fans gather at Red's Bar or The Press Box restaurant,
which has 31 television sets, all tuned to the Grizzlies.
Gordie
Fix, owner of The Press Box, said he receives telephone
calls from as far away as Japan asking for the satellite
coordinates for Montana telecasts.
Fans also
pack sports bars in Phoenix and Las Vegas to watch the
Grizzlies.
"There
are a lot of things to do in Missoula," Fix said. "We have
great outdoor sports, skiing, lots of golf courses. But
somehow, when the Griz play, we go, uh, crazy."
After
each road victory, the Montana players will turn to their
fans and sing the school's alma mater.
After
home victories, many fans will jump into the Clark Fork
River. After the Grizzlies won the Division I-AA national
championship in 1995, about 50 fans withstood the 20-degree
temperatures to jump into the river.
Chris
Lynn, a Montana sophomore, started a Web site for Griz fans.
The site features chat rooms, message boards, game
information and jokes (usually aimed at arch-rival Montana
State). Samples:
• How do
you get a Montana State player off your porch? Pay him for
the pizza.
• How
many Montana State freshmen does it take to change a
lightbulb? None. That's a sophomore course at MSU.
• What do
you get when you drive slowly through Bozeman? A degree from
Montana State University.
"The fans
here are amazing," said Lynn, noting the Web site (www.egriz.com)
receives more than 1,000 hits per day.
Griz
Mania started with the completion of Washington Grizzly
Stadium in 1986. Since then, the Grizzlies have won 87
percent of their games, and possession of season tickets
have sparked fierce battles in divorce court.
Montana
football "is a big deal here," Fix said. "Even at bars,
people act like they're at a game. They'll yell at the TV,
flip off the ref. It can get pretty wild." |
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