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Ryggs, and only Ryggs, made the Country Club look easy
The article in The Great Falls Tribune leading up to the 2009 Montana State Amateur men’s golf tournament was offensive on multiple fronts.
Funny enough, I was offended on behalf of the Butte Country Club, and I grew up playing at the Muni. I was also offended on behalf of some of the best golfers from the Mining City, and I no longer played the game.
The State Am was about to be played at the Butte Country Club for the first time since 1999, when Butte Sports Hall of Famer Rick Lyons pulled off a six-shot win over 1998 champion Eddie Kavran of Dillon and Reid Lende of Livingston.
That, by the way, was the worst beating Kavran took since I thumped him by one shot to win the 1992 Butte Central Invitational at the Muni.
The Great Falls story did mention Lyons, but only to say that he was semi-retired from tournament competition and there was “no local player to carry the torch.”
After the first two days of the tournament, 18-year-old Butte player Ty Wengel was tied for the lead. He had a heck of a chance to win the thing had he not been disqualified by a silly rule during the third round of the four-day tournament.
Wengel threw his driver at his bag. Later, he noticed that the throw dented his putter, and he putted with it after it was “altered.” He reported the incident, and, golf being golf, that was a disqualifiable offense.
Ty’s father, Bob Wengel, tied with Butte’s Jon Johnstone for fifth place in the tournament.
While that might not qualify as “carrying the torch” for Lyons, who is particularly deadly on his home course, it showed that we clearly had some local talent playing.
The worst part of the story, though, was the way it ripped apart the Country Club, which will always be my one of my favorite courses.
Yes, the Butte Country Club is a short course compared to modern standards. The club was established in 1899, and that dates back to a time before it was socially acceptable for “men” to push their clubs on a cart. It was designed long before modern technology made it so any guy with goofy pants and an oversized head on his driver can hit the ball 280 yards.
The Club is a throwback, and I felt the story took some shots at that when it should have been praising the historic course.
Some players apparently took the Great Falls story to heart as they talked about somebody shooting in the 50s over the four days. The story, after all, reminded them that Billings golfer Kelbi Lee once shot a 60 on the par-70 course when playing in a Montana Tech tournament for Rocky Mountain College.
Yes, Lee did shoot a 60. You can never scoff at a round that low, no matter the circumstances.
But, with all due respect, he did not do that during a tournament in which the grounds crew was geared up to protect par. He did not do that in the State Amateur.
When the grounds crew wants to get sadistic, not many courses in the state can defend par like the Butte Country Club. They do that by growing out the rough, speeding up the greens and putting the pins in placements that can range from unfair to masochistic.
The silliness of that Great Falls story was slowly exposed as the tournament played out. The writer probably wanted to burn all copies when Missoula golfer Bill Dunn won the tournament at even par. Only 10 of the 120 or so players came within 10 strokes of par that week.
When Lyons won in 1999, he shot a 9-under-par 271 for the four days. He was one of just three players to break par — Kavran and Lende were the others at minus 3.
That is why what 18-year-old Ryggs Johnston of Libby did to the Bute Country Club in 2018 was so impressive.
Johnston, who was about to be a senior in high school, ran away with the tournament title with a three-day score of 197. That is 13 shots under par. Johnston opened with a 68, then shot a 62 and a 67.
He would have pushed 20-under had the tournament still been four days.
Bozeman’s Joey Jovell, who played a pretty dang good tournament himself, placed second at 205. He hit a pair of 69s and a 67. Lovell went on to win the State Am in 2021 and 2022, while Billings golfer Joey Moore, who placed third at 208, won the event in 2019 and 2023.
Lovell celebrated his runner-up finish in 2018 by getting a photo with Johnston because he knew that he might be playing on television someday.
That day has come. Johnston, who easily won four individual State titles (in Class B and Class A) in high school playing for the Libby Loggers, made the cut at the British Open at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland.
