Home

Super Bowl champion joins Montana Football Hall of Fame

Note: Pat Ogrin is part of the 2025 Montana Football Hall of Fame Class, which will be inducted during ceremonies Friday and Saturday at the Billings Hotel & Convention Center. This story was written for the event souvenir program.

By Bill Foley

Nearly a half century has passed since he lined up against Pat Ogrin on that early September 1975 night at Montana Tech’s Alumni Coliseum.

Yet Jim Woy remembers it like it was last night.

“A couple of times I would go back to the huddle, and I said, ‘This is not fair,’” Woy said of going head-to-head against a guy who went on to become a Super Bowl XVII champion. “It’s been almost 50 years since we played as seniors. I haven’t forgotten one part of that game. I got smashed a lot that night.”

Woy was a 5-foot-9, 155-pound center for Butte Central. Ogrin was a 6-5, 235-pound defensive lineman for Butte High. The Bulldog coaching staff moved Ogrin to line up in front of Woy, looking to pick up a lopsided advantage. Mission accomplished.

“It was an absolute nightmare all night trying to block Ogrin,” Woy told the late Pat Kearney for his Book “Butte’s Big Game: Butte Central vs. Butte High.” “It was tough enough just hiking the ball, but then trying to move a guy that was big, quick and mean, well it was just a long night.”

After hearing Ogrin was headed to the Montana Football Hall of Fame, Woy, who also started at linebacker for the Maroons, still has the same opinion.

“He was every bit of that,” Woy said of the “big, quick and mean” description. “He was really good. I think he knew coming in that he had me sized up. I think the coaches had me sized up. He was respectful, but I’ll never forget that game.”

Woy must have been a victim of Ogrin’s legendary “forearm shiver.” It was a trick that he learned from Jon McElroy, who was then the Butte High defensive line coach.

“He was the one who introduced me to the forearm lift technique,” Ogrin said of McElroy, who went on to win three Class AA State titles as head coach at Butte High. “Everybody was always giving me a hard time. That was one of my big things. You know, ‘Watch out for Oges, you’re going to get that forearm shiver.’”

Ogrin used that forearm to garner All-State honors in 1974 and 1975 as he helped lead the Bulldogs advance to the Class AA State championship game, where they lost to Great Falls High and Great Falls Russell. In 1975, Ogrin was the only football player from Montana chosen as a Prep All-American.

“I taught him all that,” McElroy remembered of Ogrin and that forearm shiver. “He had so much talent, you know. He was smart. So, I put him on the defensive right because we were a slanting football team. We moved our front a lot.

“He was very, very good at reading the keys, and he was a good player,” McElroy said. “He ended up playing on the side that wasn’t attacked as much, but when he was a down lineman, he was usually slanting. He was basically slanting to where we thought they were going.”

McElroy won 118 games in his 18 years as head coach of the Bulldogs. Only the great Harry “Swede” Dahlberg coached more years and won more games at Butte High, so McElroy is still seen as an authority when it comes to football in the Mining City. The coach said he knew Ogrin was destined for greatness from a young age.

“There was no doubt in my mind he was a player who was going to go on,” McElroy said. “He was big and athletic. He used that forearm.”

Not-so mean after all

Woy’s description of Ogrin only seems to be accurate in the trenches. When he wasn’t playing football, big defensive lineman who wore his hair long and sported some thick, black glasses, is always described as being a “nice guy.”

He only looked like he could have been one of the goonish Hanson brothers from the 1977 movie “Slap Shot.” Ogrin’s forearms were saved for after the ball was snapped.

Larry Ferguson took over Butte High’s basketball program when Ogrin was a senior. The coach said he was always looking for Ogrin to play more with more of a mean streak on the basketball court.

“He was a nice kid,” Ferguson said. “In fact, he was too nice. I used to poke him in the chest to tell him to be meaner. I made him play defense and rebound.”

That, however, doesn’t mean Ogrin was a pushover when wearing the shorts and tank top. Not by any means.

“I remember when we were playing Sentinel, and Sentinel had some big kids,” Ferguson said. “Ogrin got a rebound, turned around and flattened one right on his ass.”

With the tall, big frame, Ogrin was a nice complement to Tom Pomroy, another 6-5 Bulldog, on the 1975-76 team that made it to Saturday morning of the Class AA State tournament in Missoula.

“He was a big strong kid,” Ferguson said of Ogrin. “He was a good athlete. He did a lot of things that freed up Pomroy to do other things.”

