In November of 1967, John Dawson gave perhaps the greatest quote to a sportswriter that I have ever read.

“I am the happiest kid in the whole world,” Dawson was quoted of saying in the Nov. 12 edition of The Montana Standard.

Dawson had reason to be happy when he talked to Montana Standard sportswriter Jack Keneally on that Veterans Day in Great Falls. The senior played quarterback and safety as the Butte High Bulldogs beat Great Falls High 14-0 in Great Falls to win the Class AA football state championship.

Looking back on that newspaper story from more than 57 years ago, it is hard not to smile at that Dawson quote. It seems to say so much about the child-like honesty of Dawson. It also serves as a reminder that the high school sports heroes of the past and present are, in fact, just kids.

Too often, that gets lost in the yelling and screaming at high school games.

That quote also kind of makes me sad. I would have really loved to talk to John Dawson, even though I never really knew anything about him until the play of Hudson Luedtke sent me searching.

Unfortunately, I will never get the chance to meet him. Dawson died of a heart attack on Dec. 14, 1990. He passed away just five days shy of his 41st birthday.

He was survived by his parents, Edwin and Eleanor Dawson, his brothers, Edwin and Mark, and his sister, Carol.

Dawson’s 170-word obituary simply stated that he played football and basketball at Butte High. It mentioned that he was a Silver B.

In the short obituary, which came back in the day when obits of 200 words or less were published for free, I learned that Dawson worked for the Anaconda Co. He also worked for Paffhausen Construction, Dwyer Construction and Lombardi Construction.

In 1986, Dawson purchased and began operating Take Two Video in Littleton, Colorado.

I heard Dawson mentioned as Butte High’s quarterback in 1967 before, but that was about it. He wasn’t talked about like we talk about Bulldog state championship quarterbacks like Barry Sullivan, Don Douglas, Josh Paffhausen and Dallas Cook. That is because the current Bulldogs probably pass more in one month than they did in the entire 1967 season.

In the state title game, Dawson threw the ball nine times, completing five for 118 yards.

Plus, Dawson was overshadowed by teammates like Glen Welch, Mick Dennehy, Jim Becker, Monte Sever and Greg Salo, just to name a few.

Back then, Butte High was known more for defense than the passing game. The 1967 Bulldogs surrendered just 81 points in 10 games.

Dawson, a two-year starter at quarterback for coach Bill Kambich, threw a pair of touchdown passes against Butte Central in 1967. He was a second-team All-State player, but that wasn’t good enough to get your mugshot in the paper back in those days.

In basketball, Dawson’s Bulldogs never posted a winning record. They went 14-15 in 1967 and 12-13 in 1968.

Dawson was only 5 feet, 6 inches, and he shared a backcourt with the 5-8 Welch, according to Keneally’s story previewing the 1967-68 basketball season.

“Welch and Dawson are both quicker than cats,” Keneally wrote. “What they lack in height is more than made up in speed.”

Dawson could also apparently put the ball in the hoop, though the paper never really played up his scoring prowess. I could find no mention of 1,000 points.

So, my guess is that when Dawson passed away, he had no idea that he scored a total of 1,022 points for Butte High’s boys’ basketball team from 1966 through 1968. If he did know that point total, however, he almost certainly did not know he was the only Bulldog boy to surpass the 1,000-point mark.

It wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s that the late Pat Kearney went through the laborious task of compiling the basketball and football records for Butte High and Butte Central. Pat did that by spending countless hours in the library or Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, painstakingly going through the microfilm to read the game story for every game played by the Bulldogs and Maroons.

He did it so that sportswriters and sportscasters can shine an even brighter spotlight on current and future athletes.

For the last month, we have been talking about Dawson’s 1,022 points because of the work of Kearney and the play of Hudson Luedtke. On Friday, the Butte High junior joined Dawson as the only two members of the Butte High boys’ 1,000-point club.

Luedtke has 1,003 points heading into this week’s games at home against Helena High and at Helena Capital.

So, by this time next week, Luedtke will likely have passed Dawson for the top spot in Butte High boys’ history.

It is an impressive feat for Luedtke to break such a record just halfway through his junior year. By this time next year, he could be bringing up names like Dougie Peoples and Lexie Nelson as he continues to add to his career points total.

Nelson scored 1,696 points from 2007 through 2010 for the Butte High girls’ team. That is the most points scored by a boy or girl in Mining City high school history. Peoples closed his career with 1,683 points for Butte Central in 2023.

There is an old saying that records are made to be broken.

Records, though, are so much more meaningful than that. Not only are they made to recognize modern-day greatness, they help us remember the stars from the past.

That it took a special talent like Luedtke to invoke Dawson’s name says so much about the player Dawson was for the Bulldogs.

Luedtke will go down as the greatest scorer in the history of the Butte High boys’ basketball program. He might even surpass Peoples and Nelson as the greatest scorer Butte ever saw.

But there is so much more to Luedtke’s game than scoring. He plays great defense, and he entered last weekend averaging 5.1 assists per game on the season.

He is a true team leader in every facet of the game.

Last year, Luedtke led the Bulldog to the third-place game of the Class AA State tournament in Missoula. After the Bulldogs fell to Billings West in that game, Luedtke promised me that the Bulldogs will be back at State in 2025, this time to win it all.

I looked into his eyes, and I knew he was telling me the truth.

As a young boy, Luedtke set his goal to play in the NBA. But he is also highly recruited in football, a sport in which he is already a three-time All-State player.

If he chooses the football path, the sky is the limit. It seems pretty high for hoops, too.

Basketball, after all, is in Luedtke’s blood. His grandpa, Mickey Tuttle, was a leader on Butte High’s last state championship basketball team in 1984. His mother, Kristen Chambers, was a standout for the Bulldogs before taking her talents to Montana Western.

His father, Matt, is the head coach of the Bulldogs. He won the Gatorade Player of the Year award while playing basketball for Ronan in 2000.

This record, though, is all about Hudson. He isn’t going to break it with his genes. He’s going to do it through hours and hours of work in the gym.

While we were hitting our snooze buttons, Luedtke was in the gym shooting. And shooting. And shooting.

He has the drive for greatness, and that is now paying off in the form of career milestones midway through his junior year.

That drive is also introducing us to John Dawson. Before the season started, we knew that Dawson scored 1,022 points in a Butte High uniform.

Thanks to Hudson Luedtke, we also know that John Dawson was once the happiest kid in the whole world.

 — Bill Foley, who blames his lack of athletic ability on his genes, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.