(Yes, I call it the British Open.)
Johnston shot a 74 on the first round before firing seven birdies and shooting a 5-under-par 66 on Friday to make the cut. Only seven players, including champion Scottie Scheffler, shot a better score over the four-day tournament.
Johnston, now 25, hit a 74 on Saturday and again on Sunday. He qualified to play in his first major by winning the Australian Open in Melbourne in December. That came after he earned All-American honors playing golf at Arizona State.
At the Butte Country Club in 2018, Johnston went wire to wire for the win. His 69 on the first day gave him a one-shot lead over Lovell, Moore, Sean Benson and Chris Goldan of Bozeman. Then, he buried the field with that 62 on Day 2.
One thing that seemed pretty apparent to the large number of players and fans following Johnston on Day 3 is that he could have shot much lower than 67 had he needed to on the final round. Instead, he played it conservatively as he matched the second-best score of the 333 rounds played by the tournament field.
It was not just that Johnston won the 2018 State Am at the Country Club that was impressive. It was not just the scores he shot.
What stands out is how the best players in the state all knew that they were playing for second place. Most had pretty much conceded that the high school star was going to win before they teed off.
Benson, a Billings native who is the greatest golfer in the history of the Montana Tech program, marveled at how well Johnston was playing.
As I walked up to Benson’s group during the back nine of the second round, I asked if he was making a run for the lead.
“No way,” Benson said. “It’s over. Ryggs is going crazy today.”
To Johnston, the course seemed easy. It seemed easy only to Johnston.
“On this course I think I can go low any day,” Johnston said after his 62. “It’s short. Just keep it in play, hit some good wedge shots and make some putts. I did that today, and the number shows.”
The State Am was played in Butte six times over the last 52 summers. In addition to 1999, 2009 and 2018, the state’s best golfers competed at the Butte Country Club in 1974, 1979 and 1986.
That means the tournament should be rolling back into town again in the next few years.
Johnston is now a professional, so he will not be in the field.
So, that 2018 tournament just might go down as the last time anybody makes the Butte Country Club look easy.
— Bill Foley, who never made any course look easy, 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.
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Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week: Mattie Stepan and Kodye Kjersten
Copper City Softball player Mattie Stepan and Butte American Legion baseball player Kodye Kjersten are this week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week.
Stepan receives the girls’ honor after showing off her leadership skills by catching 44 innings over four days playing for the Copper City Senior All-Stars at the Western Regional tournament in Missoula. The soon-to-be Butte High senior hit three home runs and threw out three runners at second base over that span.
Mattie turned two double plays and won the MVP coin in two different games. She is currently hitting .519 and batting second. Mattie drove in the tying run in the seventh inning to help the Copper City Stars beat Washington.
This is Mattie’s second year playing for the Senior All-Stars. She is also a standout for the Butte High softball and wrestling teams.
Kjersten takes home the boys’ honor after a strong season with the Butte Muckers. That success led to Kodye’s promotion to the Butte Miners, and he will be a key player for the Class A team heading into the Southern A District Tournament in Dillon.
The soon-to-be Butte High sophomore batted .451 over 30 games playing for the Muckers. That includes four doubles, two triples and 21 RBIs. He worked 18 walks and struck out just seven times. He stole 54 bases and was only caught stealing twice.
Kodye also stood out in centerfield with his speed, range and cannon for an arm. He plays football, basketball and baseball at Butte High.
For the third year, Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
Photos of Stepan and Kjersten provided by Alycia Holland Photography.
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Podcast No. 277: Jake Olson
Jake Olson is a 2021 Butte High graduate who is gearing up for his senior season playing football for the Montana Grizzlies.
He is following a legacy with the Griz. His father, Bob, played basketball for the Grizzlies in the 1990s. Jake figured he would do that, too. But then he had a breakout season playing tight end for the Butte High Bulldogs during their run to the 2019 Class AA State Championship football game. Jake scored the first touchdown of that game, hauling a long TD pass from Tommy Mellott, but the Bozeman Hawks won the game.