Ogrin laughs when he remembers Ferguson, who replaced Bob “Cat” Stevens as coach of the Bulldogs. “Fergie” was, and still is, known for his intensity, his basketball expertise and his lack of tact.

“He was a great coach,” Ogrin said. “A lot of yelling. He was always thinking. You could tell there was something going on in there. He was talking about the defense or the next play.”

Those Bulldogs fell 71-64 to Anaconda in the Western AA Divisional championship game at the Butte Civic Center. The next week, Butte came up one game short of the third-place game at State.

That tournament is best remembered for Butte High playing Missoula Hellgate in that loser-out game on Saturday morning. Hellgate won 62-52, but that is not why the game is memorable.

Late in the third quarter, Pomroy lunged for a loose ball under the Butte basket. His momentum took him into the stands, where, according a report in the Missoulian, he jostled a trombonist in the Hellgate band.

Here’s how Missoulian writer Kim Briggeman put it:

“As play went the other way, the two mixed it up in a melee that wasn’t settled until after Butte’s Don Bentley had joined in and several fans threatened to.”

Hellgate was called for a technical foul because of the actions of the band. That action included Pomroy being hit by a trombone.

“I remember turning around and him yelling for me to come help,” Ogrin said of Pomroy. “I can still picture him in the stands amongst the tubas and trombones. That was funny. That band was pretty mean.”

‘I’m going to play when I’m bigger’

Ogrin was the second of six children (three sisters, Kathy, Lynn and Dawn Ann, and two brothers, Jerry and Mike) of Raelene (Grant) and Don Ogrin. His late father, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he was just 21, was from Great Falls. He earned a degree in petroleum engineering from Montana Tech and worked for the Montana Power Co.

That job took the Ogrin family to Cutbank for much of Pat’s childhood. They moved back to Butte and settled in on the lower West Side when Pat was in junior high school.

He attended West Junior High School and competed for the Buffalos.

“I always liked playing football in the yard,” Ogrin said. “We used to get these old foam pads and put them on our shoulders and put a helmet on. You know, we thought we were all something.

“You think, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m going to play when I’m bigger. I’m going to play in the NFL.’”

Ogrin, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.77 seconds when he was playing football for the University of Wyoming, liked to compete no matter what the sport. But if you were listening to him, you’d swear he was a mediocre athlete.

“I did have some pretty good speed,” Ogrin said. “I think I just enjoyed the sport, whether it was football, basketball or track. Whether I was good at it or not, I just always liked competing.”

He was a three-sport athlete at Butte High. Though if you listened to Ogrin, you’d swear he was just a middle of the pack athlete.

“I really enjoyed basketball in junior high and Butte High,” he said. “I was in track. I was OK in track. I used to run JV sometimes in some of the races. I threw the shot put a little bit. It was nothing great. In high school, you just went from one sport to the next.”

At West, of course, the big rival was the East Bullpups, who would later join the Buffalos as Bulldogs at Butte High. East was a hard team to beat, especially in football, when they were coached by the legendary Gene Fogarty, the late grandfather of former Butte High and Montana State star Tommy Mellott.

“I don’t think we did,” Ogrin said of beating the Bullpups. “That was always the great rivalry. They always had some great players, so you knew you were going to have a tough game.

“You always knew who the other kids were,” Ogrin said. “You didn’t like them because they went to East. But when we went to high school, we all got along well.”

At Butte High, Ogrin’s football coach was Dan Peters, a no-nonsense coach with a stoic demeanor.

“He could get fired up,” Ogrin said of Peters, who went on to a long run as the Butte High principal. “He had the respect of the players. You didn’t screw around (when you were) around him. He had that look. If you were on his wrong side, look out.”

Peters’ Bulldogs went 7-4 in 1974 and 8-2 in 1975. After losing to unbeaten Great Falls High in the 1974 title game, the Bulldogs thought they would get another shot at the Bison in 1975. CMR, though, beat its cross-town rival before the Rustlers ran over Butte in the championship game in Great Falls.

Tony Caldwell, who later joined Ogrin at Wyoming, ran for 149 yards and two first quarter touchdowns to lead the Rustlers to a 41-7 win over the Bulldogs. That is a loss that still stings Ogrin today.

“Boy, I hated that,” Ogrin said. “We knew it would be a tough game, but we didn’t think they’d control us like they did. Their running back, Tony Caldwell, he was a good one. We had trouble keeping him corralled.”

