History

Treasure State Classic is Blueprint for Grid Success

*From an article published in The Montana Standard on June 5th, 1998

By Bruce Sayler
Of The Montana Standard

     The value of the Treasure State Classic Class C All-Star Football Game rests not just in its being, its experience and its memories. It is becoming a prime commodity in its growth and stability, too.
     The game, which showcases the senior standouts from Montana high school eight-man football programs of the previous fall, will be played for the 15th straight year Saturday night.
     And, Montana Tech is serving as the game's host site for the ninth year in a row. This year's version kickoffs at 7 p.m. Saturday night at Alumni Coliseum.
     The game has not only survived for 15 years, but has become a blueprint for Class C programs. It has spawned a clinic and a website. Inquiries have been fielded from all over the country, and from out of it, too. Five other states have started Eight-Man All-Star Games patterned after Montana's. The Montana game's board of directors put on an eight-man football clinic recently in Missoula and 110 coaches from six states showed up for it.
     Bob Cleverley, Ennis' longtime head football coach and the game's director, said the idea for the game was the brainchild of former Victor head coach Steve Curtiss and former Alberton head coach Joe Hammond.
     "They wanted to start an eight-man football coaching clinic," Cleverley said. "And, they called me up and wanted me to be involved because there was no eight-man clinic anywhere at the time. As a coach, you had to go to an 11-man football clinic, then try to take what you learned back home and apply it to eight-man football. It didn't always work.
     "While we were at the clinic, Steve Curtiss came to me and said he wanted to get an eight-man all-star game going, too." I said, 'yeah, let's do it.' He (Curtiss) was very instrumental in getting it going. He got Pepsi Cola and Universal Athletics to underwrite it. And, he and I sat down and wrote out some rules for it."
     Pepsi and Universal Athletic Services remain prime sponsors for the game. "That's how we chose our colors - red and blue," Cleverley said. "They're Pepsi's colors."
     The first five years, the game alternated between Missoula and Bozeman. Then, Cleverley said, Billings presented a bid for the game. After the game was played the one time in Billings, a Butte delegation that included Pat Kearney, associated with the Butte-Silver Bow Chamber of Commerce sports committee, Montana Tech head football coach Bob Green and members of the Montana Tech Booster Club attended the Class C game's board of directors meeting. They gave a presentation for bringing the game to Butte.
     "It found a home," Cleverley said. "It's the best we've ever done as for stability. This is a tremendous city to have a football All-Star Game in because Butte is one of the best football cities in the state." The clinic became a yearly endeavor and the eight-man committee recently set up a website on the internet for computer access to clinic dates, game dates, coaching tips and information, etc. It is maintained and updated by Rick Miller of Power, who, incidentally, is the head football coach at Power and is on the coaching staff for Saturday's game.
     "Rick is our computer whiz," Cleverley said as Miller came to fetch him so that they could go to the Montana Tech computer lab and engage in an internet chat room session with some coaches from Colorado and California.
     The computer communications has allowed for the exchange of information about the style of football that was most difficult to find prior to the age of technology. The eight-man programs are from mostly rural communities, and problems with and characteristics of the game had always been quite foreign to the college and bigger high school programs playing 11-man football. Plenty of solid eight-man experts, such as Cleverley and others, in at least the Montana coaching ranks, have existed, but access to their knowledge had not always been readily available.
     And the game has persevered to such that two coaches in the game, Jon Wrzesinki of Harlowton and Shawn Hollowell of Hysham, played in the game themselves before going on to college and becoming coaches. Wrzesinski had been an all-star from Stanford and Hollowell from Hysham. Last year, former Philipsburg standout Mike Cutler became the first former all-star player to return to the game as a coach. He coaches Denton.
     The players are chosen by a ballot of the state's Class C coaches. Each coach is asked to pick the top seniors in his division. Then, the teams are named, alternating divisions assigned to squads each year.

Updated: Friday, June 5, 1998