That would be Bob Beers, a Griz All-American linebacker in 1967 who has gone on to coach at the college and professional levels and now works as a personnel scout for the Detroit Lions.
If he has his way, Beers will get one more shot at coaching before he retires to live - probably in Butte - with his wife, Janelle, currently a high school administrator in Dayton, Ore.
Beers said recently he owes whatever success he’s had to his time at UM, and to the contacts he made either there or as a result of being there.
Beers was one of the first recruits signed by Jack Swarthout when he took over an ailing Grizzly football program in 1967 as both head coach and athletic director.
And while Beers became close to, and very much, admired Swarthout, it was his defensive coach Jack Elway that made the biggest impression on the transfer from Columbia Basin Junior College in Washington.
Elway - father of National Football League great John Elway - hired Beers as his offensive coordinator with the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League, now called NFL Europa.
Some time later Beers was the head coach at Western Montana College in Dillon before spending another short stint with the Amsterdam Admirals in Europe. Elway had since gone to work for the Denver Broncos and called Beers with another offer, this time to work as a scout.
“I owe this all to Jack Elway and the University of Montana, and some day I’ll get even,” Beers joked.
Beers’ last coaching stint was a one-year “project” with the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League. Beers downplayed his release after that one year, saying it was more of a mutual decision.
John Elway hired him in 2003 to work for him and equal partners Pat Bowlen, also owner of the Broncos, and Stan Kroenke, also owner of the NBA Denver Nuggets.
“The arena game’s a whole different game,” Beers explained. “It’s more basketball on a football field. There’s no real strategy. It’s kinda like playground football. It’s fun to watch and it’s entertaining for the fans.”
Beers found it challenging to coach a game he had never played or coached in, but explained that coaching wasn’t the main reason he was hired in the first place.
“The biggest thing they wanted was somebody to put the project together,” Beers said. “I was with Jack (Elway) when we put the World League together back in 1990.
“We had nothing (in Colorado),” Beers went on. “We had no facilities. We had no weight room. We had no players. We had no plan.
“It was just an idea to put it together,” Beer said. “Pat Bowlen was kind enough to loan me to the arena team. They had no real football people … that had ever done this before.”
Beers said he would have preferred to be general manager and personnel director rather than coaching the Crush.
But in a year’s time they built a practice facility along with weight and training rooms and hired all of the necessary personnel. They also had to secure housing for the players.
So when the Crush went 3-14 that first year and Beers was removed as head coach he said it was more of a relief than a disappointment. He did not return to his scouting job with the Broncos, instead moving on to work for the Lions.
Beers said scouting basically is evaluating talent, adding that it’s a lot like what college coaches do in the recruiting process.
“You find the measurables that a player has,” Beers noted, “the height, weight, the speed. And then you try to evaluate the intangibles - the things that make ‘em tick and make ‘em good. That’s the toughest part of the whole thing.”
Beers said Broncos scouts always knew what head coach Mike Shanahan wanted in his players. But Detroit has been playing musical coaches and Beers said Lions scouts are just starting to figure out what head coach Rod Marinelli and his staff want.
When Swarthout took over as UM’s head coach he hired assistants from the Washington junior college ranks - Jack Elway, Wally Brown, Bill Betcher and Pinky Erickson. Elway had played for Swarthout when he was in high school.
It created a pipeline to some ready recruits - the first recruiting class included 24 JC players - and rapid success.
Swarthout’s first team posted a 7-3 record, and in 1969 and 1970 the Grizzlies had undefeated regular seasons and played North Dakota State in the Camellia Bowl for the Division Two national championship.
The thing Beers hated most seeing the on-campus Dornblaser Stadium torn down after his first season at UM.
“It was such a neat place to play,” Beers said about the wooden facility that butted up against what is now called Schreiber Gym. The stadium sat where the Mansfield Library is today.
Asked about Jack Elway, Beers said, “They broke the mold on that guy.
“He was a great football mind,” Beers said. “Better than that he was a real people person.”
Beers credited Elway with being heavily involved in developing the quick passing game that people refer to now as the West Coast Offense.