Jake committed to the Grizzlies in September of 2020, and he officially signed while sitting at a table at the 50-yard line of Naranche Stadium on the first day of the early signing period that December.
Jake was a standout for the Bulldog basketball team, too. He earned four varsity letters on the hardwood, and he helped lead the Bulldogs to two trips to the Class AA State tournament.
Now, he is a senior for the Grizzlies. The 6-foot-7, 258-pound tight end caught his first touchdown pass last season. He also threw blocks — or at least he says he attempted to — for legendary Griz return man Junior Bergen.
This year, Jake is looking for a big season as he closes the chapter on his college football career. The Griz play eight home games, starting with a Sept. 6 battle with Central Washington at Washington-Grizzly Stadium. The regular-season will wrap up Nov. 22 at home against Montana State.
Jake said he is looking forward to the season, and he expects big things from the Grizzlies. He is working extremely hard to get ready for the season, but he is also finding some time to work on his golf game.
Oh, and he is doing his part to keep the streets of Missoula passable.
When I called him yesterday for this fun phone conversation, Jake had just finished clearing the street of a downed tree. He said it gave him flash backs to last year’s huge storm that paralyzed the city and left football players sleeping in the parking lot outside the weight room so they were not late for morning weights.
Listen in as Jake talks about growing up in Butte, where he lived in the same house that produced a pair of Olympic skiers. Listen as he talks about that 2019 season and some of his coaches and teammates at Butte High.
Listen as he talks about running out of that tunnel at Washington-Grizzly Stadium and playing for the Grizzlies. Listen in as he talks about getting engaged to his high school sweetheart.
Today’s podcast is presented by Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty.
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She’s a big reason why this place is ‘Mountain Bike Heaven’
As he stopped for a break from his many trips riding his mountain bike around Big Butte, the cyclist looked around and nodded his head in approval.
He is a retired Butte native who usually visits his old stomping grounds for several weeks each summer. The area behind the “Big M,” as we call it, is much different from the days when he lived in the Mining City.
It is much different than it was a decade ago.
Not long ago, you were as likely to find an abandoned couch as you were someone riding a mountain bike. You saw more old tires than people.
Today, though, the area is alive and well. It is full of people walking their dogs, running or riding their bikes.
As I took a break from walking my dogs last summer, the cyclist and I stopped and talked on a trail that is part of a huge high school cycling race each fall.
“This,” he said, “is Mountain Bike Heaven.”
It was almost if he was asking me a question, like when “Shoeless” Joe Jackson asked Ray Kinsella if Iowa was heaven.
I had never thought of it that way, but the rider was right. If you like to ride mountain bikes on trails, there are not many places that beat Butte and Southwestern Montana. It is also “Running Heaven,” “Hiking Heaven,” and “Dog Walking Heaven.”
Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher is a big reason for this. He was the director of the Butte-Silver Bow Parks and Recreation Department before he ran for the top job, and he helped lead an effort to clean up the area behind the M.
He was also part of the great effort to build miles of trail behind the M. Some of those trails followed the skinny paths people made by walking through the area. Others were new trails cut through places that were almost impassable by foot in years past.
The M is not the only place with great trails. We also have the Maud S. Canyon Trail and miles and miles of trails for riders at Thompson Park, thanks, in large part, to the work of Jocelyn Dodge, a retired recreation forester with the Butte Ranger District.
The biggest reason that we now live in “Mountain Bike Heaven,” though, is because of the Butte 100 Mountain Bike Race. That race sparked a cycling explosion in Southwestern Montana, and trails had to be made to accommodate the many riders.
That race will ride for the 18th time this Saturday, starting and finishing near Homestake Lake. Riders can compete in the 100-mile race, a 50-mile race or the 25-mile race, which is named in honor of the late, great Dr. Pete Sorini.
