“Read, Kollar, Holland: Big Sky Hall of Fame”

Murphy, who served as UM’s head athletic trainer during Read’s entire coaching stint at UM, passed out Snickers bars wrapped in yellow legal pad paper with a smiley face drawn on it and a penny tapped to the paper. Read had put Snickers and notes in athletic department staff mailboxes on Sundays after wins and had a superstition of picking up pennies facing heads up.

“Don Read was a dream to work with,” Murphy said. “I think he would be very happy with this honor. He passed away just before the national championship game this year. But I wish he could have been here for it. But I’m sure he’s up there watching.”

Montana head coach Bobby Hauck spoke in place of Read, who died at 90 years old in January, during the question-and-answer portion of the banquet. Hauck had gotten his first college coaching job under Read and worked with him when Read was UM’s athletic director and Hauck was the head coach.

Read finished his career as Montana’s all-time winningest coach with an 86-36 record. He held that mark until Hauck surpassed his mentor in 2018. Hauck then became the Big Sky’s all-time wins leader in 2023.

“Coach would be genuinely surprised,” Hauck said of Read’s Hall induction. “But I think he was always surprised at the type of impacts he had on everybody he encountered and on the University. He meant a great deal to the state of Montana, the University of Montana and to every guy that worked for him and every guy that played for him.”

Dave Guffey served as Montana’s sports information director for 37 years, including all 10 seasons Read coached at UM from 1986-95. He saw Read post a 10-0 record against rival Montana State, lead the Griz to the 1995 I-AA/FCS national championship and win Big Sky titles in 1993 and 1995.

Read also led the Griz to 10 consecutive winning seasons with an innovative pass-first offense. He was inducted into the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame in 1998, three years after he had surprised many by abruptly retiring after he brought UM its first national title.

“He never liked this kind of stuff so much,” Guffey said of the banquet. “He wasn’t media-shy like some coaches are, but he was just a down-home guy. Very unassuming person, especially for a head football coach.

“He would come and he would be very low key. He’s hard to explain. The best analogy is he was like your dad or grandpa. You just felt that he cared for you and he was genuine.”

The late, great Sonny Holland and former standout defensive lineman Bill Kollar are Montana State’s 2024 Big Sky Hall of Fame inductees.

Holland, who died in 2022, was a Butte native who won national titles as both a player (in 1956) and coach (in 1976) at MSU.

“I played for coach Holland for three years at Montana State, and everybody loved the guy there,” Kollar said Saturday. “He was into the fundraising aspect of it and stayed at Montana State the whole time. Just a tremendous coach, but just a tremendous person also.”

Kollar was an All-Big Sky player for the Bobcats from 1971-73 and was selected in the first round of the 1974 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals. Last year, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame a day after he retired from a long career as an NFL assistant coach.

“Then later on in the year, I find out I got into the Big Sky Hall of Fame, and it’s just tremendous. It’s hard to imagine getting that good of fortune back to back,” Kollar said, adding, “It’s just a tremendous thing to be able to play at Montana State and get this kind of honor.”

Montana State beat writer Victor Flores contributed to this article.