Every community has a sports hero, but do you know who they are? Author Jeff Welsch, the Montana sports editor for Lee Newspapers, researched the record books; interviewed athletes, coaches, and local sports fans; and travelled across the state to determine each community's best athlete. The result is a one-of-a-kind sports book, Montana Greats: From A (Absarokee) to Z (Zurich), the Greatest Athletes from 264 Montana Communities.
These athletes-men and women, historic and contemporary-are the best in more than a dozen sports: football, basketball, rodeo, track, skiing, and more. Included are well-known "greats" such as World Series pitcher Dave McNally, who Sports Illustrated said was the best athlete to come from Montana, but the book is rich with lesser-known stories of local legends and high-school heroes.
In fact, the book is being praised for its celebration (and remembrance) of small-town sports heroes: "What I love about Montana Greats is how it memorializes the small towns in Montana [where] the identity of the community is strongly connected to their teams. Thank you, Jeff Welsch, for honoring their best athletes and for ensuring we never forget their legacies." -Joe Puckett, Peerless (Montana) native and author of The Dream.
The text (and Contents) of the book is organized alphabetically by community name, hence the subtitle: From A (Absarokee) to Z (Zurich).
Each athlete is profiled on a single page. There is a description of the athlete's accomplishments and a brief biographical update. Each profile includes a black and white photograph, usually an action photo of the athlete participating in his/her sport.
Although the Contents is a list of community names, the book features two useful indexes for quickly finding an individual athlete. One index is an alpha list of all the athletes; the other is the athletes listed by the sport they are known for (football stars under Football, etc.).
Montana Greats is a record of sports heroes and where they came from. It is a winning book for sports fans, historians, and all Montanans.
