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Podcast No. 95: Scott Mansanti
Scott Mansanti was the best half of one of the greatest sports stories in Butte history.
During the 1995-96 basketball season, Butte Central coach Bill “Chunky” Thatcher sent Mansanti, then a sophomore, into a game in Livingston with an unusual assignment. Chunky told Mansanti to guard the referee.
Yes, guard the referee.
Chunky didn’t like the way the game was called, so he sent Mansanti in to do what coaches have talked about doing for decades. The best part is that Mansanti didn’t ask for instructions or ask the coach to explain what he wanted to do. He just went in and guarded the ref.
Mansanti went on to become a solid basketball player, guarding opponents instead of the men and women in stripes. He was also an All-State football player as a running back and linebacker. He played at Montana Tech, where he was pound-for-pound the hardest hitter I have ever seen.
He led with his head and he laid the wood. Just ask former police officer Russ Robertson. During the Pig Bowl several years ago, Mansanti hit Robertson so hard that we thought he killed him. Somehow, Robertson popped back up.
Listen to this podcast as Mansanti talks about his hard hitting. Listen as he talks about his family, his coaching career at Butte Central and some of his teammates. Listen as he talks about Chunky sending him in to guard the ref.
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Sorini Adopt A Trail Day scheduled for June 10-11
The 8th Annual Pete Sorini Adopt A Trail Day and Adopter Training will take place June 10 and 11 at Thompson Park.
The event will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 10 and 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 11.
People are invited to join the Continental Divide Trail Coalition (CDTC), Gina Evans and local volunteers. In partnership with the Butte Ranger District, this two-day event will focus on trail maintenance along the Continental Divide Trail from Highlands Camp to Limekiln. All volunteers should meet at the Highlands Camp at 8 a.m. on Saturday, June 10, and they will be divided into two groups.
Experienced trail volunteers will join Evans and Forest Service staff to complete trail log out and other trail maintenance activities. Novice trail volunteers will join CDTC Field Instructors to learn about trail tools and the basics of trail maintenance; then conduct light maintenance to apply their newly-learned skills. CDC volunteers will be able to adopt their own section of the CDT.
The CDTC led Adopter Training will continue Sunday, any and all are welcome to join.
To Register for the Trail Maintenance Training, continentaldividetrail.org/volunteer.
Email hgamertsfelder@continentaldividetrail.org with questions.
To Register for the 8th Annual Pete Sorini Adopt a Trail Day, email or call Gina Evans at eatdirtpigpen@gmail.com or (406) 498-9653.
Volunteers are encouraged to bring a backpack, hat, eye protection and/or gloves (if you have them), 2 liters of water, lunch and snacks for both days, closed-toe shoes, long pants, and long sleeve shirt, and warm layers/rain gear, etc.
Food, coffee and a light breakfast will be available Saturday morning. A barbecue will be provided Saturday evening. Bring lunch and snacks for both days.
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Badovinac named All-State
Butte Central senior shortstop was named first-team all-conference and All-State in softball.
The Southwest A softball postseason honors were released to the media today, and Badovinac was one of two Butte Central players to make the cut.
Central junior Kathryn Lalicker received an honorable mention.
Badovinac is one of seven Southwestern A players to receive an All-State selection. She is joined by Sophie Berning of Stevensville, Cierra Cole of Hamilton, Kinzy Creighton of Dillon, Kaitlin McCartney of Corvallis, and Carah Evans and Alexis Godin of Frenchtown.
Frenchtown’s Olivia Campbell, Hamilton’s Addison Flynn and East Helena’s Bella Surginer were also named first-team all-conference.
The selection closes the book on a stellar Maroon career for Badovinac, who go down as one of the all-time greats. She was also a standout in basketball and volleyball.
During the 2021-22 season, Badovinac scored 671 points, setting Butte’s high school single-season scoring record — for girls and boys.
Badovinac will continue her career as a student-athlete playing basketball at Montana Tech.
Click the link below to see all the Southwestern A softball players honored.
Badovinac made an appearance on the ButteCast in March.
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Junior Golf Tour registration open
Registration for the 2023 Southwest Montana Junior Golf Tour is now open.
Tournament play begins June 12 with the Lee LaBreche Kick-Off Classic at the Highland View Golf Course. That is the first of eight stops on the tour.
The Tour will also stop at the Butte Country Club, Anaconda Country Club, the Highland View Golf Course Par 3, Beaverhead Golf Course, Hamilton Golf Club, Headwaters Golf Course in Three Forks and the Old Works.