Overall, though, Ogrin looks back at his Butte High days fondly, particularly when he’s talking about McElroy.

“I think I learned to really love the game even more with him coaching and helping me out,” Ogrin said of man known affectionately as “Coach Mac.”

It was hard for Ogrin to pinpoint one reason why McElroy was such a great influence on him. There were just so many traits that made Coach Mac the legend that he still is and always will be in the Mining Camp.

“He always encouraged me,” Ogrin said. “I respected him.”

Ogrin also earned respect — from McElroy and college football coaches around the country.

He took recruiting trips to Arizona State, Washington State and Colorado. He heard from some schools from back east, and he got some bites from Stanford University.

“I didn’t make a trip there,” Ogrin said. “They contacted me.”

Ogrin caught the eye of the Stanford coaches when they were looking at Great Falls High star lineman Dan Floyd, who eventually signed with the California school.

“They were supposedly watching him on film and noticed me,” Ogrin said. “They contacted me.

I was thinking, ‘Stanford? I don’t think I have the grades for that. Stanford? I don’t think there’s any way.’ So, I decided against that.”

He picked Wyoming and head coach Fred Akers, even though Ogrin visited Laramie during Christmas break. The campus was empty and the weather was cold.

“For some reason,” Ogrin said, “I felt comfortable.”

Wyoming Cowboy

At some point during his years at Wyoming, Ogrin traded in his glasses for contact lenses, and he grew a beard. He still wears that Kenny Rogers-style beard today as he works, at 67, as a pharmacist in Louisiana.

“I look back at some of those pictures, and I had long hair,” Ogrin said. “I don’t think we could have facial hair when Fred Akers was coach. He was a disciplinary guy. After he left, I grew the beard.

“I think the only time I shaved it was when I started my job at one of the pharmacy places,” Ogrin said. “They had a rule that you can’t wear a beard, so I shaved it. After a year, they changed that rule, and I grew it back.”

While his days at Wyoming changed his look forever, the football was pretty good, too. That goes especially for Ogrin’s first year.

The 1976 Cowboys went 8-4 overall and 6-1 in conference to win the Western Athletic Conference. That earned Wyoming its first appearance in a bowl game since 1968.

“The first year I was there, we won the conference and did the Fiesta Bowl,” Ogrin said. “That was pretty exciting. I did letter that year, so I did play a little bit.”

Oklahoma (9-2-1 and 5-2) won a share of the Big 8 title and the trip to the Fiesta Bowl. On Christmas day, the Sooners, coached by Barry Switzer, beat the Cowboys 41-7 in front of a crowd of 48,174 in Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.

Ogrin made at least one tackle in the game.

The next three seasons at Wyoming were not quite as memorable. Akers left the school to coach at Texas, and Wyoming went 4-6 in 1977, 5-7 in 1978 and 4-8 in 1979 under head coach Bill Lewis.

“The next three years at Wyoming, we were just kind of a mediocre team as far as our record,” Ogrin said. “That was pretty disappointing.”

Disappointing doesn’t even begin to describe Ogrin’s senior season. That is when he suffered a knee injury that altered his career and life.

Big things were expected from Ogrin, who started every game of his sophomore and junior seasons.

But on a cold day, Ogrin worked out in front of a scout for the New York Giants. The workout was inside a fieldhouse, on a dirt floor usually used for rodeo.

“We were doing pass rush drills,” Ogrin remembered. “I slipped, and my knee just kind of slipped out. I felt a little pop, and I thought, ‘Oh man.’ That’s where it started.”

Among other things, Ogrin tore the anterior cruciate ligament. That was about a decade before surgeons started performing operations to replace the ACL. That type of injury could be a death penalty for an athlete’s career.

“The (scout) said, ‘Sorry kid,’” Ogrin remembered. “He was shaking his head. I knew I did something.”

Wyoming flew Ogrin to New York, where he was fitted for a special brace.

“It worked for a while, and then it would give out,” said Ogrin, who was named a preseason likely Top Defensive Player in the WAC by Skywriters.

Ogrin underwent surgery in December, meaning he had to miss the Blue-Gray Football Classic and the Senior Bowl. It also meant his chances of being selected in the NFL Draft went right out the window.

Before the injury, football magazines expected Ogrin to be drafted in the third or fourth round of the draft.

“Of course, I was pretty disappointed,” Ogrin said. “They’d come out with the draft prospects, the different magazines. I’d see my name in there as a potentially a fourth rounder. Of course, when I hurt my knee, I thought there was no chance of that.”

