billingsgriz
Well-known member
My friend Tim is from Central Montana and was/is a skilled carpenter, but about 20 years ago, Tim told me he thought to himself, " Why am I pounding nails for $ 20 an hour when truck drivers in The huge Bakken Oil Fields ( Developed about 10 % in far Eastern Montana, 90% in far Western North Dakota, Sidney, Williston the Mont./ND Bakken Capitals) were making $100,000 + a year driving truck. So Tim went to trucker school, earned his CDL, and was off to the Mont./ND border. Since he didn't want to live with a bunch of rough necks in a man camp, he was
lucky and managed to find a small apartment in Fairview, Mont., right on the border. Since he had to be to work just across the border at his company's shop by 5 AM, he had to get up @ 3 AM and be to work in ND @ 5, but soon as he left Fairview and drove 2 blocks, his watch went from 3:50 AM to 4:50 AM, Mountain Time to Central Time. He then spent the next 10 hours delivering pipe, water and fracking sand to Bakken wells. Tim, wore down by the schedule, worked hard in The Bakken for 15 years, saved several hundred thousand dollars and bought a small farm
west of Columbus. He still drives truck, but in Billings, Laurel, Hardin, Sheridan, Powell and Cody Wyoming and he has weekends off.
Tim told me like the migrating ducks and geese, a few hundred rough necks from Central and East Texas and Lousiana would show up in The Bakken in April each year, work hard, party hard, make a lot of money and blow it, but come November after Halloween when the wind on the Eastern Montana/Western North Dakota prairies and bad lands started to turn a bitter cold
, most of these East Texas and Louisiana boys wanted no part of that--cold to them is 40 above zero--and drove their F 150's, Silverados and Ram pickup trucks back south with the ducks and geese to Lousiana and Texas.
MSU just had 5 kids , 3 or 4 of them DB's, from Texas enter the portal, we have had Loud and Otlewski, both also from Texas, enter the portal as well as Riley Wilson last year. Weather most likely is not the only cause for all of these kids entering the portal--in Loud's case something more like $ 500,000 is his main reason for transferring to Duke, but it is also probably a contributing factor. I guess we have to accept the fact that for a lot of the kids that we recruit from outside of Montana, especially Texas, both from high school ( Loud ) and the portal ( Otlewski and Wilson ) we are Plan B, a stepping stone, the college football equivalent of a Double A or Triple A minor league baseball team for kids hoping to make it to the big show and play for The Dodgers or Yankees, or in our case, The Big 10, Big 12, SEC or ACC. And while kids from Texas don't like the cold Montana winters,p
$250,000 to $ 500,000 would make that cold weather more tolerable. Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of dough : ( !!!
I think we should continue to recruit Texas but do so realizing that while any kid we recruit from anywhere including Montana can always enter the portal, the kids we recruit from Texas even more so and a lot of them, we are only going to have 1-2 years : ( !!!
lucky and managed to find a small apartment in Fairview, Mont., right on the border. Since he had to be to work just across the border at his company's shop by 5 AM, he had to get up @ 3 AM and be to work in ND @ 5, but soon as he left Fairview and drove 2 blocks, his watch went from 3:50 AM to 4:50 AM, Mountain Time to Central Time. He then spent the next 10 hours delivering pipe, water and fracking sand to Bakken wells. Tim, wore down by the schedule, worked hard in The Bakken for 15 years, saved several hundred thousand dollars and bought a small farm
west of Columbus. He still drives truck, but in Billings, Laurel, Hardin, Sheridan, Powell and Cody Wyoming and he has weekends off.Tim told me like the migrating ducks and geese, a few hundred rough necks from Central and East Texas and Lousiana would show up in The Bakken in April each year, work hard, party hard, make a lot of money and blow it, but come November after Halloween when the wind on the Eastern Montana/Western North Dakota prairies and bad lands started to turn a bitter cold
, most of these East Texas and Louisiana boys wanted no part of that--cold to them is 40 above zero--and drove their F 150's, Silverados and Ram pickup trucks back south with the ducks and geese to Lousiana and Texas.MSU just had 5 kids , 3 or 4 of them DB's, from Texas enter the portal, we have had Loud and Otlewski, both also from Texas, enter the portal as well as Riley Wilson last year. Weather most likely is not the only cause for all of these kids entering the portal--in Loud's case something more like $ 500,000 is his main reason for transferring to Duke, but it is also probably a contributing factor. I guess we have to accept the fact that for a lot of the kids that we recruit from outside of Montana, especially Texas, both from high school ( Loud ) and the portal ( Otlewski and Wilson ) we are Plan B, a stepping stone, the college football equivalent of a Double A or Triple A minor league baseball team for kids hoping to make it to the big show and play for The Dodgers or Yankees, or in our case, The Big 10, Big 12, SEC or ACC. And while kids from Texas don't like the cold Montana winters,p
$250,000 to $ 500,000 would make that cold weather more tolerable. Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of dough : ( !!!
I think we should continue to recruit Texas but do so realizing that while any kid we recruit from anywhere including Montana can always enter the portal, the kids we recruit from Texas even more so and a lot of them, we are only going to have 1-2 years : ( !!!
