The historic preservation people sould have fought to save that wall. Had they known it was there, maybe they would have.

The wall should have somehow been moved to the Smithsonian.

A mural painted on the wall by the late, great Jack Ferriter, however, had three major problems: Location, location, location.

Ferriter painted the mural, titled, “Fly Kill,” on the outside wall of the shower in the basement of the Butte Elks Lodge. The painting featured Dan Sullivan hitting a handball into a very sensitive location of his opponent, Jerry Lyons.

A “fly kill” usually means hitting the ball, and killing it, before it bounces. Not in this case.

The caricature mural was first painted in 1982, painted over and then repainted. It depicted a pair Butte handball icons in Sullivan and Lyons. They were two of the best players in the Mining City in their day, and that was saying something back then.

Winning a city title then was probably tougher than winning a state title today. That was back when Butte was the Mecca of handball.

Sullivan stopped Lyons’ bid for three straight city titles with a 21-16, 12-21, 21-6 win in the championship match of the city tournament at the Elks on Sunday, April 8, 1973.

A year later, Sullivan won it again, beating a young Butch Starin 21-11, 21-11 in the championship match. In 1975, Butch won the first of his several city crowns. Lyons had won it three out of four years before his run was halted by Sullivan.

The romantic in me would like to think that Ferriter’s mural came from an actual incident, but I do not know that to be true. We can say for sure, however, that John Badovinac’s character was true to life. The painting showed a very small Bado with a sign asking the score.

Bado has never been too shy to ask the score.

If there is a better painting of three Butte characters out there, I have not seen it.

Sadly, we lost one of those characters last week with the passing of Sullivan at the age of 86.

The 6-foot-6 Sullivan was larger than life in so many ways — so much so that one nickname would not suffice.

To so many, Sullivan was known as “Dusty Dan,” and that seemed to fit as good as any nickname ever handed out. When you hear “Dusty Dan,” it is impossible to not smile.

He could entertain us with his quick wit or a song.  Before we had karaoke, we had “Dusty Dan.” He could sing “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” better than Tony Bennett. In fact, he was such a good signer, that he had an opportunity to pursue that as a career in the 1960s.

However, Dan said he did not like the lifestyle of the average entertainer.

So, he saved his singing for us. If you stopped by one of the bars at the Elks or at the Deluxe Bar, you just might hear Dan belting out a tune. Later in life, he would perform at the Belmont Senior Center or retirement and nursing homes.

During the COVID lock down, Sullivan said he learned 90 songs so he could keep his performances fresh, and he always left the crowd begging for more.

One night many years ago, Sullivan played a baseball game against Charlie Pride’s team in East Helena. After the game, the two sang together in a bar.

“He was a Western singer,” Sullivan said of Pride when he appeared on the ButteCast in February of 2023. “I’m more of the (Frank) Sinatra, Tony Bennett guy.”

He also had an opportunity to possibly try out for the NBA, back before the salaries for the players were astronomical. About that time, though, Sullivan lost both of his parents, and he ended up joining the Army.

“Being realistic, I didn’t think I could make it,” Sullivan said of his NBA prospects.

While he did not turn basketball into a career, that sport is what gave Sullivan his other major nickname. To those who watched the Montana Grizzlies play basketball in the early 1960s, the 1958 Butte Central graduate was known as “Deep Court Dan.”

That moniker was given to him by Missoula sportswriters who watched Sullivan knock down shots from deep in the court. That was well before the 3-point line was brought into the game.

That nickname perfectly carried over to handball, where “Deep Court Dan” was known to kill the ball from the back of the court.

“I think it came from baseball,” Sullivan said of his deadly handball shot. “I played a lot of shortstop, believe it or not. It was the same swing as the throw. I think it was the throw from shortstop to first base that allowed me to kill the ball. That was my forte, killin’ it. I didn’t want to run around.”

Sullivan did not just play baseball and basketball. He starred in those sports. After helping Butte Central win the 1956 state championship in basketball, he went to the University of Montana, where he was a multi-sport athlete along with his former rival, the great Bob O’Billovich.

O’Billovich, who led Butte High to state hoops crowns in 1957 and 1958, played football, basketball and baseball for the Grizzlies. Sullivan played basketball and baseball.

Each lettered three times in each sport, and both were inducted into the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame.

Sullivan and O’Billovich also roomed with each other at the school, and that turned a few heads in the day. In addition to coming from arch-rival schools in Butte, Sullivan was Catholic. O’Billovich was Serbian Orthodox.

“That was a pretty big deal,” Sullivan said. “After about a day, it seemed like we ran around together. We just melted into a personality. It was meant to be, I guess.”

After college and the Army, Sullivan got into handball. In addition to his victories over Starin and Lyons, he once beat the great Bill Peoples. According to legend, the non-tournament defeat was the only one suffered by Peoples to a Montana player from 1973 through 1983.

The ultra-competitive Peoples could not wait to get back in the court with Sullivan.

“I gave him a rematch, and of course he beat me,” Sullivan said of the summer match. “There was a big crowd because it got around town, and I knew I was in for a bad deal. They found out that I beat him, and he wanted a rematch right away. So the next week, I saw all those guys up there, and I thought, “Awe man.”

Others called Sullivan “Sully” or “Sull.” Many, many more called him “Mr. Sullivan” from his decades teaching at Butte High School. His law class was legendary. He would take students to trials and to the prison.

That class, which was as fun for the teacher as it was for the students, used to fill up in the blink of an eye.

Sullivan, who used to play golf with Evel Knievel, kept hitting the golf course four days a week into his 80s. He also kept singing, and he kept making us smile. We will always smile when we hear his name.

In the name of progress at the Elks, a renovation project called for the removal of the wall with Ferriter’s mural. Had I known that would happen, I might have chained myself to it like Brian McGregor did with the Greek Café.

Fortunately, a photo of the mural was turned into a shirt that you can buy at 5518 Designs in Butte. Unfortunately, the names “Dan” and “Lyons” were removed, but it is still a great reminder of three Butte legends.

It is a great reminder of Dan Sullivan, a man who could not be described with just one nickname.

It is just too bad that mural wasn’t painted in a better location.

— Bill Foley, who doesn’t even have one cool nickname, 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.