Dane Oliver Named Sentinel Head Coach

[grizband]

I think track is the only program where the kids represent their middle schools..

It's so sad. I have great memories playing at Lewis & Clark Middle Schools against rival schools like Will James. That is where the big high school rivalries start to form. I'm sure the same is true in Helena and Great Falls.

WaGriz, what year did you play at Lewis and Clark? Those games against Will James were some of my favorite memories as well.

It would have been about 2000-2001. I'm pretty young.

Haha, yeah that was my freshman year of college. I'm younger than most around here too.

 

[grizpack]

i believe missoula has no school sponsored middle school sports programs. I think the kids play club sports.

I think track is the only program where the kids represent their middle schools..

Basketball, track, wrestling, volleyball and soccer. I believe all sports are no-cut, however.

They are "no-cut" and non-competitive. Think YMCA. It is sad, as the kid who doesn't have the guidance and/or financial resources to play club sports is basically left behind. They get almost nothing out of middle school sports in Missoula.

 

[WaGriz4life]

Sentinel has a football lifting program.

Good to hear. When I was told that none had conditioning programs I didn't believe it. Missoula needs more young coaches like Dane Oliver to try and generate some excitement from elementary middle school kids about playing for the Spartans one day. That's how it was for me growing up. We would dream of playing games at Daylis like it was the NFL. Watching guys like John Edwards, Kane Ione, Scott Turnquist, Eric Murdock, Jared Taco, Ryan Grousalak.........

 

[BDizzle]

It's so sad. I have great memories playing at Lewis & Clark Middle Schools against rival schools like Will James. That is where the big high school rivalries start to form. I'm sure the same is true in Helena and Great Falls.

WaGriz, what year did you play at Lewis and Clark? Those games against Will James were some of my favorite memories as well.

It would have been about 2000-2001. I'm pretty young.

Haha, yeah that was my freshman year of college. I'm younger than most around here too.

My freshman year at UM was 2001. My mom taught at Will James and West.

 

[Grizbeer]

i believe missoula has no school sponsored middle school sports programs. I think the kids play club sports.

I think track is the only program where the kids represent their middle schools..

Basketball, track, wrestling, volleyball and soccer. I believe all sports are no-cut, however.

They are "no-cut" and non-competitive. Think YMCA. It is sad, as the kid who doesn't have the guidance and/or financial resources to play club sports is basically left behind. They get almost nothing out of middle school sports in Missoula.

Not quite as bad as YMCA, at least they keep score. But yes for competition kids play on traveling teams. Funny, when I was a kid YMCA had competitive teams, with real officials and keeping score. They even had a traveling All-Star team that traveled around the region playing 8th grade teams from rural schools. Even baseball in Missoula is going through the same transition with more kids playing on traveling teams and fewer playing Little League. I guess it all goes in cycles.

Football is the main sport being hurt by the shift to club teams instead of schools, but only because Little Griz is so inept. In truth Missoula has not had tackle football in the elementary or middle schools since the 70's, yet the high schools were still pretty competitive until the mid-'90's and beyond, so I would hardly put the blame for the lack of high school success on not having Middle school football.

 

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

I grew up in Laurel. Played flag in 4th grade. Played little guy tackle football in Billings in 5-6 grade. Then played middle school football vs all the other Eastern A schools and a few Billings schools (?). I know Missoula has little guy tackle football for like 5-6 grade. Really weird to not have middle school football.

But what about concussions?


Its a good thing you quit, it may have affected your decision making abilities later in life................you know like hanging around GRZFTBL etc.

 

[BDizzle]

I grew up in Laurel. Played flag in 4th grade. Played little guy tackle football in Billings in 5-6 grade. Then played middle school football vs all the other Eastern A schools and a few Billings schools (?). I know Missoula has little guy tackle football for like 5-6 grade. Really weird to not have middle school football.

But what about concussions?


Its a good thing you quit, it may have affected your decision making abilities later in life................you know like hanging around GRZFTBL etc.

I never had to worry about concussions because they went for my knees instead. Gonna have a titanium one here pretty soon.


I think GRZFTBL was supposed to be my get-a-way driver but he ended up in IHOP. Next time I'm picking a place away from food joints.