The race started in 2007 and has taken place every year but the COVID summer of 2020.
Bob Waggoner, who used to own and operate Bob’s Bike Repair, founded the race, and he turned to Gina Evans to build, plan and coordinate the event.
He could not have made a better choice.
The first race got 41 riders to compete, and it started at Montana Tech. Really, 41 was kind of a big deal then, too, since most people around here figured someone would have to be mentally ill to race a mountain bike 100 miles through the mountains.
Now we have a 100-mile running race.
By the fourth year, the race found its permanent home, starting and finishing near Homestake Lake.
It did not take long for the number of racers to grow. It soon swelled to 350 riders before the capacity was raised to accommodate up to 500 riders.
It really is a spectacle to see the army of volunteers and the many, many riders at the finish line. The cowbells ring to sound the alert that a rider is approaching the finish line. The best way to describe it is to say it is “organized chaos,” and it really is a thing of beauty.
Gina served as the race director — a mostly volunteer position — for the first 11 years of the race. She would take one month off after each race, and then get back to work for the next year.
She did not put in all those long hours so she could ride in the race. She would have loved to race, but she loved spreading the joy of cycling even more. For Gina, this was her passion project. It was never for honor or prestige.
Of course, she got a ton of help because it takes an incredible amount of people to pull off such a big event. There are just too many to name them all.
When I asked her for a list of instrumental helpers running the race, Gina sent me so many names that it would have almost been easier to publish the phone book. It would have at least doubled the size of this column.
Gina called them the “Neon Army” because of the sea of neon shirts that fills the course and the start/finish area each year.
The amazing thing is that Gina continued to direct the race even after she was nearly killed in a hit-and-run incident in June of 2010. While riding her bike down Continental Drive, Gina was hit by a large truck.
The driver of that vehicle was never found, and Gina has undergone nine surgeries because of it. She likely faces even more.
Her comeback from the hit-and-run also included countless hours of physical therapy, post traumatic stress disorder, sleepless nights, and aggravating battles with insurance companies.
After Dr. Sorini passed in early 2016, Waggoner sold the race to the legendary neurosurgeon’s family. That includes his wife, Stephanie, and daughters, Gia, Marietta and Bella. With help from many of the same army, the Sorini family has kept the race thriving.
Gina decided to step down as director in 2017, and Stephanie Sorini is now the race director. Gina had just done too much, and the surgeries were still mounting.
But she continues to direct Pete Sorini Trail Day, a cleanup event of the Continental Divide Trail that Gina helped start. The event marked its 10th year this June.
Not only does that day help the Butte 100, it makes it possible for everyday people to enjoy the trail during the summer.
Until her medical problems prevented it the last couple of years, Gina owned and operated Linked Adventures, a service that shuttles bicyclists, runners and hikers into the mountains and trails of Southwestern Montana. Someday soon, she will re-open that business.
Even though she is unable to rider her bike, she devoted her career to making it possible for others to enjoy “Mountain Bike Heaven.” Here entire existence, it seems, has been to serve others.
She has worked on bike safety for our youth, and helped land grants for safe routes to school. And she helped start the Copper Sprockets youth cycling team.
She’s done so much that they should at least name a trail after her.
Since that first Butte 100 in 2007, cycling has exploded in Butte as more and more people realize what we have in our back yard.
So many people have been instrumental in this growth. The cycling community is full of good-hearted people willing to lend a hand and offer encouragement.
In my book, though, nobody has ever done more for cyclists in Butte than Gina.
Nobody has done more for runners, either. Or hikers. Or dog walkers.
So, the next time you see Gina when you are enjoying these trails, stop and tell her thank you.
— Bill Foley, who still thinks you have to be a little messed up in the head to race a mountain bike 100 miles in the mountains, 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.
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Butte High cross country team store open for limited time
The Butte High cross country has opened its team store for team members, family and fans in the community to purchase Bulldog gear.
