ALL-TIME BOBCATS: Will Flaherty
6/16/2019 3:00:00 PM | Football
Will Flaherty played on Montana State's first football team, and several thereafter
JUNE 16: Each day until Montana State's 2019 season opener the staff of Bobcats By The Numbers will offer a look at one of the players to make one of the school's all-time teams, in alphabetical order. On November 21, 1933, The Exponent announced 37 players selected by a panel of former players and coaches, divided into three teams that comprised Montana State's "mythical" all-time team. In 1969, the Billings Gazette's Norm Clarke conducted a poll to select the school's all-time team, and again in 2000 Bobcat Athletics and the Billings Gazette selected a third all-time team. The BBTN staff added players from the 21st century.
Will Flaherty, FB, 1901
ALL-TIME TEAM: 1933 Exponent 1st Team
HONORS: None
A CLOSER LOOK: It's hard to get a firm grip on Will Flaherty's career, for a bunch of reasons. He was part of Montana State's first several football team's, first as a student and later as a rough-and-tumble rancher who with would come from the family ranch near Whitehall to bolster the Bobcats after the turn of the century. There were no real statistics kept at the time, other than (sometimes) scores. Rosters didn't really exist, there were no concrete eligibility rules, schedules changed mid-season, teams Montana State occasionally changed home fields mid-year. College football was nothing like the proposition it is today. Flaherty was successful in the agriculture business after his days playing football for the Bobcats, returning to campus often. People of a certain age will know him as the father of Marje Paisley, a Bobcat legend herself who was a beloved Montana State professor administrator for many decades. His brothers Dick and Charley were also mainstays in the MSAC lineup, and with the Jeffers brothers – Clarence and Clifford – chose sets of siblings comprised nearly half the squad for a couple of seasons. The Flahertys could flat play, and Will was widely regarded as the best of the bunch.
FROM THE EXPONENT: "Although he was a "Jack-of-all-Trades" his greatest ability was, the backfield. He is the oldest man to be chosen on the mythical eleven, having played on the 1901 aggregation. Professor Brewer ranks him as the outstanding fullback of that time."
Will Flaherty, FB, 1901
ALL-TIME TEAM: 1933 Exponent 1st Team
HONORS: None
A CLOSER LOOK: It's hard to get a firm grip on Will Flaherty's career, for a bunch of reasons. He was part of Montana State's first several football team's, first as a student and later as a rough-and-tumble rancher who with would come from the family ranch near Whitehall to bolster the Bobcats after the turn of the century. There were no real statistics kept at the time, other than (sometimes) scores. Rosters didn't really exist, there were no concrete eligibility rules, schedules changed mid-season, teams Montana State occasionally changed home fields mid-year. College football was nothing like the proposition it is today. Flaherty was successful in the agriculture business after his days playing football for the Bobcats, returning to campus often. People of a certain age will know him as the father of Marje Paisley, a Bobcat legend herself who was a beloved Montana State professor administrator for many decades. His brothers Dick and Charley were also mainstays in the MSAC lineup, and with the Jeffers brothers – Clarence and Clifford – chose sets of siblings comprised nearly half the squad for a couple of seasons. The Flahertys could flat play, and Will was widely regarded as the best of the bunch.
FROM THE EXPONENT: "Although he was a "Jack-of-all-Trades" his greatest ability was, the backfield. He is the oldest man to be chosen on the mythical eleven, having played on the 1901 aggregation. Professor Brewer ranks him as the outstanding fullback of that time."
Thursday, July 31
Monday, May 19
Wednesday, May 03
Wednesday, May 03
