The Bobcat Nation

Everyone: I'm trying to make a list of individual national champions at MSU. I'm told there are 32 rodeo national champions and 13 skiing champions. There are four T/F champions. The only names I have so far are listed below: Any help would be appreciated. I've found 14 team national champions.

Track and Field (4)
Ellie Rudy (2) - Pole vault
Shannon Butler (2) - 10K, 5K

Rodeo (32)
Bob Sauke - Wild cow milking 1949
Vic Small - Steer wrestling 1958
Hale Jeffers, Steer Wrestling 1960
Sue Burgraff-Melaney - Women's all-around 1961
Gary Murphy - Steer wrestling 1961
Karen Coleman-Miller - Goat tying 1964
Carol O'Rourke-Smith - Women's all-around 1966
Jan Wagner - Breakaway roping 1971; Women's all-around 1971
Robert Schall - Bareback 1972
Jock McDowell - Saddle bronce 1972, 1973
Lynn Perry - Steer wrestling 1972
Dean Perkins - Ribbon roping 1972
Butch Bratsky - Bull riding 1974
Bud Munroe - Saddle bronc 1975
David Griffiths - Saddle bronc 1978, 1979
Ken Lensegrav - Men's all-around 1988; Bareback 1988, 1989
Rex Phillips - Bull riding 1988
Shawn Vant - Men's all-around 1991; Bareback 1991, 1992
Dan Mortensen - Saddle bronc 1991
Lana Tibbetts - Goat tying 1992
Jason Jackson - Men's all-around 1994, 1995; Bareback 1994; Bull riding 1995
Kate Sharon - Goat tying 2011

Skiing (13)
Tor Fageraas - Nordic combined 1962
Dan Brelsford - Slalom 1978

1960: Hale Jeffers, Steer Wrestling

i don't know about the rest of you, but the pride i feel inside knowing we have the 1949 wild cow milking national champion nearly brings me to tears....

ilovethecats wrote:i don't know about the rest of you, but the pride i feel inside knowing we have the 1949 wild cow milking national champion nearly brings me to tears....

Yep, not too many colleges can make that claim. I can't not count it, so...
I imagine that was a more serious event back in 1948. Not a team event involving 10 teams of five big, drunk guys...rodeo's version of a demolition derby.

I really do not know the answer to this, so please don't think I'm asking to be an ass. Is rodeo still an NCAA sanctioned sport? Is skiing? In other words, do they have tournaments/national championships in those sports?

Skiing is, rodeo isn't. Rodeo is governed by the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Asso. -- NIRA.

GrizinWashington wrote:I really do not know the answer to this, so please don't think I'm asking to be an ass. Is rodeo still an NCAA sanctioned sport? Is skiing? In other words, do they have tournaments/national championships in those sports?

This is an interesting article that talks about rodeo not being NCAA sanctioned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/sport ... wanted=all" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks Gentlemen!

To answer the second part of your question, yes, they have annual national championships for both. The skiing national championships have been held by MSU at Bridger Bowl six times. The rodeo finals were at the Fieldhouse at MSU for 24 years until the late 90s, if I'm not mistaken. It was a huge event, but smokeless tobacco and MSU had a falling out or something like that.

Dan Brelsford was an NCAA Champion for MSU in skiing.

I actually sent an email to Lones (pronounced lo-ness) Wigger (a native of Carter, Mont.) today thanks to Tom Schulz at MSU, who provided me with his email. Wigger, for those of you that don't know, attended MSU and is an Olympic and World champion rifle shooter. I was just looking for clarification on rifle titles and was given his email by MSU staff. Wigger, who is a retired Lt. Col. in the US Army, won two gold and one silver medal in the Olympics along with 12 World championships and 60 U.S. titles. He is the first, and only, rifleman to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lones_Wigger" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/multim ... igger.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Impressively to me, he wrote back right away to validate the question I had. I told him thanks and wished him a Happy New Year. Thanks Lones.