Forever Bobcats

When Dan Davies was growing up on a ranch south of Chinook, branding, stacking hay and three-day cattle drives were as much a part of his life as his three brothers, 25-mile trips to town and the occasional warm winter winds that gave Chinook its name.

Butch Damberger, on the other hand, grew up 150 miles west in Cut Bank. The only boy in a family of three sisters, he lived in town where he was more likely to tackle buddies in a backyard than livestock in a corral.

So how did these two become friends with futures so entwined that they will both be inducted into Montana State University's Bobcat Athletics Hall of Fame this winter?

Credit it first to the Hi-Line bond that develops among so many who live along U.S.Highway 2 in northern Montana. Then learn how two coaches, both named Sonny, invited two outstanding athletes to walk onto the MSU football team one year apart. Teenage decisions made almost 50 years ago led to national championships, Big Sky Conference championships, decades-long service to the Blue and Gold, and a friendship that Davies and Damberger describe as lasting "forever."

"MSU has been in my family's blood for a long time," Davies said.

"We are both very proud of being Hi-Liners," Damberger added.

Damberger and Davies first met in the 1970s while playing football and basketball against each other in the massive Northern A Conference. Davies still remembers riding west to Browning for a Friday night game, returning home to sleep, then heading east for a Saturday game in Malta. Along the way, he passed players from other schools doing their own versions of the weekend shuffle.

"When you play them, you get to know those people," Davies said. "You know the coaches. A bunch of great stories and relationships get developed. That's been really special for me to have those relationships and continue them until today and beyond."

Davies and Damberger connected over that shared background when they roomed together during MSU's summer football camps. But before they could attend, they had to join the MSU football team. And that came about after each encountered a different coach named Sonny.

Davies met Sonny Lubick when Lubick was an assistant coach. Lubick was married to Carol Jo Harbolt, a Chinook native who grew up one block from Davies. (Although Davies lived on a ranch, the family moved to town every fall to make it easier to attend high school and participate in extracurricular activities.) Since Lubick visited Chinook on occasion, he had seen Davies play sports and invited the younger man to walk onto the MSU football team. Davies became a Bobcat in 1975 and earned a scholarship his third year. Knowing he wanted to become a coach, he played four years as a full-time reserve player who often ran plays to prepare the starters.

Damberger met MSU head football coach Sonny Holland in August 1976 after the Montana East-West Shrine Game in Great Falls. In a 15-minute conversation after that all-star game for high school players, Holland convinced him that MSU was the place for him.

"I had a really good game," Damberger recalled. "After the game, Sonny Holland met me in the locker room. He said, 'We can't give you a scholarship right now, but if you come, we will give you one as soon as we can.'"

So Damberger walked onto the MSU football team in September 1976. Four months later, he and Davies were celebrating an NCAA Division II national championship. After catching the only touchdown in the semifinal game against North Dakota State, Damberger, a freshman, scored a touchdown in the 24-13 championship against the Akron Zips. He received his scholarship that winter after a "surreal" fall.

"That decision (to play for MSU) obviously led to a good life I can't complain about," Damberger said. He referred to meeting his wife, Kathy, and basically ending up with three MSU careers: player, coach and administrator.

Damberger majored in physical education and minored in business, while Davies majored in secondary education with an emphasis on physical education and business. After graduation, the two went their separate ways but eventually reunited as MSU coaches.

Davies was an assistant football coach when the Bobcats beat the Montana Grizzlies in 1983 during the annual Brawl of the Wild. The following year, he celebrated another national football championship, this time as an assistant coach when MSU defeated Louisiana Tech under head coach Dave Arnold. In 1995, he led the women's golf team to the Big Sky Conference championship. He eventually moved into sports administration, noting that, "Coaching is a tough life. It really is." He retired in 2022 as senior associate athletics director.

Damberger taught and coached along the Hi-Line for about 11 years, then in 1991 he heard from Cliff Hysell. Hysell was a finalist for the head coaching job at MSU and wondered if Damberger would become an assistant coach if he were chosen.

Hysell got the job, and so did Damberger. With the help of Davies and his wife, Jan, the Dambergers found a house in Bozeman, and Butch Damberger coached eight years under Hysell, then three years with head coach Mike Kramer. After the Bobcats defeated the Griz in 2002, Damberger became assistant director, then director of the MSU Strand Union Building, where he remains today. As director, he oversees staff and students who manage the building, conferences and bowling alley.

Coaching on the college level is a "difficult, difficult profession," Damberger explained, remembering the workload and being away from family. Starting every August, he worked seven days a week, morning until dark, for months at a time. So after 20-some years as a coach, he sought a more family-friendly schedule and a new sort of team.

"The opportunity opened up to come over here to the Strand Union Building. I applied for it and went for it," he said. "This just fit perfectly."

But still ... can a Chinook Sugarbeeter and Cut Bank Wolf who became Bobcats ever really step away from MSU sports? Not yet.

Damberger now shoots the starter gun at track meets. At football games, when officials need to review a play, he takes headsets and a TV monitor out to the official on the field so he can communicate with the official in the replay booth. During basketball games, he generally keeps the official scorebook or operates a timer that runs the game clock.

"He's been an amazingly helpful guy for Athletics, working almost every home event we have," said Bill Lamberty, assistant athletics director and member of the Hall of Fame selection committee.

And Davies continues the job he picked up in 1988 at the request of Hall of Fame Bobcat radio announcer Dean Alexander. He has broadcast about 375 games so far as a football radio sideline analyst.

"It's pretty cool," Davies said. "I have worked for seven athletic directors and five presidents."

For their dedication, service and many accomplishments, Davies and Damberger were chosen for the Bobcat Athletics Hall of Fame, Lamberty said. They and seven others will be inducted on Jan. 19, the night before the Cat-Griz basketball doubleheader.

"I'm so humbled at being chosen," Davies said. "It's a big honor for sure."

Damberger agreed. "It's special to be selected to the Hall of Fame, but it's way more special when you are going in with one of your best friends," he said. "It makes it even a bigger deal for me."

It's a big deal, too, for their longtime friends.

"Just to see their successes over the years made me thankful I could be their friends. They both represent Bobcat football and the state of Montana so well," said Jim O'Day, a Cut Bank native who played with Damberger and competed against Davies in the Northern A Conference and was a former athletics director at the University of Montana.

Former Bobcat teammate Don Walsh said, "Through the entire history of Montana State College, then Montana State University, every athlete, in all sports, that wore Blue and Gold will forever be a Bobcat. But there are only a very select few that commit their entire life to Montana State University and Bobcat Athletics ... First the 'greatest Bobcat of them all', Allyn 'Sonny' Holland, then Dan and Butch."