Bill Zupan views the plaque honoring his former teammates in 2005
THE GOLDEN GHOSTS: Members of MSU's Pre-War Football Teams Made the Ultimate Sacrifice
5/28/2018 2:00:00 PM | Football
Fourteen Bobcats perished during World War II
Across America, Memorial Day is a time of reflection and appreciation. Gratitude for those in military service has been especially heartfelt on the Montana State campus for a century, particularly when it comes to Bobcat football. Local hero Cy Gatton, a star for the then-Aggies football team, was one of 16 members of the student body who made the ultimate sacrifice during World War I, and many Bobcats served in later wars and conflicts.
But none brought more glory to their alma mater than the 14 Bobcat football players who gave their lives during World War II.
While football players from larger programs in more populated areas "got the front pages," former Bobcat star Bill Zupan once said, Montana State's stars got "the front lines." The first former Bobcat gridder to perish during World War II was Dana Bradford, and he was memorialized in the Exponent as "a fine athlete and a fine fellow." Where stories of gridiron glory once dominated, the pages of the school's student newspaper began tracking "War Service Opportunities" and activities of campus organizations related to the related effort.
Death notices in the Exponent came regularly. University of Montana transfer Wendell Scabad and Al Zupan, Bill's older brother and one of the finest of the 1930s Bobcats, perished in 1943 during domestic training accidents. In 1944 Jack Burke perished in Tunisia, John Hall died in an air crash over England, Newell Berg was killed on Saipan, Joe McGeever was killed by machine gun fire in France in the months after the D-Day invasion, Bernard Cluzen's aircraft disappeared over the Marshall Islands that October, Orin Beller was mortally wounded in France in November, and William Coey went missing near Marcus Island. The end of 1944 brought word that Johnny Phelan's airplane was shot down over Italy.
The news in 1945 was no better. Rick Roman was killed in France in February, and Kar Fye was lost in a firefight in Germany. Alton Zempel became the final Bobcat football player to die in action related to the Second World War, losing his life in an air crash in July.
As the war drew to an end, the losses suffered in tiny Bozeman, Montana, drew national attention. National radio personality Bill Stern named Montana State's 1941 squad his retroactive All-America team by acclamation due to the heavy losses, and columnist Frank Whitney noted in the Washington Post: "As students of Montana State College yell for their Golden Bobcat football team to roar on to victory when the sport is resumed, there will be lumps in their throats. … No college football team has been as hard hit by World War II as Montana State."
Research by brilliant historian, author and documentarian John Lukacs found that only Georgia Tech, which lost nine players and an assistant coach from its 1939 team, rivaled the sacrifice made by Montana State among the nation's non-service academy college squads. Notre Dame lost nine players from teams between 1925 and 1945.
Only the largest schools, and those with large military training operations, maintained college football programs through the war years. Many of the men who reconvened in the Blue and Gold were hardened war veterans, and Bobcat legend Gene Bourdet, the team's quarterback in '46 who became an assistant coach and later the school's Director of Athletics, commented years later that the playing football in the post-war years "was a lot of fun" compared to the horrors they had witnessed overseas. That 1946 squad became Montana State's first ever to advance to a bowl game, tying New Mexico 13-13 on January 1, 1947.
The only Bobcat football letterman to survive and return was Bill Zupan, who served in Patton's Army and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He played two years following the war, was a star on that 1946 team, and in 1947 returned a punt 26 yards on the hardscrabble Naranche Stadium field in Butte to set up Montana State's winning touchdown against the Grizzlies. That victory snapped a 10-game, 15-year losing streak by the Cats in that series. After college returned to his home of Centerville before settling in Great Falls and then Helena. He passed away in 2008.
Bill Zupan was the last known surviving member of Montana State's pre-war football teams, the final man to walk the beautiful Bozeman campus – he would tell the 2005 Bobcats that MSC was "a real nice college, very close-knit" – with the Bobcats who had perished during World War II. Those hallowed souls were referred to as the "Golden Ghosts" both on campus and across the nation, a group of men who thrilled crowds at Gatton Field in Bozeman and beyond but whose greatest work was done on training fields in the U.S., in the skies over the European and Pacific theatres, and on the hills and fields of Europe.
