Listen to the entire interview with Scott WerbelowWhen Scott Werbelow went through the shock of moving from sunny southern California to wintry Missoula back in January 1985, little did he know the impact it would have on his life a few short years later.
Werbelow, a quarterback, transferred to the University of Montana from Santa Barbara City College where - because the stadium sat just above the Pacific Ocean - focusing on a football game rather than the boats on the water was problematic for fans.
"You talk about culture shock," Werbelow laughed, "walking off the beach and 75 degrees to Missoula in January. It was quite an experience."
Werbelow's hotel roommate during his visit was Mike Rice, who turned out to be one of the finest receivers and punters in UM history. But Rice was from Idaho, so the weather wasn't an issue for him.
In 1988, back in California, Werbelow's brother in law from San Diego, who had just started working in sales for a company called Full Swing Golf that had just developed an indoor golf simulator, convinced him to set up an interview with the owner.
People are also reading…
Initially the owner said he wasn't interested in hiring anyone for the small, family-owned business. But his reaction changed when Werbelow told him he had just finished playing football at UM.
"The guy smiles ear to ear," Werbelow recalled, "the founder of our company, born and raised in Kalispell, Montana."
So Floyd Arnold gave Werbelow a sales job. Meanwhile, the golf simulator was refined and improved, the business grew, and Werbelow became vice president of the company about 16 years ago.
He's now the president of Full Swing Golf, still owned by the Arnold family, having been elevated shortly after Arnold developed brain cancer some two years ago. Arnold died just over a year ago.
Speaking of stadiums, Werbelow actually came to UM when promises of a new stadium were actually reaching fruition. Even with that, as had been the case with hundreds of recruits between 1967 and the mid 1980s, Grizzly football coaches avoided showing him and other prospects the "temporary" facility on South Higgins.
Werbelow and a perhaps more notable quarterback, Brent Pease, came to UM the same year, and both were more than a little chagrined to learn that the Larry Donovan-led Grizzlies were planning to run the option offense in 1985.
"We literally were watching, all through fall camp, film of Oklahoma," Werbelow noted. "We're watching these quarterbacks, whether it's J.C. Watts or Thomas Lott or whoever, and they're all running their 4.3 40s and the belly series, and we're getting coached up that, 'this is what you need to do.'
"We're looking at each other like, 'what's wrong with this picture?'"
Pease ended up being one of the reasons that Werbelow redshirted for the 1986 season after both had played in 1985, Donovan's last year as head coach.
Werbelow
considered it a compliment that new head coach Don Read wanted to
save him for 1987, the season after Pease would complete his time
at UM.
"One of two things would have happened," Werbelow said. "If I would have had a good spring (in 1986), I would have had an opportunity to redshirt. If I would not have had a good spring I think, realistically, the new coaching staff would have asked me to go along my merry way (because) I just wasn't in the plans."
He had a good spring, and even though he didn't start until part way through the 1987 season, Werbelow's name still shows up in the Grizzly record book.
He still owns the sixth-best single-season passing percentage mark of 65.8 from 1987, and still ranks in the top 15 among UM quarterbacks in both career passing touchdowns (16) and yards passing (2,099).
Rice had completed his UM career in 1986, so two of Werbelow's favorite receivers a year later were freshmen Mike Trevathan and Matt Clark, both future Canadian Football League players.
Another favorite target was tight end Brad Salonen, who also provided Werbelow with a funny story.
In Pat Kearney's book, "The Divide War," Salonen was featured talking about a touchdown pass he caught from Werbelow during the 1987 Grizzly-Bobcat game, won 55-7 by UM. Werbelow's father gave him the book as a Christmas present.
After talking about the catch, Salonen added some comments about Werbelow.
"He says, 'Scott was a great quarterback for me,'" Werbelow paraphrased. "'Scott didn't have a very strong arm, so that meant that he went to the tight end a lot, and that was good for me.'
"Sometimes the truth hurts," Werbelow laughed.
Prior to his junior college days Werbelow played high school football, basketball and baseball at Glendale High School in the San Fernando Valley. He gave up baseball after his junior year but played basketball on a league championship team as a senior.
Werbelow also had developed a love of tennis and logged a lot of time on the UM courts while in Missoula.
In fact, when UM was reinstating its men's tennis program, Werbelow walked on and played Grizzly tennis in the spring of 1988.
Beyond just the experience of playing football at UM and the relationships that came from that, Werbelow's fondest memory is how talented the offensive line was in 1987. That group included Larry Clarkson, future NFL player Kirk Scrafford and Bill Venard.
"I just remember it was so unique an experience," Werbelow explained. "My line was so great that 100 percent of the time when I got sacked it was because I didn't pick up a check on a blitz and didn't make the right decision and didn't get rid of the ball or check out of the play."
Werbelow and wife, Stacy, were married 15 years ago. They have a skateboard-loving son Jackson, 11, and a daughter Addison, 6.
But how Stacy and Scott met is quite the story.
Her grandmother lived next door to the house where Werbelow grew up in Glendale. Stacy's father grew up in that house and actually babysat for Werbelow when he was younger. Werbelow's parents attended Stacy's parents' wedding.
But Stacy and Scott never met until he returned from UM. Stacy was going to school in Los Angeles and living in her grandmother's house. The fates were at work.
"Not often enough," was Werbelow's answer when asked how often he gets back to Montana.
Most recently he, Stacy and the kids made their first trek to Missoula as a family almost a year ago to see the Grizzlies play Northern Colorado and "had an absolute ball."
"My kids loved it," Werbelow said, adding that they got the full if-you-don't-like-the-weather-wait-a-minute experience during that game.
"The weather was cloudy and cold, raining" Werbelow laughed, "It snowed at one point, and then by the end of the game, with like two minutes left, the skies completely cleared and it was sunny. And we went down for an hour after that game in the sunshine and threw the ball."
Werbelow stays in touch with Trevathan, now an administrator at Louisiana-Monroe, and Rice, who has an uncle in San Diego and visits fairly often. He also keeps tabs on other former Griz receivers Chris Murray, now a sports agent in the Minneapolis area, and Missoula product John Wilson, now living in Colorado.
He still watches as many Griz games on television as he can. He also has met Gerald Kemp, a high school quarterback who signed to play for Montana earlier this year from a high school about eight minutes from Werbelow's office.
Werbelow takes pride in having been in on the ground floor of where Grizzly football has gone since he left Missoula. He recalls the energy he saw at Grizzly basketball games during his playing days in Missoula and thinking it was inconceivable that the same energy could exist at a UM football game.
"To know where the program was when coach Read and his staff came in and said, 'here's the deal, we're turning this thing around,'" Werbelow said, "(and) to absolutely deliver on it is just unbelievable."
Every year Werbelow and five former high school buddies take a road trip to a place where they can see a college game or two and possibly a baseball game.
Last fall, their choice was Cincinnati, where they could watch the Reds play and also see Oregon State take on the University of Cincinnati in football.
They stayed in the same hotel as the Oregon State football team. As they were leaving for the football stadium, the Oregon State team was boarding its busses.
Standing at the door of one bus, checking off names, was Don Read, at that time a consultant for the Beaver football program.
"This is 20 years (ago that I played for Read)," Werbelow said, "so he has no idea who I am, but he sees my Griz hat.
"I say, 'coach, you have no idea who I am, but I gotta tell you, I threw an awfully mean middle screen for you back in '87.'"
According to Werbelow, Read's face broke out in a huge grin.
