SPOKANE — Dave Dickenson’s face lit up when he noticed Shannon Schweyen strolling towards him via a small crowd Saturday night at The Davenport Grand Lodge.
“Watch it, she has vicious elbows when she’s doing work the put up,” the former Montana Grizzlies quarterback explained with a smile, drawing a snicker from the former Lady Griz hoopster.
They ended up in Spokane alongside with previous Woman Griz coach Robin Selvig to be inducted into the Big Sky Convention Corridor of Fame as component of the 14-member inaugural class. It was a celebration of Schweyen and Selvig’s results on the basketball court docket as nicely Dickenson’s prowess on the football subject.
The reunion introduced back again a flood of memories from the early 1990s for the trio. The Woman Griz superior to the NCAA match each and every yr during Schweyen’s participating in days through 1992. By 1993, Dickenson experienced Griz football on the rise to the 1995 Division I-AA countrywide championship. Increase in achievement by the men’s basketball and volleyball groups, and it was a distinctive time at Montana.
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“Those are the glory years for myself and I think for all those fellas far too,” Dickenson stated. “It was exciting. It just felt like the faculty was sort of hitting a higher be aware. We hadn’t bought there in soccer, but we ended up transferring toward it. I did sense like we had a chance to set an exclamation mark on it.”
By the 1990s, Selvig experienced previously guided the Lady Griz from the AIAW into the NCAA and was on his way to earning a merged 35 Massive Sky titles and 15 Major Sky coach of the 12 months awards all through his 38-year occupation. He compiled a 511-61 file in meeting enjoy and gained 865 video games all round from 1978 to 2016 to rank 10th all-time in NCAA history.
The Woman Griz produced the NCAA match 21 occasions under Selvig. A single of the much more unforgettable ones for him arrived in 1991 all through Schweyen’s junior year. That is mainly because the men’s basketball group built the national tourney under coach Stew Morrill for the initially time due to the fact 1975. They’d repeat that feat in 1992 beneath coach Blaine Taylor with standout gamers like the late Delvon Anderson and existing Griz coach Travis DeCuire.
“Some of my finest friends back then ended up (coaches) Mike Montgomery and Stew Morrill,” Selvig stated. “They had been normally so near to profitable but did not fairly do it. The calendar year we each received it in Missoula, Stew was the coach, and I feel I was more happy for them. I was normally like ‘Oh, yay, we gained,’ but those people fellas, even however they were being good, I couldn’t really share the very same feeling with them. When they gained it, it was like, ‘Alright, we can all feel the same.’”
The Girl Griz gained 6 NCAA match game titles below Selvig. Two of individuals wins came through Schweyen’s taking part in times, in 1989 in excess of Cal State Fullerton and in 1992 above Wisconsin. She stays the Huge Sky’s only player to make an All-The usa group, which she earned as a senior in 1992 when she was one particular of 10 Kodak All-People in america. In 2014, she was voted No. 1 on the checklist of “25 Best Feminine Athletes” in Major Sky historical past.
Schweyen played on groups that won three Massive Sky regular-year titles and created the NCAA tournament four times. She was a two-time Huge Sky MVP and a 3-time Huge Sky tourney MVP. She’s the only Lady Griz player to have her variety (21) retired.
Whilst Schweyen was enjoying success, so too was the volleyball staff. The Griz created the NCAA match in 1990 and 1991 under longtime mentor Dick Scott. They returned in 1994, marking their previous physical appearance.
“It was fantastic times at Montana,” Schweyen said. “I truly glance again and I was incredibly lucky to be at Montana when we had some incredible runs in all sports. Our volleyball team was wonderful. Our football was phenomenal. Several moments men’s and women’s basketball won conference championships with each other. That was seriously neat. It felt like a little something much larger than existence at the time.”
Dickenson had to start with met Schweyen in May 1991 at the Very little Sullivan Awards. He was just graduating from Terrific Falls CMR following going undefeated as the starting up quarterback when primary the Rustlers to Point out AA championships in 1989 and 1990.
Schweyen, then Shannon Cate, was the 1991 women’s winner of the Minor Sullivan Award right after he junior period at UM. Like Dickenson, she experienced been a standout substantial school athlete in Montana, earning a few point out match MVPs at Billings Central and being named the 1988 Gatorade Montana player of the calendar year.