Elway had left UM in 1972 to work with former Montana State coach Jim Sweeney at Washington State. After Sweeney’s staff was let go by the Cougars Elway wound up at Cal State-Northridge, and was looking for a place for his talented son to play high school ball.
The elder Elway became good friends with the coach son John played for in Granada Hills and learned more about the quick passing game from him.
John Elway ended up playing quarterback for Stanford and his father became head coach at San Jose State in 1978, taking the developing offense with him.
While at SJS Jack Elway developed it further, going to three receivers and empty backfields.
Beers said the quick game evolved into a downfield passing game that required the quarterback to read defenses on the run. Elway also had spent time with other passing aficionados like Mouse Davis and Don Coryell.
“He had his own style of offense now,” Beers recalled about Jack Elway, “that really (tied) everything in.”
Detroit’s current offensive coordinator is Mike Martz, former head coach of the St. Louis Rams. Beers said Martz’s offense includes a lot of the elements developed by Jack Elway.
Beers took that same offense to Dillon when he coached Western and had tremendous success with it there.
Jack Elway - known fondly as Cactus Jack - was somewhat of an enigma. His players both feared and loved him.
“He always told it like it was,” Beers said admiringly of the coach that chewed his backside more than once. “Sometimes it wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
Beers described Elway as a great coach who knew how to relate to people.
“It was like getting a PhD in football when I worked for him because we’d sit around and talk all night (about football),” Beers recalled.
“He said the most important thing about a football team was the chemistry and the relationships that are developed between the players and the coaches, and once you get that … you’re gonna have a good football team.”
While Elway was Cactus Jack, Beers said Swarthout was Gentleman Jack, the one who tied everything together and kept the ship running.
“Swarthout was … the leader, the general, the strategist,” Beers said. “He was very, very smart. He had some great assistant coaches, guys that knew how to relate to the athletes. It was a good relationship in those days.”
Beers said playing at Montana was like being part of a family. He lived on campus while he played and has fond memories of relating to the other students that were there at the time. Even back then the Grizzlies had strong fan support on the road.
“The thing you got out of Montana football was the great experience and the adrenaline rush playing in front of the people of Missoula,” Beers said. “You owe them (the university) a lot for the education you got. That was a great school.”
Beers makes it a point to have UM on his list no matter whom he scouts for, noting that he’s been to Missoula each year for the past 13.
One of the fellow scouts Beers runs into on the road is his son, Bobby, now working for the Broncos. Young Beers played high school football at Missoula Hellgate college football in Dillon where he has been inducted into the school’s hall of fame. He and his family now make their home in Billings.
Father Bob’s daughter Cari, he and Janelle’s oldest child, is married and teaching school in Eureka. Youngest daughter Joey, 16, was born in Missoula and will be attending UM when she graduates from high school in Oregon.
Beers - now 59 - plans to do a lot of fishing once he retires and returns to Montana. But he said the first thing to do is “survive the NFL” for another two or three years. Again, if the right opportunity came along to coach a bit more, he might consider it.
Meanwhile Beers has seen a lot of changes in the NFL.
“The biggest change is the amount of money … that is being generated,” Beers said. “The pressure on the players is tremendous. They have to be right in everything they do.
“And then the money … and the pressure to win is so great (coaching) staffs don’t stay long,” Beers went on. “The turnover rate … is just tremendous.”
Beers also said the player free agency market has had a huge impact on the pro game, although he said he expects player movement to slow down some in the future.
“It’s such a big business now,” Beers said. “It used to be coaching and strategies. Now it’s money and personnel.”
Beers also has seen a trickle-down effect on college football.
“Colleges are so quick to change (coaches) now,” Beers said. “If you can’t solve it with this one let’s get a new coaching staff in. And that’s a result of what’s happening at the NFL level.”
Beers recalled once hearing the head of the NCAA say that colleges sports weren’t in the entertainment business, they were in the education business.
“That’s not all true,” Beers said. “It’s both. Entertainment brings in alumni dollars, and if you put a good product out there … usually the alumni donations go up. It’s become that way on every campus in America.
“Is that good?” Beers added. “I don’t know.”
Click here to listen to the complete interview with Bob Beers.
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