 

[Grisly Fan]

Missoula didn't even have tackle football in elementary schools in the 70's; we only played touch football. I was the starting middle linebacker as a 5th grader on the 8th grade team and had an interception on the first play of scrimmage in the first game that year -- and not a single one after that and I started every game for the next 4 years. No one ever threw another pass to the middle. Maybe I was the TJ of Missoula touch football -- a "shutdown MLB"! :roll: :roll:

 

[ilovethecats]

I grew up in Laurel. Played flag in 4th grade. Played little guy tackle football in Billings in 5-6 grade. Then played middle school football vs all the other Eastern A schools and a few Billings schools (?). I know Missoula has little guy tackle football for like 5-6 grade. Really weird to not have middle school football.

ya that's pretty much how it goes here in bozeman too. once you hit 7th grade you play the other middle school teams in town and they used to play the belgrade teams too. the high school coaches had a good idea and added some input to these teams for when the kids reached 9th grade.

basketball back in the day was even more organized. coach cole pretty much had his hand in all of middle school hoops even down to discipline in extreme cases. basically, if you were an idiot in 8th grade, it's possible you ruined your shot at high school hoops before even entering high school! but on the flip side, kids were coming into 9th grade with a pretty good idea of the offenses run, including out of bounds plays that made for some competitive tryouts! not sure if this is still the case since cole has left.

 

[WaGriz4life]

I grew up in Laurel. Played flag in 4th grade. Played little guy tackle football in Billings in 5-6 grade. Then played middle school football vs all the other Eastern A schools and a few Billings schools (?). I know Missoula has little guy tackle football for like 5-6 grade. Really weird to not have middle school football.

ya that's pretty much how it goes here in bozeman too. once you hit 7th grade you play the other middle school teams in town and they used to play the belgrade teams too. the high school coaches had a good idea and added some input to these teams for when the kids reached 9th grade.

basketball back in the day was even more organized. coach cole pretty much had his hand in all of middle school hoops even down to discipline in extreme cases. basically, if you were an idiot in 8th grade, it's possible you ruined your shot at high school hoops before even entering high school! but on the flip side, kids were coming into 9th grade with a pretty good idea of the offenses run, including out of bounds plays that made for some competitive tryouts! not sure if this is still the case since cole has left.

I'm well aware that Cole had his hands all over Middle School basketball. I used to play in tournaments in middle school with a bunch of other rag-tag future senior high kids from Lewis and Riverside. The Bozeman teams would hammer us and would be running disciplined high school flex offenses. You would see Cole at the top of the gym analyzing these 7th and 8th graders for when they got to high school.........and a few State Championships later they decided to fire him :? :?

 

[ilovethecats]

ya he ran a pretty tight ship. i'd assume coach holmquist does the same thing. it's why i'm so baffled that i never knew missoula didn't have middle school football. as someone mentioned, at the very least, you'd think they'd organize these teams based on location and try to give thee kids some cort of continuity for high school. it really explains why missoula is typically always so terrible in high school football. from the minute they step into their first high school practice...they are already way behind every other team in the state. yikes.

 

[BDizzle]

ya he ran a pretty tight ship. i'd assume coach holmquist does the same thing. it's why i'm so baffled that i never knew missoula didn't have middle school football. as someone mentioned, at the very least, you'd think they'd organize these teams based on location and try to give thee kids some cort of continuity for high school. it really explains why missoula is typically always so terrible in high school football. from the minute they step into their first high school practice...they are already way behind every other team in the state. yikes.

I don't understand how Missoula doesn't have middle school football. They have little guy tackle football. So they play little guy tackle football, then don't play middle school football, then play high school football??? Just doesn't make sense.

 

[grizpack]

ya he ran a pretty tight ship. i'd assume coach holmquist does the same thing. it's why i'm so baffled that i never knew missoula didn't have middle school football. as someone mentioned, at the very least, you'd think they'd organize these teams based on location and try to give thee kids some cort of continuity for high school. it really explains why missoula is typically always so terrible in high school football. from the minute they step into their first high school practice...they are already way behind every other team in the state. yikes.

Well, that and the fact that the enrollments are about 1/2 of West, Bozeman, etc. They need to close at least 1 high school in Missoula. And that will NEVER happen.

 

[grizband]

ya he ran a pretty tight ship. i'd assume coach holmquist does the same thing. it's why i'm so baffled that i never knew missoula didn't have middle school football. as someone mentioned, at the very least, you'd think they'd organize these teams based on location and try to give thee kids some cort of continuity for high school. it really explains why missoula is typically always so terrible in high school football. from the minute they step into their first high school practice...they are already way behind every other team in the state. yikes.

I don't understand how Missoula doesn't have middle school football. They have little guy tackle football. So they play little guy tackle football, then don't play middle school football, then play high school football??? Just doesn't make sense.

Little Griz football here runs 5th to 8th grade, so they are playing at that age, its just not associated with the schools. The teams "draft" players, rather than assigning kids based on geography.

 

[griz4life]

ya that's pretty much how it goes here in bozeman too. once you hit 7th grade you play the other middle school teams in town and they used to play the belgrade teams too. the high school coaches had a good idea and added some input to these teams for when the kids reached 9th grade.