For that service, for those heroes and all the Montanans and Americans and citizens of the world who have fought for freedom through the years, we are all thankful.
But none brought more glory to their alma mater than the 14 Bobcat football players who gave their lives during World War II.
While football players from larger programs in more populated areas "got the front pages," former Bobcat star Bill Zupan once said, Montana State's stars got "the front lines." The first former Bobcat gridder to perish during World War II was Dana Bradford, and he was memorialized in the Exponent as "a fine athlete and a fine fellow." Where stories of gridiron glory once dominated, the pages of the school's student newspaper began tracking "War Service Opportunities" and activities of campus organizations related to the related effort.
Death notices in the Exponent came regularly. University of Montana transfer Wendell Scabad and Al Zupan, Bill's older brother and one of the finest of the 1930s Bobcats, perished in 1943 during domestic training accidents. In 1944 Jack Burke perished in Tunisia, John Hall died in an air crash over England, Newell Berg was killed on Saipan, Joe McGeever was killed by machine gun fire in France in the months after the D-Day invasion, Bernard Cluzen's aircraft disappeared over the Marshall Islands that October, Orin Beller was mortally wounded in France in November, and William Coey went missing near Marcus Island. The end of 1944 brought word that Johnny Phelan's airplane was shot down over Italy.
The news in 1945 was no better. Rick Roman was killed in France in February, and Kar Fye was lost in a firefight in Germany. Alton Zempel became the final Bobcat football player to die in action related to the Second World War, losing his life in an air crash in July.
As the war drew to an end, the losses suffered in tiny Bozeman, Montana, drew national attention. National radio personality Bill Stern named Montana State's 1941 squad his retroactive All-America team by acclamation due to the heavy losses, and columnist Frank Whitney noted in the Washington Post: "As students of Montana State College yell for their Golden Bobcat football team to roar on to victory when the sport is resumed, there will be lumps in their throats. … No college football team has been as hard hit by World War II as Montana State."
Research by brilliant historian, author and documentarian John Lukacs found that only Georgia Tech, which lost nine players and an assistant coach from its 1939 team, rivaled the sacrifice made by Montana State among the nation's non-service academy college squads. Notre Dame lost nine players from teams between 1925 and 1945.
Only the largest schools, and those with large military training operations, maintained college football programs through the war years. Many of the men who reconvened in the Blue and Gold were hardened war veterans, and Bobcat legend Gene Bourdet, the team's quarterback in '46 who became an assistant coach and later the school's Director of Athletics, commented years later that the playing football in the post-war years "was a lot of fun" compared to the horrors they had witnessed overseas. That 1946 squad became Montana State's first ever to advance to a bowl game, tying New Mexico 13-13 on January 1, 1947.
The only Bobcat football letterman to survive and return was Bill Zupan, who served in Patton's Army and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He played two years following the war, was a star on that 1946 team, and in 1947 returned a punt 26 yards on the hardscrabble Naranche Stadium field in Butte to set up Montana State's winning touchdown against the Grizzlies. That victory snapped a 10-game, 15-year losing streak by the Cats in that series. After college returned to his home of Centerville before settling in Great Falls and then Helena. He passed away in 2008.
Bill Zupan was the last known surviving member of Montana State's pre-war football teams, the final man to walk the beautiful Bozeman campus – he would tell the 2005 Bobcats that MSC was "a real nice college, very close-knit" – with the Bobcats who had perished during World War II. Those hallowed souls were referred to as the "Golden Ghosts" both on campus and across the nation, a group of men who thrilled crowds at Gatton Field in Bozeman and beyond but whose greatest work was done on training fields in the U.S., in the skies over the European and Pacific theatres, and on the hills and fields of Europe.
For that service, for those heroes and all the Montanans and Americans and citizens of the world who have fought for freedom through the years, we are all thankful.
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