Selvig is also a Treasure State native, increasing up in Outlook in intense northeastern Montana and actively playing for the Griz basketball team in the early 1970s. The point that all a few are not only Grizzlies but are from Montana make their alternatives as hall of famers even more special to Schweyen.
“I believe it sort of is the epitome of what the College of Montana is about,” she reported. “It’s about seeking to hold all those Montana children that are specific and preserve them at home and hope that they want to be a component of that. I imagine that speaks volumes in the actuality that all a few of us are from Montana.”
Dickenson was on campus in the drop of 1991 as a redshirt. He was nevertheless two a long time away from starting a record-breaking job in which he would have his jersey variety (15) retired, would be voted No. 1 on the Massive Sky’s “50 Biggest Male Athletes” in 2014 and would be inducted into the Higher education Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
In the wintertime, Dickenson would check out Schweyen fill up the stat sheet on the hardwood. He recollects seeing her dislocate her shoulder all through the year, only to return time just after time. She played through that injury to score 34 factors in leading UM to an 85-74 upset victory at Wisconsin in the 1992 NCAA tournament.
“She had this shoulder dilemma and she would have to go out of the recreation, and then 5 or 10 minutes afterwards she’s again actively playing. It was incredible,” Dickenson claimed. “Later in my soccer occupation, I played a entire season with the exact same challenge. But she was the unique. I would have appreciated to see her in the WNBA if it was around. I think she would have had a very long, extensive profession. She was specific.”
Schweyen, who tried using out for the WNBA in its debut season in 1997, grew to become a scholar assistant coach in the 1993 period and felt she could nonetheless cling out with other athletes before getting a comprehensive-time coach the next 12 months. On Sundays, she, Dickenson and numerous other Griz athletes would head down Five Valley Bowl.
“I do try to remember he would generally thoroughly clean residence,” she stated of Dickenson. “We had been all in the 120s and 130s, and Dave bowled in the higher or mid 200s a number of times. He was a very great bowler. But I would see him all around campus and just experienced substantial regard for him and the way he carried himself, the way he led that staff and naturally just a winner.”
Selvig experienced gotten to know Dickenson at Stockman’s Bar when he’d go there to participate in playing cards in the late afternoon. It was there that Dickenson, who had one of his unusual non-football work as a bartender, bought to know Selvig and how amusing he was as a man or woman.
1 time, Selvig went down to Stockman’s way too early. It was Sept. 4, 1993, and Dickenson emerged on to the scene by leading UM to an FCS-file 39-issue fourth quarter for a 52-48 comeback gain above South Dakota Point out in his initially commence. The Griz would go on to make the playoffs for the initially time due to the fact 1989 that period, and Dickenson would grow to be a three-time Large Sky offensive MVP, a few-time All-American and 1995 Walter Payton Award winner.
“We were receiving crushed lousy and I left and missed just one of the greatest comebacks ever that Dave Dickenson led,” Selvig claimed. “He was anything else. I keep in mind just currently being amazed by him. I went, ‘Oh, he’s not that rapidly, he does not look that swift,’ but no person could capture him, and he made significant plays all the time. He produced soccer so significantly exciting to look at. You ended up never ever out of a activity when he was actively playing.”
Dickenson is the only one particular of the trio nonetheless in sports. He went on to a 10-yr actively playing vocation and received CFL titles as a participant and mentor. He’s now the head coach of the Calgary Stampeders.
Schweyen is out of coaching immediately after serving as Selvig’s assistant for 24 a long time and as the Woman Griz head mentor for 4 seasons from August 2016 to April 2020. Selvig has been retired due to the fact the 2016 season and enjoys expending time with his grandchildren.
Even 30 yrs later, the recollections of individuals early 1990s at Montana however stay on.
“It was a authentic beneficial time,” Selvig stated. “It was entertaining. All the things was great. Wonderful assistance from the campus and the local community and college students. It’s 1 detail that I’d like to see come again a small little bit, but there is a million reasons why it is not the very same.”
Frank Gogola handles Griz football and prep sporting activities for the Missoulian. Follow him on Twitter @FrankGogola or electronic mail him at [email protected].