BOZEMAN - You don’t even have to see him to know who it is.
When you hear his voice - Dean Alexander, the voice of the Bobcats, with a tenure that covered two of the three Bobcat Championships, you will remember.
He had a commanding voice - and knowledge and love of the game. Starting in 1973, doing color and in late 1979 he took over the play-by-play for the MSU Bobcats. Dean would continue that for almost 30 years.
He was as well-known as anybody associated with the Bobcats. At the entryway to the press and media area, it’s called the Alexander-Nicholson Media Area, named for Dean and former Sports Information Director Ken Nicholson.
“I know they’re 7-point underdogs, but I don’t want to be a cock-eyed optimist. But I have no doubt. I mean NO doubt what the results are gonna be down there.”
“How many times did you open that door?”
“Oh boy,” said Dean. “A lot.”
Dean was down a couple of stairs, in his press box room, at the desk next to the window, next to the bench on a tall chair. But he would usually stand for broadcasting the games.
“I’d open the window and the color guys would stand in the right corner so they didn’t freeze to death,” Dean explains.
Dean was there for championships for the Bobcats in 1956. In 1976. And in 1984.
“If you look down here, in ‘84, just look at the 3-yard line,” he says. “That’s somewhat snow-covered down there.”
“That’s where Joe Roberts got the interception, all the way down, we had a pile of snow down too. And they piled on him, and it was just lights out,” Dean says.
“And then it surprised me and everyone else in the stadium,” he remembers. “I’m sure it surprised Joey Roberts when he intercepted it and took off, because that’s as fast as he’s ever run, I guarantee you that.”
“That’s the play that, to me, that has been and will be remembered forever, regardless of anything else,” Dean says. “That was THE play in the history of Bobcat football. Because Joe literally ran them to South Carolina with that interception.”
“In 2002, the Bobcats ended a losing streak to the (UM) Grizzlies,” Dean says. “That one in 2002, in the snow, in Missoula. In the Junior Adams getting the pass for Lulay. For the winning touchdown. I’ll remember that one too.”
Dean has kept in touch and kept track of a lot of the players, including from the 1984 Championship team.
“William Johnson, he’s still in Bozeman,” Dean says while pointing to pictures. “John Kenna, Zack Peters from Butte, he’s from Fairfield. There’s Joey Roberts there. Mark Fellows. Lonny Burt. Kurt Timmer. Greg Wilkes. California Highway Patrolman now.”
“It’s been 37 years,” Dean says. “And people wonder ‘will it ever happen again?’ And then look at this year. It’s another storybook year this year.”
Dean has a good feeling for Saturday’s game.
“I know they’re 7-point underdogs, but I don’t want to be a cock-eyed optimist. But I have no doubt. I mean NO doubt what the results are gonna be down there.”
