Small-town sports ...

Here's a photo I took last fall, showing a slice of small-town Montana life. The scene was a football game between the Grass Range/Winnett Rangers and the Highwood Mountaineers. Though the Rangers played very hard, there were only eight of them, half of whom were freshmen ... and so Highwood won in a blowout.

The Slaughter Rule ...

A number of filmmakers and journalists have given some attention to the topic of high school sports in small-town Montana, most notably the makers of the basketball documentary, Class C: The Only Game in Town. The Slaughter Rule uses as its backdrop the six-man high-school football teams in the Golden Triangle country north of Great Falls. The scenes are evocative and lonely, particularly those of a wintry game filmed up in Heart Butte.

The film is a fictional drama, though, and is less a study of football than it is of isolation and uncertainty, as its characters struggle to find their places in life. It's one of the most depressing and troubling films you'll ever see, but there's great cinematography and a fair amount of Montana insight. Another movie that's worthwhile, but definitely not for everyone.

Champions ...

I made another drive up to the Judith Basin yesterday morning, a striking and typically-gorgeous late-autumn Montana day. My destination was the town of Denton, where the undefeated Trojans were hosting the state six-man championship high school football game. Their opponents were the Roy-Winifred Outlaws, a newly-formed co-op team from two small schools an hour or so away. The Denton and Winifred teams have been rivals for decades, and so it promised to be a fun afternoon ... and it was.

Driving into Denton on the road that the Winifred fans would have used, I saw that Denton had tied streamers with their school's blue-and-white colors to the roadside reflector poles ... for miles. Out by the Judith, they'd hauled a bunch of huge circular hay bales to the roadside and spray-painted "Go Blue" onto them. Not to be outdone, Winifred and Roy had made an even bigger hay-bale sign nearby reading "Go Outlaws." When I arrived at the little field it was clear that most of the population of all three towns was there. Denton helped accommodate the overflow by providing temporary bleachers made of hay bales atop flatbed trailers.

I had a fine time, talking to a few of the locals, lunching on a cheeseburger, and taking lots of photos. Got to meet the author of the Small Town Football blog, as well. And I watched the game, which in typical six-man fashion was lots of fun.

But it wasn't a cliffhanger. Though the Denton folks had all expected to win, the team never really managed to get going, and the Outlaws scored the first points and never looked back. In the end the score was 53-20, nearly a blowout -- and the Outlaws were the new state champions. There was a little awards ceremony and then everyone streamed onto the field for hugs and high-fives and photographs.

It was a great moment, and the Outlaws deserve lots of accolades. They handily beat all three of the state's undefeated six-man teams in their playoff run -- a pretty amazing feat, indeed.

Underdogs ...

I'm finding that small-town football games are great excuses for long roadtrips ... and so yesterday I drove all the way out to Hysham to watch one of the semifinal games in the state 6-man tournament.

The Hysham Pirates were the host team ... they've been a powerhouse for years, and came into the game at 10-0, regarded by many as the best 6-man team in the state. This is a photo I took of their opponents, the Outlaws ... a co-op team of kids from the tiny high schools in Winifred and Roy. They came in second in their division but are a tough bunch, and managed to topple the previously-unbeaten Big Sandy Pioneers the week before. But the Outlaws had lost to Hysham back in September.

It was a beautiful but chilly day, and it seemed like a good chunk of small-town Montana was there. The little concession stand did a brisk business selling hot chocolate, and "lunches" that featured bowls of chili along with insanely-large homemade cinnamon rolls. The crowd was rowdy, and pirate flags waved proudly from the top of the tiny bleachers.

And the unthinkable happened, at least from Hysham's perspective. Winifred/Roy started out with two fast, unanswered touchdowns ... and they never looked back, cruising to an effortless 52-34 win. Next week the Outlaws play Denton for the state championship. The two teams are neighbors and long-time rivals, so it's likely to be a heck of an afternoon. I just might have to drive up.

Sports under a Big Sky ...

I promise you all that this is absolutely NOT going to turn into a sports blog ... but I have one more football photo for you. I ended up in the small town of Lima last Saturday afternoon, and watched one of the playoff games for the state 6-man high school football championship. The game pitted a plucky co-op team from the little towns of Reed Point and Rapelje against an evil squad from Dubois, Idaho.

It was a close game, but in the end the Reed Point/Rapelje Renegades were a point short. Regardless, though, it's hard to envision a finer setting for a football game than this:

Geraldine sports ...

One more photo from the Geraldine 6-man game today, before we move on to other topics. To me this is exactly how a football stadium ought to look.

Small-town football ...

I confess I'm not much of a fan of college or pro sports. I haven't been to an MSU football game since before a few of you were born, and when people mention the legendary Montana State-University of Montana sports rivalry I invariably just roll my eyes and snort, "It's only a game."

But despite all that, I went to a football game on Saturday.

Montana's still a heavily rural state, and close to half of Montana's high schools don't have enough students to field traditional football teams. Many of the smaller schools play in eight-man leagues, but the 28 littlest schools play something called six-man football, which is a very different sport. The field is only 80 yards long, it takes 15 yards to get a first down, and absolutely everyone is eligible to receive a pass. So the games are fast-moving, unpredictable, and a heck of a lot of fun.

To sample six-man football I drove up to Geraldine, where the Tigers were hosting a co-op team from Richey and Lambert. (The tiniest Montana schools will often bond together to field athletic teams -- otherwise they'd have no interscholastic sports at all.) It's 321 miles from Lambert to Geraldine, and the two schools sent a team of six starters and two reserves. Geraldine has a strong history of six-man football, and they had 13 players suited up ... not bad for a school with a total of only three dozen students. The weather was utterly frigid, and I think I was the only out-of-towner there.

And the game was a blast: constant motion and lots of excitement, the total opposite of the orchestrated military maneuvers you see in major-college ball. The ending was pure adrenaline, with a missed extra point, a successful onside kick, and a dropped pass reception that would have changed everything. When it was over, the favored Tigers had lost a 27-26 heartbreaker ... but the Richey/Lambert boys had something to celebrate on that long drive home.

I'm now a serious fan of six-man football, and I can't wait to go to another game. The playoffs start next weekend, and Geraldine is heading out to play the undefeated Hysham Pirates. It would be fun to watch, but I'm afraid the Tigers are going to get their butts kicked.

Elk country ...

Nope ... this isn't a post about hunting, nor is it one about fraternal organizations. The Elks are the high school football team in Augusta, Montana.

High school football is big in Montana, of course ... especially in the smallest towns and schools. Over two-thirds of the state's high schools have fewer than 200 students, though, and nearly half enroll fewer than 100 -- so it can be tough to assemble a football squad. The small schools deal with this by fielding six-man football teams. They play on fields that are only 80 yards long, and it's exciting stuff.

Augusta High is one of the little schools ... it had an enrollment of 36 last winter. Their six-man football team has been a powerhouse in recent years, and in 2008 they got as far as the state semi-finals. I took this shot just outside of Augusta in the fall of 2007, the year the Augusta Elks made it to the state six-man championship game. (They ended up losing to the Hysham Pirates, who managed an undefeated season.)