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.
