From the Missoulian

Nate Montana, the Notre Dame transfer quarterback who suited up for the Montana Grizzlies last fall, has decided to transfer again, Griz coach Mick Delaney confirmed Tuesday.

Delaney said Montana, who played in eight games for the Grizzlies, is headed to West Virginia Wesleyan, an NCAA Division II school in Buckhannon, W.Va.

Delaney, who took over the Griz when Robin Pflugrad was fired in March, said Montana was seeking more playing time.

“He asked for a waiver as a fifth-year senior transfer, and he’s going to do that,” Delaney said. “I just wish him good luck with everything. He wants to be on the field and he’ll get that opportunity there.

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Congrats Grizzlies!

All Sports Trophy Standings

More from GoGriz.com

Montana has won the 2011-12 Big Sky Conference Men’s All-Sports Trophy the league office announced Tuesday. It is the first Men’s All-Sports Trophy for the Grizzlies since 1970-71 and just their second since the inauguration of the Big Sky Conference in 1963.

Using points from its recent outdoor track and field title, Sacramento State won the Women’s All-Sports Trophy for the fourth time in five years. Montana, which won its first Women’s All-Sports Trophy last year, finished fourth.

Montana won the Men’s All-Sports Trophy because of its success in the sports weighted with the most points: football and men’s basketball. The Griz football team shared last fall’s regular-season title. The men’s basketball team won last winter’s championship outright.

Montana, which averaged 11.75 points per sport, also won this spring’s men’s tennis championship. The three championships or co-championships were enough to offset a fourth-place cross country finish and seventh-place finishes during both the Big Sky indoor and outdoor championships.

Montana State and Weber State tied for second with an average of 11.17 points per sport.

Northern Colorado, which had a breakout season for its women’s sports programs with outright titles in volleyball and golf, a shared title in soccer and runner-up finish in basketball, held the lead for the Women’s All-Sports Trophy going into last weekend, but the Hornets’ title combined with the Bears’ last-place finish was enough to earn Sac State the trophy.

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Thanks for your time here and good luck in your future adventures!

Here is his career profile from GoGriz.com

Coach Beers has been involved in football for more than four decades. He was an outstanding player of the Grizzlies and head coach Jack Swarthout, as he was a two-time All-America at linebacker for the Grizzlies in 1968 and 1969.

In his first season after his return to UM in 2010, senior guard Russell Piette and senior center Alex Verlanic were named second team All-Big Sky.

He returned to his alma mater (1970) two seasons ago after working numerous years as a scout in the National Football League. Most recently (2007-2010) he was a Western Regional Scout for the Houston Texans. From 2003-07 he was a regional scout for the Detroit Lions.

He was the head coach for the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League in 2003 and also served as a scout for the Denver Broncos during that time. He was the offensive coordinator for the Amsterdam Admirals in the Spring of 1995, then joined the Broncos later that year as their West Coast Regional Scout.

In 1993-94, he was the head coach and athletic director at Western Montana College (UM-Western). He was the offensive coordinator for the Frankfurt Galaxy of the NFL’s World League for head coach Jack Elway from 1991-93.

Beers was the Grizzlies’ assistant head coach working with the offensive line for former head coach Don Read from 1986-90.

He coached in the prep ranks from 1977-85 in Montana and Oregon. He began coaching on the collegiate level at Montana for Swarthout (1970-72). After that he moved on to Montana Tech, where he served as the defensive coordinator from 1972-73.

As a standout Grizzly linebacker, he was the inaugural recipient of UM’s Golden Helmet Award (team’s hardest hitter) in 1967. In October of 2009 he and his teammates from UM’s undefeated (10-0) Griz football teams of 1968 and 1969 were inducted into the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame.

He earned his degree at UM in 1970, majoring in history and health, physical education.

Bob and his wife Janelle have three children, son Bobby, and two daughters, Cari, a principal in Eureka, Mont., and daughter Joey, a student at UM. Bobby is the athletic director at Rocky Mountain College in Billings. Bob and Janelle have three granddaughters: Milynn, Megan, and Emily.

[UPDATE] Jean Gee updated me with the following information: “This decision was 100% the senior leaders of the team. Then when presented to the team, it was a very high majority (if not all) that supported it and went along willingly.” Thanks for the clarification Jean.