Ogrin has undergone eight surgeries on the knee — four reconstructions and four scopes.

“When I had the first one done, you’d be in a cast for 6 to 8 weeks,” he said. “You couldn’t move it. When you got the cast off, you your leg shrunk, so you had to go through rehab.”

Super Bowl champion

On April 8 and 9 of 1976, 17 rounds of the NFL Draft came and went. Some 487 players had their name called, and Ogrin was not one of them.

Today, the NFL Draft only includes seven rounds.

“I was kind of sitting by the phone,” Ogrin said. “Of course, the first day I knew nothing would happen. The second day, I didn’t hear any calls. It was about over. I was pretty disappointed, thinking, ‘Oh man, nobody is going to even give me a shot.’”

Then Washington Redskins coach Jack Pardee came calling.

“As soon as the draft was over, I got a call from three or four teams to sign me as a free agent,” Ogrin said. He focused on Washington and Atlanta.

“I ended up going with the Redskins,” he said. “They seemed like they kind of had a plan for me. So, I signed as a free agent, and it worked out pretty good.”

Maybe the best thing the Redskins did was place Ogrin on the Injured Reserve list. Then he got a paycheck and time to rehabilitate that injured knee.

“I went through everything as much as a I could,” Ogrin said. “That’s when they put me on the Injured Reserve. Back then, everything was the same as far as salary and everything. So, I was able to go through the whole season and kind of learn what was going on.”

Ogrin was teammates with some players left over from coach George Allen’s legendary Redskins players.

“When I signed as a free agent the first year, it was kind of surreal,” Ogrin said. “Some of the players who were there, some of the ‘Over The Hill Gang’ were there. I remember sitting in the locker room one time. It was before practice. They had ashtrays on their lockers because some players smoked. I’m thinking, ‘That is wild, having a cigarette before practice.’”

After going 6-10 and placing third in the NFC East, the Redskins fired Pardee following the 1980 season. Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs took over and led the Redskins to Super Bowl titles in 1982, 1987 and 1991.

Gibbs also cut Ogrin several times. The first time came at the end of training camp in 1981.

“After the last preseason game, I think I got cut then,” Ogrin said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t finish school. I was in engineering then, but I didn’t graduate. School wasn’t my No. 1 priority at the time. So, I was wondering what I was going to do next.

“I eventually came home. I was out hunting with one of my friends, Dennis Lowney. I came back in to town, and the next day I got a call late. They said, ‘This is the Redskins. We want you to come back.’ I was on a red eye flight on my way back to DC.”

Ogrin played in the final five games for the Redskins in 1981. He recorded six tackles as Washington finished the season at 8-8.

“You think it’s over, what do I do?” Ogrin said of being cut and brought back later in the season. “Then that happens. Then it happened again. What were the odds of that?”

The Redskins cut Ogrin again during training camp in 1982, the year a strike shortened the regular season to nine games. Again, Washington came calling for Ogrin to fill a need late in the season.

Ogrin played in three regular season games and two playoff games that season. He was in uniform, wearing No. 75, when the Redskins beat the Miami Dolphins 27-17 in Super Bowl XVII Jan. 30 1983 in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

Ogrin was cut again during camp in 1983. This time, the Redskins did not come calling, and their bid for back-to-back Super Bowl titles ended with a 38-9 loss to the Los Angeles Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII.

“After my fourth training camp, I wondered if it was going to happen again,” Ogrin said of a call back. “I think my luck ran out.”

While Ogrin did not play in Super Bowl XVII, he is still a Super Bowl champion. He has the ring to prove it, wearing it out occasionally.

“Yeah, not all the time, but I do wear it once in a while,” he said. “I can’t wear it to work. It would be banging around.”

While the rings aren’t as big and flashy as some of the more recent Super Bowl rings, it still catches some eyes.

“People are interested in it,” Ogrin said. “They see it, and they kind of know what it is. I just talk to them a little bit about it. It’s fun.”

USFL and Arena Football

While the Redskins did not call back in 1983, Ogrin was not done playing football. Not by a long shot.

In 1984, the United States Football League entered its second year, and Ogrin signed with the Denver Gold. That season, he led all Denver defensive linemen with 82 tackles (46 solo) and five sacks while playing for head coach Craig Morton.

The next season, Ogrin played again for Denver under head coach Mouse Davis. He had another strong season.

