In June, Pat Ogrin will be inducted into the Montana Football Hall of Fame in Billings.

The 1976 Butte High graduate calls that a very big honor. He also called it shocking.

Those of us who followed Ogrin’s career, though, know it is a very well-deserved honor for Ogrin, a prep football All-American in 1975.

That year, Ogrin helped lead coach Dan Peters’ Bulldogs to an 8-2 record and a trip to the Class AA State championship game in 1975. Ogrin, who was one of six children born to Don and Raelene Ogrin, also played basketball and competed in track for the Bulldogs.

Following his career at the Bulldogs, the highly-recruited Pat Ogrin took his talents to the University of Wyoming. With the Cowboys, he played in the Fiesta Bowl as a freshman. He started every game as a sophomore and junior, and was picked as a preseason likely Top Defensive Player in the Western Athletic Conference.

However, Ogrin suffered a serious knee injury while working out for an NFL scout during that senior season. He ended up with eight knee surgeries, several of them stemming from that injury.

That was back in the day before they replaced ACLs in knees, too.

Ogrin was viewed as a potential third- or fourth-round draft pick in the NFL before the injury. Instead, he signed as an undrafted free agent with the Washington Redskins. He spent the 1980 season on the injured reserve. In 1981 and 1982, he was released by the Redskins, only to return later in the season.

He was part of the Redskins team that beat Miami 27-17 in Super Bowl XVII in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

Ogrin went on to play in the USFL for the Denver Gold. Later, he closed his football career with a year with the Pittsburgh Gladiators in the Arena Football League.

Today, the 67-year-old Ogrin works as a pharmacist in Louisiana, where he lives with his wife Helen.

Listen in to this podcast as Pat talks about growing up in Cutbank and Butte and playing for the Bulldogs. Listen as he describes why then Butte High defensive line coach Jon McElroy enhanced his love for football.

Listen in as he talks about going undrafted after that knee injury and playing for the Redskins. Listen as he talks about getting cut from the team and rejoining it multiple times.

Listen in to hear how he remembers signing an autograph (below) for me back in 1983.

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