Play is open for boys and girls 11 through 18, and many past players have gone onto college golf careers.
Go to SWMJGT.com for more information and to register.
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Podcast No. 94: Sean Ryan
Sean Ryan has one of the best marriage proposals you will ever hear. He popped the question to his wife Sara Happy Gilmore style.
If that doesn’t make you like the head golf coach of the Montana Tech Orediggers, then nothing will.
After a solid career playing at Great Falls Central, Sean played golf at Montana Tech. When his playing days were finished, he volunteered as an assistant coach. He took over the program following the untimely death of coach Lee LaBreche in 2019.
The Orediggers then went on to achieved success on the golf course that the school had not seen before.
Sean also had to fill the shoes of LaBreche as director of the Southwestern Montana Junior Golf Tour. The Tour jumps back into action June 12 with the Lee LaBreche Kick-Off Classic at the Highland View Golf Course.
The tour is open to boys and girls 11 through 18. The tour will stop seven times before closing the season at the Old Works Championship Aug. 7 in Anaconda. Go to SWMJGT.com to sign up.
Listen in to this podcast to hear Sean Ryan talk about the Tour, which has been a springboard to college golf for so many area players. Listen as he talks about his days growing up playing and working at the R.O. Speck Golf Course in Great Falls. Listen to him talk about playing for the Orediggers and replacing the man we called the “Big Kahuna.”
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High schools should start teaching sports history classes
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.
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Leskovar Athletes of the Week: Kenley Leary and Ella Moodry
Butte Miners super senior Kenley Leary and Butte Central junior Ella Moodry are this week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week.
Leary receives the boys’ award after showing off his MVP form to lead the Miners to a 3-0 record at the season-opening Memorial Day Tournament at 3 Legends Stadium.
The MVP of last year’s Class A State and Northwest Class A Regional tournaments, Leary went 5 for 7 with a pair of triples and three walks in three games. He also pitched the distance in a five-inning win, striking out seven, walking one and surrendering just two hits.
Moodry earns the girls’ honor after winning her second Class A State javelin title in three years. Moodry matched her personal-best mark of 138 feet, 8 inches to regain her crown during the Class A State meet in Laurel.
Her winning toss beat 2022 champion Daeja Fike of Laurel by 2 feet, 7 inches. Moodry also won the event as a freshman before placing second as a sophomore.
Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, teamed up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City in an effort to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
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Podcast No. 93: Jack Hogart
In the fall of 1987, Jack Hogart was a newlywed and a rookie football official.
He was also my football coach at Butte Central Junior High School.
One thing all the players had in common during our seventh- and eighth-grade years was that we loved our coaches. Hogie was the head coach. He was assisted by Shawn “Tank” Maloughney. We also loved Mike Hogart, who coached the other grade those years.
Football wasn’t easy, but we always had fun playing for those coaches.
Jack Hogart had as laughing all the time. He even had us laughing when he was mad at us. He especially had us laughing when he was mad at us.
I’ll never forget the game when Josh Paffhausen hurdled me in a game we lost to East Middle School. At halftime, Jack told us we were making Paffhausen look like a “damn superstar out there.”
To make a long story short, Paffer was a superstar. It wasn’t my fault.
Jack Hogart was one of five children of the legendary Bill and Mary Carol Hogart. They make up what has to be at least one of the funniest families this town has ever seen.
Today, Jack Hogart is a grandpa. He no longer coaches or officiates. Instead, he devotes his time to his grandchildren, his insurance business and the Knights of Columbus Hall.
He is still funny as ever. He is still Hogie. Listen in to see what I mean.
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Rigby, Vicevich close league with perfect trap scores
Riley Rigby and Dave Vicevich posted perfect scores on the final week of the Butte Trap Club’s Spring League.
Both broke all 50 targets to top individual standings on the sixth week. Rigby clinched the “High Gun Male” award for the season by breaking 293 out of 300 total targets. He topped runner-up Vicevich by two.
Gus Bolton, Tim Cassidy, Mark Hislop, Scott White, Chad Fellows, Chris Andersen and Jim Holodnick each broke 49 targets on the final night. Wyatt Kingston, John McClernan, Nathan Farley and Rayelynn Brandl broke 48.
Brandl topped women’s standings, beating Kim McClafferty by two. Brandl also took home the “High Gun Female” award with 280 out of 300. Gillian Clark was runner up with 262.
T.J. Anderson won the “High Junior” award with a mark of 237 out of 300.
Cooney’s Vicevich Law topped the final team scratch standings at 1,151. Team members are Vicevich, Hislop, White, Robert Edwards and John Wombold.