No matter where the decision came from, I do believe it to be a smart choice. Last year a twitter controversy hit the Stony Brook football team when Linebacker Matt Faiella was said to have used “an inappropriate and offensive racial reference on his Twitter page to describe Towson University student-athletes.” and resulted in a suspension for Faiella as well as disqualification penalty against the Stony Brook University football team, which will be enforced the next time the Seawolves are in the championship.

Because both Towson and Stony Brook were participating in the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) championships at the time of the tweet, it was considered championship misconduct, the release explained.

Read more on this issue

Whether you feel that the NCAA, coaches or anyone else should/shouldn’t have control over personal uses of social media, this is one way to prevent some major backlash against the team which does affect the program as a whole, players, coaches, and fans alike. I don’t want Twitter to hurt Griz Nation and I don’t believe you do either.

Tweets reaching out to Griz Football players for comments were not returned.

HA, just kidding!

What are your thoughts on this action and the twitter issues for college athletes?

Women’s basketball:  Tianna Ware
Volleyball:  Amy Roberts, Brittany Quick
Men’s basketball:  Derik Selvig, Arthur Steward, Shawn Stockton, Jordan Wood, Mathias Ward
Football:  Bobby Alt, CJ Atkins, Alex Shaw, Bryan Waldhauser, Jeremy LaPan, Sean Wren, Lance Carl
Men’s Tennis:  Josh Smith, Ben DeMarois, Timo Gehrke, Carl Kuschke
Golf: Ashli Helstrom
Women’s tennis: Lauren Gibson
Soccer:  Jaymie Brown
Women’s track/cross country: Katrina Drennen, Nicole Ennen, Asia Graham, Melissa Jenkins, Courtney Kosovich, Kesslee Payne
Men’s track/cross country: Richard Brumbaugh, Brian Burke, Cody Lund, Lynn Reynolds, Christian Segota

The Grizzly athletic department’s goal is to set a Football Championship Subdivision record for attendance at the year’s scrimmage. We can do this!!

All of the proceeds from the game will benefit the UM Athletic Facility Improvement Projects, such as the Academic Center for Grizzly Athletics, which was recently approved by Montana’s Board of Regents.

Tickets for the scrimmage are $5 per person. A 4 pm tailgate party will offer something for every family member, and will feature live music, games, food, and drinks. After the scrim, football games will be available to children on the Washington-Grizzly Stadium playing surface.

Ticket Outlets for the spring football game are at the GSA Office, Elbow Room, JCCS Locations statewide, MSO Hub, Paradise Falls, Press Box, Red’s Bar, Silver Slipper, Southgate Mall, Stockman’s Bar & Worden’s Market. For a list of additional ticket outlets across the state, please visit www.gogriz.com.

We are also working on a collective eGriz.com Community Sponsorship for the event.

From the blog post by Brent Reser

Last Thursday was a very dark and sad day for my place of work, a day that negatively impacted myself and every single employee in The University of Montana Athletic Department. In what seemed like the biggest punch in the gut one could get, we learned that morning in a last minute mandatory meeting that our athletic director and head football coach had been let go. To see two outstanding individuals ousted so fast sickened us all. I will not address the reasoning (or lack thereof) or my opinion of the terminations in this post because I have absolutely no business doing so. However, what I will address is my admiration and respect for Jim O’Day, the man who served as athletic director for Grizzly Athletics for eight years. In this tribute to Jim, I want to share why he was such a great boss and an even better person.

Continued at http://dontblink-brent.blogspot.com/2012/04/thanks-jim.html

Lately, we’ve all been hearing about behavior that taints the entire university, not just the person involved or his/her team.

That makes the view from afar particularly difficult to see at times.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m always a big fan of the University of Montana, and I tout its top-notch academics and atmosphere to anyone who will listen.

So it’s troubling when I talk about the school to someone who doesn’t know much about it; for example, a potential student, or a co-worker with school-aged kids, and they do a tiny bit of research and find out about a lot of unsavory things that have happened there.

Not to create a laundry list of things because, as eGriz members, we are all aware that a few people have been accused of some serious crimes in recent times.

Some folks here have debated the merits of various cases even though we don’t truly have a damned clue about the actual events.

