Then he attended a couple Montana Grizzly spring football practices.
“You know what,” the Butte native said Wednesday, after the University of Montana announced his hiring as the Grizzlies' running backs coach. “I just thought 65 wasn't old enough. I think I can go a couple more years.”
So when Lubick was dismissed after last season, Delaney didn't plan on coaching when he came back to Montana.
“I was actually up babysitting my grandkids (in Butte),” said Delaney. “I took in a couple practices and kind of took in everything, and Bobby (Hauck, the head coach) wasn't sure what he was going to do or anything. But I said, ‘Heck, if that kind of opportunity presented itself here, I'd like to give it a shot.' ”
“Mick has been a friend and colleague for many years,” Hauck said in a press release. “He is an outstanding addition to our staff. To bring someone on board with his experience is a real plus for us. Certainly his ties to the state of Montana run strong and deep.”
It is basically a return home for Delaney, who'll turn 66 in December.
“Kind of like going around in a biiiiig circle,” he said. “I was here 40 years ago, with Jack Swarthout and Jack Elway. Š The Christian brothers (at Butte Central) let me go at the end of spring quarter so I could come to spring ball here in 1968.”
Delaney played college football at UM-Western, where he graduated in 1964. He spent the next four years at his high school alma mater, Butte Central, where he was a football assistant and head wrestling coach.
He spent the 1968 season at UM and then became football and wrestling coach at Great Falls High School 1969-76. He then became an assistant coach at Montana State in Bozeman under Lubick.
Delaney coached five first-team all-conference running backs at CSU, including Cecil Sapp (2000), now with the Denver Broncos. Before joining CSU's staff in 1993 he was head coach at UM-Western in 1991-92, and athletic director at Montana Tech from 1983-85.
He and his wife Cheri have three children and nine grandchildren - three each in Butte, Dillon and Bozeman. He's already begun his duties at Montana, where among other things he'll be trying to find a replacement for Lex Hilliard, a player Delaney recruited while at CSU.
“There are a number of candidates, but we're going to miss Lex Hilliard that's for sure,” said Delaney. “I've been able to watch quite a few cut-ups (film). Lex had quite a career.”
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