Bennett reflects on Epperly's influence
Montana coaches have a long, rich history, whether it’s leading players in high school, college, or even some in the professional ranks. Some of those legends have been right here in the Flathead Valley. One of those legends in the coaching profession, Bill Epperly, was lost a few weeks ago. On my show, I spoke to many people who were coached by the man in his many years at Flathead High. I asked Grady Bennett, who is now a head coach himself, about the impact Coach Epperly had on him.
Nach on Sports: What are your favorite moments or stories of Coach Bill Epperly?
Grady Bennett: There’s so many, it’s hard to boil it down to a couple.
He was a back slapper. I think one of the things I remember is, when I would see him, he always had the huge smile and that greeting and you know you were going to get whacked, and it was in a loving way, but he would come up and just whack you on the back. I swear so many of his athletes and the kids he cared about and loved, they all had these big ol’ welts on their shoulders and back just cause he would greet you like that. It was just awesome!
I think the story I always tell, I was one of those kids that really tried hard and prided myself in showing up and working hard. In three or four years I was in the program playing for Coach Epperly, I don’t think he ever had to get after me or get mad at me. At the state tournament in the semifinal game, biggest game of our careers and our lives so far, between No. 1 and No. 2, Big Sky High and Flathead High. I get a technical foul for dunking during warm-ups. I mean, I’m a team captain, I’m our all-state guard and a leader. I get, “Oh my goodness,” and Coach Epperly didn’t know what to do, he was so mad at me, so disappointed. It was just so awkward because of all the years we’d spent together, here we are in our biggest moment. He was so mad. When I spoke at his induction, I said, “Coach, I know I apologized already but let me apologize one more time, I’m sorry.”
NoS: If a student came to you and asked you to describe Bill Epperly what would you say?
GB: I think leadership is influence. I have talked about how he was a great mentor and a great inspiration to me and one of the reasons I went to college to go into business, part of the reason I was going to study business is because of Bill Epperly and Dan Hodge, two of my head coaches in high school, were business teachers. I loved business classes because I loved taking those guys’ classes. They are just awesome teachers as well. After three years of studying business, I realized how much I wanted to coach and be like those guys.
NoS: How were the spring practices and camps for you and your team?
GB: You know, really good. The camp stretch is always a long stretch, five straight weeks of getting started in late May with our incoming freshman, then we just roll through we have a couple of our varsity camps and then we finish with our little guys. It’s definitely a long stretch. It starts to get long and hot when everybody else is headed off to summer and you’re still doing those things. It was a good stretch. The main thing is coming out of it healthy. I mean every year it seems like in camp you have to do it, it’s good and it’s positive but you also end up with a couple bummer injuries. Fortunately, we did not have any of those. We had some guys banged before camp that couldn’t go, but we didn’t sustain anything too serious and that’s always good. You cross fingers and hope on that. We had great competition in Spokane which is always good for us and feel like we just got a lot out of that. Now it’s just coming down and I looked at the calendar and it goes so fast, you look at your workouts and really there’s only about three weeks left of good solid workouts and it’s going to be time to kick things off.
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Anthony Nachreiner is the host of The Nach on Sports Show, Northwest Montana’s only sports talk show, which airs every weekday from 3-5 p.m. on 600 AM KGEZ and 96.5 FM.
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