I’m not going to do that.  I’m not interested in rehashing any of these incidents or attempting to put on trial in the media anyone accused of a particular crime.  That’s not appropriate, nor is it my place.

I just wonder, is it over yet?

I sure hope so.

And I have a few words of caution.  Caution for any new student, really, but especially those who will be joining the university athletic teams.  And let’s not kid ourselves, potential students or athletic recruits visit this site and read what people here say, even if the message board material doesn’t influence their decisions on whether or not to attend.

You would think it goes without saying, but becoming a student-athlete at UM brings with it some things that other students never have to deal with.

Like it or not, student-athletes live and perform under greater scrutiny than other students.

They agreed to swap their talents in exchange for the chance to be part of a great athletic program, whatever their sport.  And they might even get their education paid for to boot.

And that agreement, that willingness to make that deal, also comes with the responsibility to do more than perform on the field, court, pitch, course, etc.  It comes with the responsibility to represent the team and the school well, at all times, not just when playing.

In truth, any student, even one not playing sports, who runs afoul of the law will bring a certain amount of shame on the university.

If a student is busted shoplifting or driving drunk, his name will make the papers, and so will the fact that he’s a UM student.  And that behavior isn’t just embarrassing to the individual or his family, it’s an embarrassment to the entire school.

If you’re associated with the school, your behavior reflects on everyone associated with it, not just yourself.  I think it’s worth reminding every high school student who leaves home, often for the first time, to go to college, of that fact.

Being accused of breaking the law will move that news from the back pages to the front if a student-athlete is involved.  That might not seem fair to some folks, but I think it is fair. Student-athletes are not just playing sports, they wear the school uniform and have a special “seal of approval,” if you will.  The privilege of wearing the UM colors come with it a certain trust.  Student-athletes don’t get to take off the uniform and then temporarily suspend their membership on a team or their job representing the school.

No.  That is a 24/7/365 job for the duration of the agreement.

And violating that trust isn’t just an embarrassment to a student-athlete’s family, friends or himself, it reflects poorly on the entire university.

It makes other people wonder, “What’s wrong at UM with all those kids (driving drunk, raping, getting in fights, doing drugs, whathaveyou)?”

It’s not fair of one person who violates that trust to taint the entire school.

And that’s why I said it was a few words of caution.  Because that’s not an easy thing to do.

We’re talking about very young adults.  I recall reading several studies in my master’s program about brain development not being fully realized until a person is in his early- to mid-twenties.  That’s usually well past college years for most people.

That’s certainly not an excuse for bad behavior, but it might — might — account for poor decisions that are made from time to time.  So, people in the position of student-athlete need to take a little extra time and ask themselves: “Is what I’m about to do a good idea? What are the consequences?”

Sure lots of us have done things that we wouldn’t exactly brag about, much less enjoy seeing in the media. Hell, I’m certainly guilty of that.  But I also haven’t been caught doing anything dumb or illegal enough to warrant being plastered across the papers, discussed over the airwaves or touted on news web sites.

Maybe it’s a good thing that there has been enough trouble lately to cause the school to investigate and get a committee to review behavior of certain student athletes.

My hope is the latest brouhaha will be enough to prevent some people from making bad decisions.

I sure hope so.

Because I have a lot of great stuff to tell people about my alma mater.  I have golf, tennis, spring football, track and field and other UM happenings that I am eager to talk about.

I plan to get back to them the next time I enjoy the view from afar.

Photo by JAKE ENGLAND/MontanaGrizzlies.com

The Griz received a #13 seed in the much-anticipated selection show on Sunday afternoon at Paradise Falls. The crowd was electric in anticipation for the Montana to be announced. There were many moments when we thought it was our time, just to hear someone else’s name being announced. All the big analysts and projectionists didn’t have this one right, except for maybe the location of the game. The outcome? The Griz will play the #4 seed Wisconsin Badgers in Albuquerque, New Mexico (time to be announced) at 12:10 pm on Thursday, March 15.

The Griz enter the tournament with the longest winning streak in the NCAA with Kentucky losing early today. That is a great accomplishment and really shows what this team is about. A matchup against Wisconsin is a winnable game and our boys are ready to once again, make Griz Nation proud.

Here is a video of the reaction when hearing the seed!