Past Kalispell champions relive glory days, wish Glacier luck

1. Click here for reprints of 1958 championship photos!

The Glacier High School football team has a chance to make memories that will last a lifetime when it takes the field in Bozeman Friday in the Class AA state championship game.

A Kalispell high school hasn’t won a state title since 1970 when Flathead clinched the championship with a 9-0-1 record. There was no playoff system that year, so the last time Kalispell won a title game was in 1959 when Flathead defeated Butte 39-0 on a frosty day in Butte’s Naranche Stadium.

Jerry Lyford, a center and linebacker on that 1959 Flathead team, still has vivid memories of the game 54 years later.

“There was a blizzard moving in at the time that game was scheduled,” Lyford said. “We tried to get Butte to postpone the game for a week because we knew we were going to be in a blizzard and Butte said play or forfeit. Jim Sweeney, the coach, got us all together and said, ‘It’s up to you guys,’ and of course the team all wanted to play the game. We left at 5 in the morning in an old school bus, it was 40 (degrees) below zero. Eventually when we played the game in Butte it warmed up to 15 above. That was the days before any warm protective things, so we all came dressed in our hunting clothes.

“I’d say we were nervous,” Lyford added. “There’s no question about that, but we were just determined. When Butte threw that thing at us that we were either going to play or forfeit, there wasn’t any question that we weren’t going to play. I think that’s one of the things that fortified the team and inspired them. We didn’t really even think about the weather.”

Flathead’s swarming defense held Butte to 61 rushing yards and 46 passing yards while the Braves had no problem racking up points against the physically bigger Butte defense.

“We played a different kind of ball,” Lyford said. “We played more on deception than on physical size. I guess if you ask a guy like (Glacier coach) Grady Bennett, some of the things that the team in ‘59 did, nobody else has ever duplicated that kind of deception, and that’s how we made up for the size and that’s how we were able to win the way we did.”

Lyford said he still keeps in touch with some of his teammates from that season and the championship game is on the tip of everyone’s tongue at every class reunion.

“We still play the tapes from the game just for the fun of it,” he said.

Lyford still lives in Kalispell and pays close attention to the city’s high school football teams. While today’s Glacier team is much bigger and stronger than his 1959 team, Lyford sees some similarities between the two squads.

“I think they’re a very determined group,” he said of Glacier. “Grady does such a great job with those kids. Jim Sweeney had the ability to make you want to do it, make you enjoy it. He was tough and he was hard, but he was also a great guy. I see that with Grady and his kids. I think Grady tries to do right by the kids and that’s a very important thing for a coach.”

Flathead also won the state title in 1958 when it finished with a 9-0-1 record. The Braves ended the regular season in a three-way tie with Butte and Helena and a coin flip was used to determine playoff matchups, according to Gordy Schlabs, who was a senior tight end for Flathead in 1958.

Flathead received home-field advantage but had to beat Butte before it could play Helena in the title game, which the Braves won 39-13. Schlabs scored a touchdown in that game and can still rattle off his team’s starting lineup like the game happened yesterday.

“Jim Meacham and Kip Croskrey were the two backs,” Schlabs said. “We had Bob Leslie at center. We had a few juniors in there and of course the two that stand out for the next year were Mike Huggins and Ken Christison. Cliff Haven played tackle, Larry Jones, who lives over in Havre, was a guard. Doug James was the other guard.

“Our class has had several reunions and of course that was always brought up. The championship kind of knitted us together as a class. It was the highlight of our senior year.”

Schlabs said snow had turned the turf at what is now Legends Stadium into a mucky mess, so the Braves practiced at Buffalo Hill Golf Course so they wouldn’t tear up the field before the big game.

Flathead led 19-0 before Helena finally scored late in the second quarter. Both teams added touchdowns in the third quarter before the Braves pulled away with two scores in the fourth.

Schlabs went on to play football at Montana State and has spent the years since as a coach and referee. He’s still a football official on the Kalispell pool and said he’s been impressed with Glacier’s growth as the season has worn on.

“I think they’ve matured and really have come a long ways from the first few games that they had,” Schlabs said. “They have a group of kids that are having fun and doing their thing. I think that’s one thing that they have improved and I look for them to give Bozeman all that they can handle.

“I’m just glad to see Kalispell back in the championship game. As far as I’m concerned it was one of the highlights of my career.”

Flathead has played in two state championship games since 1959. The Braves lost at home 25-0 to Great Falls C.M. Russell in 1980 and lost 35-6 to Helena Capital in 2000. Flathead has won six state titles. The first was in 1939, then it won back-to-back titles in 1950-51 and 1958-59. Its most recent title was won in 1970.

Glacier, which opened in 2007, had never reached the state championship game prior to this season.