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BILLINGS — After months of talk, Dewaine Lee and Jose Cervantes can hardly wait for the moment later this year when their rented charter buses are filled with gas and they can finally get to driving.
What's the big occasion? A once in a lifetime-type of season opener for the Texas high school football teams they coach.
Following up on The Billings Gazette and 406 MT Sports' reporting in January that Lee's Strawn and Cervantes' Milford — both located in small towns in the heart of the football-mad Lone Star State — were discussing travel up to Montana to face Custer-Hysham-Melstone and Highwood in a 6-Man football doubleheader at a neutral site, the wishful idea has now cleared logistical hurdles and been set in stone, all four head coaches involved in the game confirmed Thursday.
Highwood will play Milford at 11 a.m. and Strawn will play Custer-Hysham-Melstone at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 31 on Herb Klindt Field at Rocky Mountain College. It's a twin bill that will bring teams well over 1,000 miles away from each other together in a unique showdown like few high school football games ever in Big Sky Country.
With both Strawn and Milford having secured enough funding to make the several-state, 19- to 20-hour haul to via bus to Montana, Lee remarked that it's "a done deal" and all that there's left until kickoff is waiting.
"Our kids are in a bubble because where we live, we're so isolated," Lee, the coach of the Greyhounds since 2003 and a five-time state champion at Strawn, said. "They don't know there's a whole big world out there. ... That's why we agreed to do this, not so much to play football. Some of these kids will never, ever, ever get this opportunity again.
"I don't know this for a fact, but I think we're going to have a lot of people show up. ... We have a lot of people saying, 'We're going, we're going. Coach, we can't wait.' They're getting to Montana, so I think we're going to have a pretty good turnout."
The Saturday two-fer, which will have adjustable kickoff times in case of excessive heat, per Custer-Hysham-Melstone coach Brad Hoffman, will be the grand finale of a nearly week-long trip for the Texan teams. They will take the occasion to sightsee and get plenty of Montana hospitality from their friends and acquaintances at Custer-Hysham-Melstone and Highwood.
Strawn's volleyball team will also make the trip and play a to-be-determined opponent, Lee said.
Battlin' Bears football coach Chris Stutzriem and Pat Goldhahn, the director of the Rimrock Football Camp for 6- and 8-Man teams at Rocky each summer, were integral to helping ensure that the teams would have a venue to make their grand idea work. Ticket and apparel orders for the games will soon be available on the Rimrock Football Camp's website, Goldhahn said.
Rocky football begins its 2024 season Aug. 29 at Dickinson State (North Dakota), meaning Herb Klindt Field the following Saturday would be open. The Texas teams will get to practice at Rocky on the Friday afternoon prior in preparation for Saturday, while Stutzriem and Goldhahn will assist in making sure everything runs smoothly on game day.
"Pat and I are just there to make sure everything kind of behind the scenes are ready to go," Stutzriem said. "We want to promote this thing as best we can and be good. But I was very happy with all the coaches, I mean, they're right on top of everything (and) what they want to do, and so I think that's great."
"It's just going to be a great opportunity," Goldhahn said. "I just think it's going to be a great, great thing for the community of Billings as well as the four communities from Montana that are going to be involved in that, and then two from Texas."
Lee, who played football at NCAA Division II Eastern New Mexico, has been to Montana once, traveling to Missoula with his college team to face the Montana Grizzlies in the late 1980s. Cervantes said he's only been as far north as Colorado, and he's fielding his share of curious questions from his players, many of whom have never left Texas, about the trip.
Both should be bringing solid squads. Milford went 8-3 last year before losing to eventual state champion Gordon in the playoffs, while Strawn —
whose 2019 team was the subject of the Paramount Plus documentary series "Texas 6" — finished 7-5.
Milford is located about 50 miles due south of Dallas. Strawn is 105 miles due west.
On the Montana side,
C-H-M lost in last year's Montana High School Association playoff semifinals to eventual champion Centerville. Highwood, winners of 12 6-Man titles as a standalone school or co-op, went 1-8 a year ago but didn't lose a senior to graduation.
"Our kids are like, 'Are we going to see buffalo, coach?' or 'Is there going to be bears by the bus?'" Cervantes, a former assistant under Lee at Strawn, joked. "I told them I can't answer that. ... We played the state champion of Texas (and) we gave them the best game last year, and we want to build off that."
Hoffman and Highwood coach Brandon Gondeiro both plan to have their teams participate in social mixers with the Texas teams however they can, hoping to assist in helping to make their guests feel welcome before ramming into each other at Rocky.
Both coaches want to win and start their own seasons on the right foot, of course. But they also know few teams like theirs get to have experiences like the ones they'll have with the Texas teams, so they want to enjoy the time while it lasts.
And if it becomes a roaring success, perhaps similar endeavors could follow.
"You want to go out and you want to play and win, but at the end of the day, it's about the camaraderie and kids getting to play and a unique experience," Gondeiro said. "We want to have our best foot ready to go forward, and so our focus with that one being the first one will primarily be on what we do and what we want to try and do to be successful this year."
"It's pretty good experience for us," Hoffman said. "They're going to be an awfully good team and everything, and so just for us to go up against a team like that, it's just going to be a good experience. Whatever the outcome is, it's just going to be a good experience."