Exclusive apparel for sale includes T-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, hoodies, shorts, pants, bags and more. The shop closes on July 21, so order soon to receive your Bulldog gear by the start of the 2025 season.
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Dogs set football camp for Aug. 4-6
The 2025 Mile High Football Camp will be held Aug. 4-6 at Naranche Stadium.
The camp for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade will run from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday through Thursday that week. Cost is $60.
Campers will receive a camp T-shirt and fundamental skills instruction. Players should dress in football cleats, a shirt and shorts.
The camp will be conducted by the Butte High football staff, and registration forms can be brought to the first day of camp. Click the link below for a registration form.
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Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week: Ryan Olson and Trapper Stajcar
Copper City Softball player Ryan Olson and Butte Miners baseball player Trapper Stajcar are this week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week.
Olson takes home the girls’ honor for her part playing for the Copper City 12U All-Star team at the District 2 tournament in Great Falls. Ryan went to bat 11 teams, and she turned that into four hits. That includes three singles and a triple. She drove in three runs.
Ryan was also stellar on defense at shortstop for the Butte girls. She turned a slick double play, snagging a line drive before throwing back to Brinkley Greer to get the second out on first base.
Ryan is a soon-to-be eighth grader at Butte Central.
Stajcar takes home the boys’ award after suffering what is feared to be a season-ending injury.
The soon-to-be senior at Butte Central senior leads the Miners with a .458 batting average. In 22 games, the speedy outfielder registered 27 hits. He drove in 11 runs and scored 20 times.
Batting mostly from the leadoff spot, Trapper struck out just five times. He also swiped 19 bases. Defensively, Trapper chalked up 19 put outs and two assists while posting an .875 fielding percentage.
With two seasons of Legion ball remaining, Trapper’s story is still a long way from being completed.
For the third year, Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
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Podcast No. 276: Maritsa Georgiou
Maritsa Georgiou is a well-respected journalist in Montana and around the nation.
Her reporting on the planned removal of United States Postal Service boxes leading up to the largely mail-in election of 2020 earned her the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism. It might have also thwarted a conniving attempt to swing the election.
A year earlier, the Montana Broadcasters Association awarded her the E.B. Craney Award for Television Broadcaster of the Year.
Maritsa started working for NBC Montana when she was still a junior at the University of Montana in 2006. She worked there until 2021, when she moved on to Scripps News to work as a national correspondent. She also anchored “America Tonight,” before losing her job when Scripps eliminated more than 200 employees during a mass layoff last November.
Maritsa grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, which is a suburb of Minneapolis. She came to Montana to study at one of the best journalism schools in the country. She also arrived in the Treasure State with some serious Montana roots.
Those roots include her grandfather, Barry ZeVan. Many years before he was the famous “Peek-a-Boo” weather man in Minnesota, ZeVan worked as Missoula’s first television meteorologist. Before that, ZeVan worked for KXLF Radio in Butte.
Early in 2025, Maritsa teamed up with another newly-unemployed Montanan, former Sen. Jon Tester. Together, they created the “Grounded” podcast. It is a widely entertaining podcast with some exceptional — and important — conversation and journalism.
Also, with their combined credentials and connections, Maritsa and Sen. Tester have some serious reach for guests. Recent guests include former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, “Anonymous” op-ed writer Miles Taylor, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
The episode with Sen. Booker dropped earlier this week. In addition to some hard-hitting heckling between Tester and Booker, Maritsa and Sen. Tester got to the bottom of how Sen. Booker pulled off a 25-hour filibuster in the U.S. Senate without once using the restroom. He wasn’t wearing a diaper, either.
Generally, the interviews are conducted with Maritsa working from home in Missoula and Sen. Tester on his phone — and sometimes struggling mightily with technology and connections — while working on his farm in Big Sandy.
It quickly turned into my favorite podcast, other than the ButteCast and Mad About Montana Podcast, that is.