“That was fun because I played all the time,” Ogrin said. “I think I started every game.”

Before the USFL ceased operations in 1986, a handful of players picked the upstart league over the NFL. That included Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Doug Flutie, Reggie White and Herschel Walker.

“I remember playing against (Kelly) and Herschel Walker,” Ogrin said.

He never sacked Kelly, but Ogrin said, “I think I tried a couple of times. I tried to tackle Herschel. I had my arms wrapped around him one time, and that’s about as far as I got. I just kind of slid off of him, and he kept going. He was definitely a great one.”

With the USFL defunct, Ogrin figured he was out of football for good when his phone rang one more time. This time, he was getting called to play in the Arena Football League.

“I was working for some engineering firm, not as an engineer, but I was working in their office,” Ogrin said. “I got a call from one of my coaches when I was with the Denver Gold. He said, ‘What are you doing? Want to come and play in Arena Football for a season?’ I said, ‘Why not. I’ll give it a shot.’”

He was 30 at the time, and Ogrin again found himself on last-minute flight, this time to play for the Pittsburgh Gladiators.

“It was funny. I was working, then the next day they flew me down to Florida,” Ogrin said. “I got off the plane, I went and had a physical done. Then they brought me to the arena, gave me my equipment and I’m in the middle of a game playing both ways. I’m like ‘woah.’ I said, ‘What the heck is going on here?’”

Ogrin played on the defensive line and offensive line for the Gladiators. He was a tackle on both sides of the ball.

That turned out to be Ogrin’s last season playing football. His career ended with yet another knee injury.

“We were in Detroit or something, and I got caught up in a pile,” he said. “I felt my knee give out. That was the last time I injured it playing football. I had to have surgery on that one. So, Arena Football was good, except for that one.”

Then, Ogrin went back to school to get a pharmacy degree. He works in Louisiana, where he lives with his wife, Helen. He has three step-children, Virginia, Davis and Lillian, and two sons, Dylan and Christian (and his wife Austin) and a grandson, Tanner.

“As a pharmacist, I stand 10 to 12 hours a day. That’s tough on my knees. But surgery is down the road a bit.”

Ogrin knows that a knee replacement is in his future. It is not a matter of “if,” but “when.”

“In both knees,” he said. “I had one hip surgery, and I need another hip done.”

A lasting legacy

The call to the Montana Football Hall of Fame was a surprising one for Ogrin, who was enshrined into the Butte Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.

“I was thinking in the back of my mind, ‘Is this a joke?’” Ogrin said. “Am I on one of those shows that is setting me up?

“I was really surprised, to tell you the truth. I had a decent football career, for me anyway, so I was surprised. There are some really good players in there. I’m really honored and humbled by that.”

The list of Montana Football Hall of Fame inductees since the 2016 inaugural class includes eight players or coaches who were from Butte or coached in the Mining City. Ogrin will be No. 9.

“I’m in with some guys that, wow, they’ve had some great careers,” Ogrin said. “I feel honored to have that chance to be there also.”

When you play professional sports, you do not get caught up in thinking about the moment. You are just doing a job, Ogrin said. So, it wasn’t until after his career was over that Ogrin really looked back in wonder at what he had accomplished.

“I don’t think you really think about that when you’re there, involved,” he said. “I think when it’s over and you left, you kind of realize what you had experienced.”

That includes being on the sideline for the Super Bowl.

“It was a really great bunch of players and coaches,” Ogrin said of his time with the Redskins. “It was a good time. I definitely enjoyed the experience. Looking back on it, I feel very fortunate that I was able to even play at that level.”

Ogrin said he does not dwell on what might have been if he had not injured his knee. Well, not too much, anyway.

“When you’re a young kid, you always think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I want to do,’” he said. “It’s not that easy. When it’s all said and done and over with, I think you appreciate it even more.”

In Butte, America, the name Pat Ogrin still means something, even if Ogrin does not get the chance to visit his old stomping grounds very often.

That goes double for those who remember watching him play. It is tenfold for those who played against the Butte High Bulldog legend.

“I’ve always felt pretty cool that I said I played against a player who ended up winning a Super Bowl ring and having a terrific career,” Woy said. “I feel like it was a great opportunity to play against a great guy like that. He deserves this award as much as anybody.”

While he was definitely mean in the trenches, Ogrin will long be remembered for way more than that in his hometown.

“He was just a great kid. Really nice,” Ferguson said. “Pat Ogrin was a winner and really a nice kid. I really loved him.”