#PLANTTHEFLAG: Bobcat Club Provides Opportunities for MSU Student-Athletes

BOZEMAN, Montana – Montana State football player Level Price Jr. will never forget the moment.

"I remember the exact day," the sophomore cornerback says of receiving an athletic scholarship at Montana State after a season as a walk-on. "It was two days after spring ball (in 2019), I was in Coach Choate's office. He told me he was (awarding Price) a scholarship, and I almost cried."

Every student-athlete takes a unique path to becoming a Bobcat, but the leap of faith is greater for those without the benefit of an athletic scholarship. "We're proud and supportive of every Bobcat," says MSU Director of Athletics Leon Costello. "We recognize that each individual's circumstances and path to MSU are unique, but once they're here they are a member of the Bobcat Family and are supported as such. However, earning a scholarship is a powerful motivator for those that aren't on aid when they arrive. That's why the Bobcat Club so important, it provides the resources for our student-athletes to pursue their dreams."

The Bobcat Club takes center stage Tuesday night for the annual Blue & Gold Gala, although under unusual conditions. The free virtual event gives Bobcat fans and supporters of Montana State Athletics the opportunity to bid on auction items such as a trip to the 2021 Master's as well as other professional and college sporting events. The Gala begins at 6:30 pm, and registration is at bobcats20.givesmart.com.

Bobcat volleyball player Alexis Goroski, a senior from Phoenix, Arizona, said walking onto the MSU squad gave her the chance to play Division I volleyball, but the possibility of eventually earning an athletic scholarship funded by the Bobcat Club provided motivation. "I didn't have a scholarship my freshman year," she said, "but I received it for my last three years. Going through my freshman year I realized that if I kept working as hard as I can I can make opportunities for myself, which is really cool. Once I did well my first year I realized that receiving a scholarship means what I do in the classroom and on the court has an impact on the community around me, and people see that."

Jeff Mohl arrived at MSU in the fall of 2009 as an unheralded multi-sport athlete from Red Lodge High who only a few weeks earlier had decided to try his hand at the multi-events in the Bobcat track and field program. While he never considered attending school anywhere but Montana State, the son of two MSU grads still struggled with the decision to try his hand at college athletics.

"I didn't think I was good enough," Mohl said, but I met with Tom (Eitel, MSU jumps and multi-even coach) in the summer before I started in the fall. I wanted to be a pole vaulter, but I wasn't good enough to be a pole vaulter, and Tom said, 'You also high jump and hurdle so maybe you can do the multis.' I was like, 'I guess that sounds maybe interesting,'" and a joint decision between him and a high school teammate to give Bobcat track and field a try sealed the deal. "It seems like random chance or serendipity."

Mohl impressed almost immediately, saying that what once worked against him now was to his benefit. "I did improve a lot, especially right there at the beginning," he said. "In Red Lodge, where I grew up and went to high school, it snows until May. We had a cinder track, so most of the track season we were practicing on a basketball gym floor, and we might get a couple weeks or maybe a month of actually practicing on the track.

"Going from that to practicing every day indoors in the Fieldhouse that is as good as an outdoor track, where you can do anything you can do outdoors pretty much, was a huge shift," Mohl said. "Having that opportunity to practice that much more, and obviously having great coaching and so much support, was so much different than what I had in high school, that it really amped everything up and made my progress that much faster."

Mohl finished third in the Big Sky indoor championships in the pole vault and ninth outdoors in the decathlon as a freshman, and a year later improved to second in the decathlon and third indoors in the heptathlon. Things really started cooking for Mohl during his third year, when he finished 17^th in the NCAA Championships decathlon after winning the Big Sky Championship in that event and earning Outstanding Men's Field Event Performer. He was also the Mountain Region Field Event Athlete of the Year. He also finished second indoors in the heptathlon.

Having earned an academic scholarship that covered tuition before he arrived at MSU, Mohl said gaining athletic aid "was super helpful. Once I started getting funding for food and rent and books it made a pretty big difference because it meant I wasn't going into debt. I only had four years of academic funding, and in my fourth year we decided that I would be more successful in track if I stayed for five years, and I couldn't have done that without funding because my (academic) scholarship was running out so I probably would have had to graduate that spring and give up my last year of athletic eligibility."

While Mohl performed better than anyone anticipated in his first four years as a Bobcat, the fifth year was magic. Gearing toward the outdoor season, he earned All-America honors in the decathlon. MSU head coach Dale Kennedy said at the time, "As a coach I'm at a loss for words. Jeff's career has been nothing less than remarkable and goes down in history as one of the best ever at Montana State."

The adversity and achievement of his time as an All-America athlete and mechanical engineering major at Montana State for a rigorous post-graduate career. This year he earned his PhD from Duke University in neurobiology, and is about to embark on a career as a health care data scientist.

Price is following a similar path to Mohl's. Enticed to attend MSU by former St. John Bosco High School teammates Tyrel Thomas, now a senior cornerback, and Jalen Cole, he arrived without athletic aid in the summer of 2018 as a cornerback prospect with a good reputation and the approval of then-defensive backs coach Mark Orphey. He impressed enough as a redshirt to earn the aid that came before he'd played in a game for the Blue and Gold. He said the scholarship, provided through funds raised by the Bobcat Club, has been impactful. "It's real important to me because it took pressure off my parents" to pay for his college career.

But the aid has also allowed Price to remain at Montana State, a part of the country that "I didn't even know existed until I started looking for a place to play football." Price said he never thought he'd "be an outdoors type of guy, walking through the woods and stuff," but that he's appreciated the chance to enjoy Montana's natural beauty while playing for a top-flight FCS program. Price majors in marketing at Montana State.

A pre-med major at Montana State, Goroski's plan to study cardiac medicine at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom is possible because of her athletic scholarship. She said that juggling a difficult academic major with volleyball has been difficult, but worthwhile. "It hasn't been easy, especially when some of the courses we take are so lab-intensive that when you fail to be at class because of travel or practice or whatever you have to spend a lot of time on the side getting it done. But the way Athletics has it worked out we have so many resources and everyone is willing to help you at any time, which is awesome."

Mohl said his achievements both in the classroom and on the track while in Bozeman prepared him well for the success that followed. In large measure, those achievements became possible when he earned the athletic scholarship that supplemented his academic aid.

"I love track, it was a really important part of my life, and I think it affected my perspective in a way that I didn't appreciate until recently," he said. "Especially coming out of a small town, it can be kind of hard to move to other places in the world and have confidence that you can handle it, so having that background where I was competing with people on the national stage and going around the country to compete really helped my confidence that I could get into a different situation and feel I could handle myself and be able to compete there. That really affected the way I approached everything else I did in life, because I moved all the way across the country, I went to a bigger school in an unusual field, and I don't think I would have done any of those things if I didn't have a background of success in track."

Goroski sums up the benefits of athletic scholarships concisely. "It gives us opportunities."

#PlantTheFlag #GoCatsGo

As Montana State Athletics strives to develop the best and brightest student-athletes, support for the Bobcat Club Annual Scholarship Fund is crucial now more than ever. Donating to the Bobcat Club Annual Scholarship Fund's Plant The Flag initiative ensures not only that the 350-plus Bobcat student-athletes will continue to receive the resources needed to succeed in and out of competition, but that Montana State Athletics will rise above the pack stronger. For more information about the Plant The Flag initiative, visit MSUBobcatClub.com or contact a member of the Bobcat Club staff.

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#PLANTTHEFLAG: Bobcat Club Provides Opportunities for MSU Student-Athletes

Players Mentioned

Alexis Goroski

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