Football

Griz linebacker duo representing alma mater of Missoula Big Sky with pride

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Sitting in the stands at his daughter’s volleyball game in Butte last Saturday, Matt Johnson had a pretty good idea why his phone was blowing up, one text after another hitting his inbox like a boxer working the speed bag. Johnson grabbed another parent with ESPN+ and there, on a tiny phone screen, they watched the replay of the few seconds that, 120 or so miles to the northwest, had made Washington-Grizzly Stadium explode – Levi Janacaro sprinting through the middle of Northwestern State’s punt unit, untouched until he gets to the personal protector, who can only nudge him onto an even more direct collision course with Demons punter Scotty Roblow; the ball coming free; Tyler Flink smoothly scooping it up and sprinting towards the end zone, transmuting the noise and chaos of the previous few moments into sharp fact: six more points for the Grizzlies.

It’s easy to hear the pride in Johnson’s voice when he talks about Janacaro and Flink, both of whom he coached at Missoula’s Big Sky High School. He’ll say it outright, too.

“More than anything, I’m just proud,” Johnson said. “I still stay in contact with them all the time. I sent them a message there after the game like, hey man, you guys rocked it. I’m super proud of those two and I tell them every year, ‘Make sure you guys know, you have to represent,’ and I feel like they do our school and our program proud.”

Janacaro was an all-state quarterback and Flink an all-state linebacker at Big Sky in 2017, when, as seniors, they helped lead the Eagles to an 8-3 record, just their second winning season since 2010.

That year finished with a 26-6 playoff loss to crosstown rival Sentinel. The Spartans have gone on to win the last two state titles, and have won 24 straight games as of this writing. The Eagles have won just nine total games in the five years since.

But on the east side of town at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, Janacaro and Flink are still carrying the torch for a once-proud program.

Before Sentinel’s recent titles, Big Sky was the last Missoula high school to win a Class AA state championship, all the way back in 1994. Their 2004 playoff win was the first by a Missoula school since that title year. Griz heroes like Jordan Tripp traced their roots back to Big Sky.

In recent years, that pipeline has all but dried up. Tight end/wide receiver Colin Bingham was the lone Big Sky representative on the Griz roster for a couple years in the mid-2010s. Colton Keintz, who came out of Big Sky the year before Janacaro and Flink, started at tackle for a few years before leaving the program.

Janacaro and Flink haven’t even gotten to that point yet – redshirt juniors in their fifth years in the program, they’re both still listed as backups at linebacker. Johnson still points to them as role models for his program, because they’re players who kept working through hard times and carved out roles for themselves, finding success on Montana’s game-changing special teams.

It’s the same route that he envisions for Big Sky football.

“They come and talk to our kids,” Johnson said. “And I think when our kids see that, like oh, yeah, those guys are from Big Sky, I think it carries on bigger meaning. … It’s not like they’re the fastest guys or the biggest guys, but they work their butts off, and they work hard to do things the right way.”

Now, when Johnson really wants to make a point to his players about the true rewards of hard work, he won’t even have to say anything. All he’ll have to do is queue up a few seconds of video and tell them to watch Levi Janacaro, storming through the middle of Northwestern State’s punt unit, and Tyler Flink, in the right place at the right time, with the loose ball bouncing right into his hands and nothing but open field in front of him.

“The ball was spinning around, bouncing around everywhere,” Flink said. “My first thoughts were just to get a hold of it and not let it go. I do not want to be the guy that picks it up and turns it over, you know what I’m talking about?”

About Andrew Houghton

Andrew Houghton grew up in Washington, DC. He graduated from the University of Montana journalism school in December 2015 and spent time working on the sports desk at the Daily Tribune News in Cartersville, Georgia, before moving back to Missoula and becoming a part of Skyline Sports in early 2018.

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