Jan Stenerud wore both #12 and #78 at MSU
Bobcats By the Numbers: #78
6/17/2015 12:12:00 PM | Football
Jan Stenerud, the Big Sky's only Hall of Famer, once wore 78 for the Cats
Every day we look at players who donned the jersey number corresponding to the number of days until the Bobcats open the 2015 season on September 3 against Fort Lewis College. The list of MSU football players by the jersey number is based on preseason rosters. The set of available rosters is complete from 1946-81 and '83-present. Only the 1926-27, 1934, 1937 and 1941 rosters are available in the pre-WWII years. Corrections, additions, or rosters that fill out the set will be welcomed enthusiastically via e-mail at: blamberty@msubobcats.com. Complaints about featured players also welcome, but possibly with less enthusiasm.
#78
The number 78 is retired for Jan Stenerud: There isn't much new to say about Jan Stenerud. He remains the only pure place kicker in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, having revolutionized his position during a record-setting NFL career. His path to Canton began under unique and inspiring circumstances at Montana State, where he was an All-America ski jumper who was discovered by the school's basketball coach, trusted completely and utilized properly by its football coach, and welcomed by players in a championship program. But here's what you might not know about Stenerud – he is a perfect example of everything good about college sports. Watch him on the podium during a ceremony honoring him as Bozeman's Hometown Hall of Famer (even though his real hometown is a couple of continents over) express deep love an admiration for his first football teammates, with whom he hasn't lined up for a half-century. Listen to a bunch older dudes, scattered across Montana and the country, speak with respect and love for a one-time teammate, the last among them to both begin and quit playing football. Process all that, and you begin to understand that there is a lot of truth to the old saw that teammates are forever. Teammates don't have to be friends or roommates, they don't have to line up next to each other or even on the same side of the ball, and they don't have to be from the same home town or state or country. But when you work with a group of people, hard and meaningful work, toward a common purpose, you form a bond. And when a group succeeds the way so many groups of Bobcats have over the decades, that bond is unbreakable. And for all of Jan Stenerud's great accomplishments, letting fans see that bond with his former teammates might be one of the coolest.
Notable #78s in the Bobcat Past: Jan Stenerud's jersey number 78 was retired in the mid-1980s, and between the 1966 season, when he took it off, and the time of its retirement, a handful of Bobcats donned it. Stenerud's countryman Oyvind Torp wore it in 1968, Dick Lyman lettered as a freshman in this number in 1973, and offensive lineman Pat Dunbar wore it from 1974-77.
Through the years: Don Delande (1956), Jan Stenerud (1966), Oyvind Torp (1968), Gary Beller (1970-71), Tom Frizzell (1972), Dick Lyman (1973), Pat Dunbar (1974-77), Randy Kearns (1978), Bob Kardoes (1979-82), Robert Doud (1983), Retired for Jan Stenerud
#78
The number 78 is retired for Jan Stenerud: There isn't much new to say about Jan Stenerud. He remains the only pure place kicker in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, having revolutionized his position during a record-setting NFL career. His path to Canton began under unique and inspiring circumstances at Montana State, where he was an All-America ski jumper who was discovered by the school's basketball coach, trusted completely and utilized properly by its football coach, and welcomed by players in a championship program. But here's what you might not know about Stenerud – he is a perfect example of everything good about college sports. Watch him on the podium during a ceremony honoring him as Bozeman's Hometown Hall of Famer (even though his real hometown is a couple of continents over) express deep love an admiration for his first football teammates, with whom he hasn't lined up for a half-century. Listen to a bunch older dudes, scattered across Montana and the country, speak with respect and love for a one-time teammate, the last among them to both begin and quit playing football. Process all that, and you begin to understand that there is a lot of truth to the old saw that teammates are forever. Teammates don't have to be friends or roommates, they don't have to line up next to each other or even on the same side of the ball, and they don't have to be from the same home town or state or country. But when you work with a group of people, hard and meaningful work, toward a common purpose, you form a bond. And when a group succeeds the way so many groups of Bobcats have over the decades, that bond is unbreakable. And for all of Jan Stenerud's great accomplishments, letting fans see that bond with his former teammates might be one of the coolest.
Notable #78s in the Bobcat Past: Jan Stenerud's jersey number 78 was retired in the mid-1980s, and between the 1966 season, when he took it off, and the time of its retirement, a handful of Bobcats donned it. Stenerud's countryman Oyvind Torp wore it in 1968, Dick Lyman lettered as a freshman in this number in 1973, and offensive lineman Pat Dunbar wore it from 1974-77.
Through the years: Don Delande (1956), Jan Stenerud (1966), Oyvind Torp (1968), Gary Beller (1970-71), Tom Frizzell (1972), Dick Lyman (1973), Pat Dunbar (1974-77), Randy Kearns (1978), Bob Kardoes (1979-82), Robert Doud (1983), Retired for Jan Stenerud
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