Listen in to today’s podcast as Maritsa talks about the influence of her grandfather in her career and why she chose to come to the Treasure State to study. Listen as she talks about the story that won her the Cronkite Award.
Listen as she talks about working with former Sen. Tester and why the Big Sandy farmer is the genuine article.
Today’s podcast is presented by the Kvichak Fish Co. Think of it as salmon and halibut gone Girl Scout cookie. Place your order today.
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Sparky’s voice will live on forever
The April Fool’s Day column of 2014 on ButteSports.com was so over the top that I did not think anybody would believe it.
That was the column where I wrote that Arie Grey stepped down as Butte High’s football coach to take over the swimming program at the University of Great Falls, which is now the University of Providence. The joke said that Grey would be replaced by longtime Butte Central assistant Doug Peoples.
Nobody bleeds the color of his school more than Doug, so I certainly figured nobody would possibly believe that he would cross over to the Bulldogs. The column said that Doug planned to bring back the Butte High vs. Butte Central football game, and suggested that the schools were already fighting about where to play the game.
At the time, we were only a few years removed from the fight about playing a basketball game at the Maroon Activities Center.
Unfortunately, one of the renovations of ButteSports.com erased the comments below the old columns and stories. That comment section is where I learned that at least one person fell for the prank column, even though I thought I had made it obvious that it was an April Fool’s Day gag.
That person was the legendary Old Hippy himself, Rick Sparks.
“Sparky,” as he was affectionately known, expressed shock that Doug would take the job because he knew of his strong allegiance to the Maroons. But, Sparky, a former Butte Central assistant football coach, wished Doug luck in his new endeavor.
Then someone let Sparky in on the joke, and he commented one more time.
I cannot remember exactly what he said, but I’m pretty sure it started off like this: “You son of a …”
It was the only time that I was glad Sparky was not living in the Mining City at the time.
Sparky passed away last Tuesday night. He died just three days shy of his 78th birthday, which as the Fourth of July. The news of his passing shot through town like a shockwave of sadness. That sadness eventually gave way to smiles because, even in talking about his death, talking about Sparky makes you smile.
Everybody seemed to love Sparky, who moved back to Montana after two and a half decades teaching in California looking like a member of the band ZZ Top.
Before he left town in the mid 1980s, Sparky was a big, burly guy with a thick, but shorter beard. He returned as the skinny Old Hippy, as Tim Norbeck put it. Norbeck played football for Sparky at BC in the early 1980s.
Sparky just looked like a hippy. I do not think he was one. He also spoke softly after he moved back to Butte, but that is not necessarily how he was remembered by the athletes Sparky coached in football, track and wrestling.
For much of my career as a sportswriter, Sparky was a legend whom I had never met. I heard stories, and some of them were hard to believe.
Finally, sometime in the first decade of the 21st Century, I met Sparky on the sideline of a Butte Central football game at Bulldog Memorial Stadium. Norbeck introduced us, and I immediately liked Sparky, who was nothing like I expected.
We talked every time we saw each other at a game until Sparky moved to Missoula. Then, we would talk on Facebook or in emails.
When I started the ButteCast, Sparky was one of the first names I wrote down when making a list of prospective guests. He was also by far the most requested guest — mostly by the men and women he coached.
One of my favorite things about hosting that podcast is that it gives me a chance to be a part of some great conversations that will last forever. The voices on those podcasts will never die, and Sparky’s voice is one of them.
He was a guest on episode No. 42. We met at the Knights of Columbus Hall and talked for about an hour. He was in town to watch his grandson, Mario Rosemond, play basketball for Missoula Hellgate against Butte High.
Sparky was on his game that day in January of 2023. He talked about the great teams he was a part of as a player and a coach.
To his core, Sparky was a Bulldog. He was an All-State center on Butte High’s undefeated State championship football team in 1964. He was a proud member of the Butte High Silver B’s.
