But Green Bay's beloved Packers haven't won the Super Bowl since 1997 and that was their first championship in 29 years. After last Saturday, maybe the tag of “Title Town” would be more befitting of Highwood.
Nov. 22, 2008, was a day that few will forget in the tiny Chouteau County burg that sits 25 miles east of Great Falls and boasts a land area of 4.48 square miles as well as a population of 189, according to the 2000 census.
Watch Nick Lockridge's Prep NotesHighwood lost to undefeated Geraldine in its regular-season finale and found itself down 30-28 at the start of the fourth quarter in the championship contest. But Mountaineers quarterback Ben Walker found Ben Baum for a 76-yard touchdown pass to give Highwood the lead for good. Baum added an exclamation point with a 63-yard TD gallop late in the game. He finished with 181 yards rushing and three touchdowns.
On the very same day in Bozeman, the Mountaineer volleyball team beat Saco-Hinsdale in four games to win the State C championship in a match that also began at 1 p.m. It was a measure of redemption for Highwood, which finished 24-2 after being swept by Circle in last year's state championship match.
But the seniors on the volleyball team have something more to prove. They began basketball practice Monday and already look to be a favorite to repeat their state championship of a year ago.
Trendsetting
The pundits like to call the National Football League a copy-cat league because one team's successful theories tend to be quickly replicated by other league foes.
Several NFL general managers watched the recent dominance of the New England Patriots and began to model their franchises after the three-time Super Bowl champions. After the Miami Dolphins found great success early this season running the “wildcat” offense that begins with a direct snap to their running back, several NFL teams have since adopted variations of the same offense.
But Arizona Cardinals head coach Ken Wisenhunt may have been taking a page from the playbook of State C 8-man champion Superior when he came up with his new wrinkle. At the end of the first half in a loss at home Sunday to the New York Giants, Wisenhunt's Cardinals attempted a free kick - a rarely-used play that Superior coach Dan Lucier employed with good results throughout the season in order to get the most out of record-setting place-kicker Yim SribenjaKul. No NFL team had scored points on a free kick since the Chicago Bears against the Green Bay Packers in 1968.
Trailing 17-12, Wisenhunt used his final timeouts to force the Giants to punt to Arizona with five seconds left in the first half. He then had returner Steve Breaston call for a fair catch at the Cardinals' 42-yard line. Rather than have quarterback Kurt Warner try a Hail Mary, he sent out kicker Neil Rackers to attempt a 68-yard, free-kick attempt that if successful would have given the Cardinals three points.
But alas, the Cards are no Superior Bobcats - they've won just one playoff game in franchise history while Superior won four playoff games in four weeks - and Rackers' kick never had a shot. It skidded low and left and traveled only about 25 yards in the air.
“The only thing that was difficult was that obviously it was a little too far,” Wisenhunt told The Arizona Republic. “I thought it was a good shot. Plus, this is something you don't see often.”
That is, unless you're the Superior Bobcats or one of the 12 opponents they beat en route to the school's first state football championship.
200 the hard way
The Philipsburg volleyball team helped head coach Bill Dirkes achieve his goal of 200 career victories at the school before he retired from coaching at the end of the season. But it didn't come easy.
Dirkes entered the District 9-C tournament with 198 wins under his belt and picked up No. 199 when the Prospectors swept a first-round match with Alberton on Nov. 7. But later that evening, Philipsburg dropped a five-game thriller to Granite County-rival Drummond. That dropped the Prospectors into the losers' bracket of the double-elimination tournament, meaning a loss in the next match and Dirkes would have been stuck one win away from the magic number.
The next day, Philipsburg picked up the all-important 200th victory by downing Victor in three games.
The Prospectors then swept Drummond, the team that put his goal in jeopardy, and finished the district tournament with 201 wins.
Dirkes' squad went 2-2 at the Western C divisional, reaching the undefeated match before finishing third.
The fiery Dirkes, known for his flashy Hawaiian shirts and gruff appearance, finished with 203 wins and will certainly be missed. Still, one wonders if his season had ended with 199 wins, would Dirkes have returned in 2009?
Oh brother
Though Miles City won the State A football championship with a 20-7 victory over Billings Central last Saturday at Daylis Stadium in Billings, head coaches on both sidelines had reason to smile. That's because no matter which team you were rooting for, the ending was like something from a fairy tale for Miles City coach Dan Stanton and his brother Jim, who coaches the Rams.
Last season, Miles City and Billings Central met in the final game of the regular season after Dan Stanton was relegated to part-time coaching as he recovered from surgery to remove a brain tumor. Central won 44-0 and eventually claimed the school's first state football title since 1968.
At the time it was thought that game against Billings Central may have been Dan's last as a head coach after his team finished 2-7.
“Dan's such a fighter,” Jim Stanton told the Billings Gazette. “He's always been the type of person that doesn't let anything keep him down. ... In a way, I'm not surprised.
“But to be doing what he's doing this soon after what he went through ... it's hard to believe.”
This season Dan returned full time to both teaching and coaching as the Cowboys quickly returned to form. They entered the state title tilt with just one loss - a 14-8 defeat at the hands of the Rams five weeks ago.
With the win, Miles City snapped Central's 23-game winning streak, but more importantly, the victory was a testament to Dan Stanton's top-notch coaching.
“They just came out and got after it,” Dan Stanton told the Gazette afterward. “We were able to contain them a little bit and get them out of their game, and that's what we needed to do. They really shut down the run hard on us, and we knew we had to make some big plays throwing the ball a little bit, and we did just enough to get the job done.”
But the story doesn't end there. All four Stanton brothers were coaching playoff games in Montana last weekend. In addition to 44-year old Jim and 41-year old Dan, Rob Stanton, 39, was on the sidelines in Helena on Friday night as an assistant coach when his Billings West squad fell to Helena Capital 35-14 in the State AA championship. Pete Stanton, 42, was also in Helena on Saturday as an assistant coach for Dickinson State when his team fell to Carroll College 35-18 in the first round of the NAIA playoffs.
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