Baker Auto took second at 1,124, and Cooney’s Locksmith place third at 1,112.
Butte Trap Club – 2023 Spring League – Week 6 Standings
eam Scratch Standings
Cooney’s Vicevich Law – 1151
Baker Auto – 1124
Cooneys Locksmith – 1112
Edward Jones/Walt McIntosh – 1107
Vu Villa/Lockmer Plumbing – 1094
FJBCHO – 1080
Clay Howery Construction – 1080
CF Plumbing & Heating – 1079
Milo’s – 1035
Lisac’s/Jim Lynch State Farm – 1029
S&S Plumbing – 1019
Superior Title – 1015
Pro Inspection – 1014
IDK – 1013
Pro Repair – 1008
Archibald Co. – 1004
D-M Ranch – 998
PTS #2 – 992
St James Hospital – 986
PTS #1 – 980
…..w/Guns – 972
WET – 935
Trax Outdoors – 932
Timberline Security – 929
KR Contracting – 921
Rafish Raiders – 913
PSFR – 868
Builders First Source – 806
Elk Horn Electric – 784High Individual Scores
Riley Rigby – 50×50
Dave Vicevich – 50×50}
Gus Bolton – 49×50
Tim Cassidy – 49×50
Mark Hislop – 49×50
Scott White – 49×50
Chad Fellows – 49×50
Chris Andersen – 49×50
Jim Holodnick – 49×50
Wyatt Kingston – 48×50
John McClernan – 48×50
Nathan Farley – 48×50
Rayelynn Brandl – 48×50High Lady Scores
Rayelynn Brandl – 48×50
Kim McClafferty – 46×50
Jen Hislop – 41×50
Gillian Clark – 45×50High Wobble Trap Scores
Chad Fellows – 48×50
Riley Rigby – 48×50
Nathan Hollins – 46×50High Gun Male
Champion Riley Rigby – 293×300
R-U Dave Vicevich – 291×300High Gun Female
Champ Rayelynn Brandl – 280×300
Runner-Up Gillian Clark – 262×300High Junior – TJ Anderson – 237×300
Team Division Winners
Class AA – Cooney’s/Vicevich Law – Dave Vicevich, Scott White, Robert Edwards, John Wombold, Mark Hislop
Class A – Vu Villa/Lockmer Plumbing – Shawn Powers, Mark Powers, Mark Moline, Scott Irwin, John McMillan
Class B – Pro Inspection – Ted Phillips, Will Davey, Ian Smith, Wade Malyevac, John McClernan
Class C – Archibald Company – Kevin Zimpel, Mike Watson, Leo McCarthy, Jason Dinius, Bart Bacon
Class D – Timberline Security – Travis Birkenbuhl, Darrell Storey, Pete Steilman, Scott Driscoll, Les Anderson
Annie Oakley Winners
1st – John Helfrich 2nd – Kim McClafferty 3rd – Jason Cartin 4th – Gillian Clark
1st – Gillian Clark 2nd – Jim Holodnick 3rd – Nathan Farley
1st – Tim Schrapps 2nd – Nathan Farley
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Podcast No. 92: Keith Miller
In the spring of 1984, I set a world record in a Little League game at the ballpark that is now named Jim Scown Field.
I struck out on two pitches — and one of them was a ball. No, Buggs Bunny was not the pitcher. Rather, Keith Miller was the umpire.
That, I promise, is a true story. Even Keith is beginning to come to terms with that fact.
Even then, though, I knew Keith was a great umpire. He was a sophomore in high school, and you would have thought he was working a game in the Big Leagues. He gave us the Big League field when we played.
In all my years playing, watching and coaching Little League since, I have never seen a better umpire than Keith.
He was also a great coach. The next basketball season, I joined the Kennedy fifth grade B team as a fourth grader, and Keith was my coach. The next year, he coached our football and basketball team.
He was great as he somehow walked the fine line of being our coach and our friend.
Keith has devoted his entire life to children. He has been a volunteer in Little League for 41 years. After years as a teacher and vice principal, Keith took over for the retiring Larry Driscoll several years ago. It is a tough job, but he tackles with understanding and compassion. The children of Butte are lucky to have him.
Keith recently had a health scare that forced him to spend some time in the hospital. He is doing good now, and looking forward to getting back to work this week.
Listen in to this podcast as we talk about that two-strike strikeout, his coaching days and his years as an educator. Listen as he describes his philosophies to education, Little League and life.
The ButteCast with Bill Foley 