Sparky went on to a successful career playing football at the University of Montana before he eventually returned home to teach and coach at Butte Central. He was the offensive coordinator for the Maroons during BC’s 18-16 overtime loss to Butte High in 1981.
Sparky was inducted into the Butte Sports Hall of Fame as part of that 1964 Bulldog team. He was also inducted as the coach of four State champion track teams — three for the girls and one with the boys — and one State champion wrestling team at Butte Central.
Sparky was inducted into the Hall of Fame individually in 2009. Sparky’s father, Bob Sparks, was inducted into the Hall in 1993. The elder Sparks spent years as a recreation director in Butte. He also coached Butte’s legendary independent football team, the Butte Buzzies.
“My dad had a huge influence on me,” Sparky said in the podcast.
“Were you like him as a coach?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Sparky said. “I don’t really recall of him being as goofy as I was.”
I asked Sparky about his 1964 Butte High teammates, guys like Jon McElroy, Jim Street, Ray Becky and Bill Sever, just to name a few. I asked which one was the toughest.
“I would probably say the toughest guy was Street,” Sparky said.
“Yeah, that would have been my guess because he still scares me,” I said.
Sparky laughed. He laughed a lot that day.
“Yeah, he does,” Sparky said. “He’s my very good friend, and he still scares me. And Becky, too.”
Sparky also talked about the time he poked a little fun at Sam Jankovich, Butte High’s notorious no-nonsense football coach, during a sketch at a school assembly.
“I played Jankovich, and everybody else played themselves,” Sparky said. “It was fun.”
Did Jankovich laugh at the skit?
“They say he did,” Sparky said. “I don’t know. I wasn’t hanging around.”
Sparky said that he wished he would have given the ball to Brian Morris one more time in that 1981 game against Butte High. That probably would have changed everything.
Then, Sparky brought up the column about Doug taking over the Bulldogs.
“I’ll never forgive you for tricking me that April Fools Day,” he said. “That’s funny.”
We had to cut the conversation off because Sparky had a game to go to. The podcast was — and still is — a hit. People bring up the Sparky episode all the time. They laugh at the stories he tells, and they were just glad to hear his voice.
Sparky had fun that day, too. I know that because he messaged me on Facebook shortly after to say thank you. He also said that he wanted to do a sequel episode because he had so many more stories to tell.
Of course, I said. Sparky was welcome any time for another appearance on the podcast. I told him to let me know the next time he was coming to town.
Unfortunately, that conversation never happened. Those stories are gone. At least they are in Sparky’s words. I will always regret not doing more to make that next episode happen.
However, at least I got the one Sparky episode, and it was great. You can hear why Sparky is the favorite teacher and coach for so many.
Sparky might be gone, but we can always go back to episode No. 42 of the ButteCast and listen in as his voice lives on.
— Bill Foley, who has also fallen for a few April Fool’s Day pranks, 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.
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Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week: Kessler Svejkovsky and Lane Lisac
Copper City Softball player Kessler Svejkowsky and golfer Lane Lisac are this week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week.
Both of these outstanding young athletes will be eighth graders at East Middle School next school year.
Svejkovsky takes home the girls’ honor after an incredible performance playing for the Copper City 12U All-Stars in the District 2 tournament in Great Falls. In three games over the tournament, Kessler faced 72 batters. She struck out 32 of those batters, going 2-1 in the tournament. Kessler was also backed up by some great play from her teammates.
At the dish, Kessler turned 13 plate appearances into seven hits and five RBIs.
Lisac receives the boys’ accolade after winning the First National Bank junior golf tournament last Monday at Bozeman’s Riverside Country Club.
Lisac shot a 1-over-par 36 over nine holes to take the tournament title. The tournament was part of the First National Bank Junior Golf Tour, and Lane topped a field of 36 players in the boys’ 12-13 age group. He was just one of three boys to break a score of 40 over the nine holes.
For the third year, Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
The ButteCast with Bill Foley 