Bozeman and Missoula should both have quality middle school programs by virtue of having University athletes needing to fulfill student teaching requirements for public ed degrees. How do you not tap into your local Bobcat or Griz football players when it comes to middle school coaching? I had a 'Cat coach and a Western coach in middle school who were finishing up their teaching requirements. It was great.

 

[BDizzle]

I grew up in Laurel. Played flag in 4th grade. Played little guy tackle football in Billings in 5-6 grade. Then played middle school football vs all the other Eastern A schools and a few Billings schools (?). I know Missoula has little guy tackle football for like 5-6 grade. Really weird to not have middle school football.

ya that's pretty much how it goes here in bozeman too. once you hit 7th grade you play the other middle school teams in town and they used to play the belgrade teams too. the high school coaches had a good idea and added some input to these teams for when the kids reached 9th grade.

basketball back in the day was even more organized. coach cole pretty much had his hand in all of middle school hoops even down to discipline in extreme cases. basically, if you were an idiot in 8th grade, it's possible you ruined your shot at high school hoops before even entering high school! but on the flip side, kids were coming into 9th grade with a pretty good idea of the offenses run, including out of bounds plays that made for some competitive tryouts! not sure if this is still the case since cole has left.

Basketball in Laurel was also very organized. We had two traveling teams starting in like 5th grade. Had the same traveling teams until high school. Then players got cut and it went down to one team. But we ran the same offense and the Varsity coach (his son was on my team) was always at practices and had a say in everything. We traveled all over the Western US to play in tournaments. Unfortunately we always screwed the pooch at state when I was playing.

 

[BDizzle]

ya he ran a pretty tight ship. i'd assume coach holmquist does the same thing. it's why i'm so baffled that i never knew missoula didn't have middle school football. as someone mentioned, at the very least, you'd think they'd organize these teams based on location and try to give thee kids some cort of continuity for high school. it really explains why missoula is typically always so terrible in high school football. from the minute they step into their first high school practice...they are already way behind every other team in the state. yikes.

I don't understand how Missoula doesn't have middle school football. They have little guy tackle football. So they play little guy tackle football, then don't play middle school football, then play high school football??? Just doesn't make sense.

Little Griz football here runs 5th to 8th grade, so they are playing at that age, its just not associated with the schools. The teams "draft" players, rather than assigning kids based on geography.

Ah ok, thanks. That makes sense even if it doesn't make sense.

 

[ilovethecats]

ya he ran a pretty tight ship. i'd assume coach holmquist does the same thing. it's why i'm so baffled that i never knew missoula didn't have middle school football. as someone mentioned, at the very least, you'd think they'd organize these teams based on location and try to give thee kids some cort of continuity for high school. it really explains why missoula is typically always so terrible in high school football. from the minute they step into their first high school practice...they are already way behind every other team in the state. yikes.

I don't understand how Missoula doesn't have middle school football. They have little guy tackle football. So they play little guy tackle football, then don't play middle school football, then play high school football??? Just doesn't make sense.

Little Griz football here runs 5th to 8th grade, so they are playing at that age, its just not associated with the schools. The teams "draft" players, rather than assigning kids based on geography.

how do they seperate the kids then? all 5th graders together, all 6th graders together, etc? please tell me that 5th-8th don't compete against one another...

 

[mtgrizrule]

I guess an advantage of going to school in a small district is playing jr high football. I loved jr high football. It was fun, and competitive, to play against kids from Libby, Plains, Mission, Hot Springs, Eureka, Troy, etc.

By the way, we did not have to play with any of those dumb useless rules of Lil Griz football. I got to admit though, being a smaller player, trying to tackle a moose was quite an experience. That kind of experience either motivated a kid to get bigger, and do better, or give it up. Fortunately, the pride of the smaller school kids, few quit.

I have been away from Missoula for about 5 years now. What are the nearest schools/districts playing jr high football? Can a family, if able to do so, enroll their children in those schools, until high school?

 

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

I grew up in Laurel. Played flag in 4th grade. Played little guy tackle football in Billings in 5-6 grade. Then played middle school football vs all the other Eastern A schools and a few Billings schools (?). I know Missoula has little guy tackle football for like 5-6 grade. Really weird to not have middle school football.

But what about concussions?


Its a good thing you quit, it may have affected your decision making abilities later in life................you know like hanging around GRZFTBL etc.

I never had to worry about concussions because they went for my knees instead. Gonna have a titanium one here pretty soon.


I think GRZFTBL was supposed to be my get-a-way driver but he ended up in IHOP. Next time I'm picking a place away from food joints.

What happened at IHOP...........................