The man in his 70s made his way up the stairs to the bottom of the bleachers at Bulldog Memorial Stadium.

He walked gently, following the slow-moving line of people making their way to take a seat in the stands to watch the Class AA and Class B State track meets. The man paused momentarily to pay attention to the finish of a race.

That is when the Butte High freshman cross country runner stepped in. The boy, who doesn’t look old enough to be a freshman, told the man to move along.

“Sir,” the boy said. “You can’t stand there.”

The man politely acknowledged the boy, whose volunteer job included keeping the bottom of the stands clear so seated people could see, and he went on his way.

My brother, who coaches the boy in cross country, said, “Do you know who you just yelled at?”

The boy had no idea.

“That,” my brother said, “is Jim Street. He won 15 State wrestling titles as a coach at Butte High.”

The boy still had no idea. Then his partner, also a freshman, said, “Oh, I think I saw a picture of him once.”

You cannot fault the boys for not knowing Jim Street. They weren’t even born yet the last time he won a State title with the Bulldogs.

The fault lies with the adults. We let these boys down. They should know Jim Street.

Coach Street, after all, is quite possibly the greatest high school coach Montana has ever seen. In any sport.

His record certainly puts him in the conversation to be the “GOAT.”

His Bulldogs won 13 straight Class AA State titles from 1980 through 1992. Butte High was featured on the old ESPN show “Scholastic Sports America” after the Bulldogs won every State title in the 1980s.

Street was also the defensive coordinator for the 1977 Butte High football team. That team was selected as the best Butte High team of the 20th Century, and the defense is the No. 1 reason why. 

Street’s defense gave up just three touchdowns and 20 points on the entire season.

The thought of any person from Butte, young or old, not knowing Jim Street during the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s or even the 2000s would be impossible to believe. You did not have to wrestle to know the man who was inducted into the Butte Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

Several years back, Butte High added Street’s name to the Mining City Duals, the tournament Street created so many years ago.

In addition to being in charge of the wrestling team, Street was in charge of his hallway at Butte High School. He had a nose and an eye to catch students doing anything wrong.

He could spot a pinch of snuff in a cheek or a can of chew in a pocket before Smokey Bear could spot a fire.

He was the no-nonsense, hard-nosed coach who perfectly symbolized our hard-working hometown. He probably should have been the mayor.

Even in his 70s, Coach Street is a fixture at Butte High wrestling matches and football games. To people in my generation, Coach Street is still larger than life. He always will be.

He should be to the current and future generations of students who walk the hallways of Butte High, too.

That is why sports history classes should be taught in high school. We teach kids Butte history, where they learn about the Cabby Patch neighborhood, tell them ghost stories and take them to the Dumas Brothel.

We should teach them about Milt Popovich, Sam Jankovich, Sonny Lubick, Jon McElroy, Pat Foley and Mickey Tuttle. We should teach them about Liza Merrifield, Heidi Hemmert and Lexie Nelson.

They should know that Naranche is so much more than a football stadium. The name is for the great Eso Naranche, a 1938 Butte High graduate who was killed by a sniper in World War II.

We should teach this to the students at Butte High and Butte Central because the kids should know about the Ueland brothers, Steve Schulte, Swede Kennison, Meg Haran, Mike McLeod, Tom Kenney, Kellie Johnson and Brian Morris.

John Thatcher, another player and coach who should be known by students of both high schools in town, calls Butte the “Greatest Sports Town in America.”

There is something to that. A lot of it is that we celebrate our history so well.

We have the Silver B’s, an organization that honors past Butte High football letter winners. We have the Butte Sports Hall of Fame.

Like the Silver B’s, the Butte Sports Hall of Fame idea has been tried in other places, but it hardly ever works. That is because it is being tried in places that are not Butte.

In Butte, we appreciate our history.

Scott Paffhausen, the man currently in charge of the Silver B’s, has done a great job preserving history at Butte High. He has turned the hallways around the gym into a sports museum.

He has team photos from every team in school history. He has old letter sweaters on display, as well as Naranche’s Purple Heart.

It is time to extend that history into the classroom.

Ideally, Pat Kearney would be in charge of the curriculum of both schools. Unfortunately, the great Pat Kearney, another name every student should know, passed away in 2014.

So, we should put Paffhausen in charge, and bring in guest lecturers every week. Former coaches and media members could educate these students.

I would love to give some lectures.

Of course, I would have to expand my talks to include national sports. I learned about this glaring need Saturday at 3 Legends Stadium.

That is when Rye Doherty and Quinn Cox, two members of the defending Class A State champion Butte Miners baseball team, tried to convince me that LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time.

Clearly, anyone who would make that claim never watched Michael Jordon play. Or Larry Bird. Or Bill Russell. Or Wilt Chamberlain.

While James is clearly one of the all-time greats, calling him the “GOAT,” is nothing short of sports ignorance.

I tried to explain to the boys that James isn’t even the greatest Laker of all time. In that pecking order, he takes a back seat to Wilt, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant and probably Shaquille O’Neal.

Doherty, who just finished his senior year at BC, thought I was an idiot, and Cox, a Butte High junior, acted as if I committed an act of sacrilege. 

That is because these boys have not done their homework. If we were talking about the biggest flopper of all time, then LeBron has a case.

If we are talking about the biggest crybaby off all time, they might also have a strong argument.

When you are talking about the greatest basketball player of all time, though, these boys were way off.

They definitely need some educating. They need a sports history class, and they should have gotten it as freshmen in high school.

It might be too late for Rye and Quinn, but we should start teaching sports history to the younger generations, and we should start doing it right now.

Otherwise, when they see a real GOAT, they just might tell him to move along.

— Bill Foley, who fight Mike Tyson before he would tell Coach Street to move along, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.