Page 14 - Flathead Beacon // 1.22.13

14 | JANUARY 29, 2014
COVER
FLATHEADBEACON.COM

The upper-classmen had taken over

the back of the bus, and Scott Norby, a
junior, 165-pound heavyweight seated in The 1984 Whiteish High
one of the last rows, igured he and some School wrestling team,
friends might hang out downtown that pictured two weeks after
night, maybe go for a drive.
the bus crash.
“We were all just doing what kids do.
We were in the back and everyone had TOP ROW, LEFT TO
their own seat. I was taking up a whole RIGHT: Morris Poncelet,
Craig Thorstenson, Allen
bench seat, sitting with my back against Lowery, Scott Norby, Joe
the window with my feet hanging out Tabor, Dennis Spurlock,
into the aisle,” Norby recalled. “We were Tim Morehouse
telling jokes and screwing around. Ev-
eryone was asking each other what they BOTTOM ROW, LEFT TO
were going to do when they got back to RIGHT: Chris Mee, Mike
Whiteish. ‘Are you going home or are we Bos, Todd Ricker, Brent
Halverson, Larry Hanson
going to cruise around?’ It was Saturday
night.”
SEATED: Travis
The smallest member of the White- Brousseau
ish High School wrestling team, fresh-
man Travis Brousseau, who was com- PHOTO COURTESY TRAVIS BROUSSEAU
peting at 98 pounds, was seated up front
in the third row, just behind the coaches
and the cheerleaders. He and teammate

Brent Halverson were listening to the
song, “Bang Your Head,” by Quiet Riot,
on Brousseau’s Astraltune, the bulky,
pre-Walkman portable cassette player.
Up front sat Head Coach Jim With- A
row and Assistant Coach Wayde Davis, he was sitting among a group of football fter the dual against Browning, goal was to win and get that hug from
as well as Davis’ wife, Jana, his 3-year- coaches at the old Viking Bar. The 1979 the captain of the team, senior him. He was a real father igure.”

old son, Casey, and his 5-year-old Bulldogs had just won the Class A state Dennis Spurlock, who weighed
Spurlock was half-asleep when he
daughter, Brieanne. The young family 155 pounds, was relaxed and content af- football championships, which to this was jolted from his reverie, unable to an-
frequently accompanied Davis to out- ter having won a diicult match that af- day remains the only football champion- ticipate the unimaginable tragedy that
of-town meets, and while Casey sat nes- ternoon. In particular, his spirits were ship in school history, and the coaches would unfold in a split second, but which
tled on his mother’s lap, Brieanne even- buoyed by the accolades he’d earned were celebrating.
for months felt to some like a bad dream,
tually grew restless and scrambled to a from Coach Withrow.
“I had just moved from San Diego a neverending nightmare.
seat a few rows back, joining 17-year-old Spurlock had trained with the bur- and was living with my sister. We had “I had it in my head for months that
cheerleader Lisa Slaybaugh. Ahead sat ly, six-foot-three, 210-pound, tousle- gone out dancing and I walked by his eventually I was going to wake up from a

Stefanie Daily and Pam Fredenberg, the haired, mustachioed, and extremely table. He was at a table with a bunch of dream, that I’d wake up in the back of the
top candidate for school valedictorian, popular head coach since he was in football coaches and I looked at him and bus and we’d be pulling into Whiteish,
and a clutch of other young cheerleaders.
eighth grade, having convinced With- thought to myself, he is extremely hand- all of us safe,” Osborne said.
The capricious seat change, a youth- row to let him travel with the varsity Instead, the iery collision would go some, which he was, but I bet he’s a jerk,”
ful whim, would save the young Davis
wrestling team as manager, which, de- down in the record books as the dead- she said. “Then he asked me to dance and
irl’s life.
spite his young age, allowed him to de- liest in Montana’s history, killing nine g
that was pretty much it. He was humble
Evelop his chops on the mat. Unconven- people and injuring 18 others on board.
and generous and kind and hilarious. He
arly that morning, Withrow had tionally, he lettered that year, as he did would do the soft shoe for the kids before B

awoken in the basement of the every year of high school.
they left on the bus. And he had a laugh. arreling east on the cold,
home he and his wife, Emily, were
For Spurlock, whose own father You couldn’t help laughing with him.”
dark highway, Harold Belcher,
building just outside of Whiteish. They worked long hours as a logger, Withrow Knowing that Coach Davis’ family 63, of Cutbank, was piloting an
were living in the basement temporar- was more a father igure than a coach, was joining the wrestling team on the empty gasoline tanker with a trail-
ily, until they inished construction, and and frequently dished out advice about trip to Browning that winter morning, er pup attachment when the rig slid
their son, 14-month-old Ian, was slum- girls (“leave them alone,” he’d tell the Emily suggested that she and Ian come out of control, jack-knifed and began
bering peacefully in the cramped quar- young wrestler) and ofered counsel along, too.
sliding crosswise down the highway.

ters.
about college prospects.
Coach Withrow refused, saying he By the time the broadsided tanker
It was two weeks before the couple’s Splayed out in the very back of the didn’t want his wife and infant son along emerged from the darkness and the snow
second wedding anniversary.
bus near Steve Osborne, who was also a for the drive, out on the snowy roads.
lurries, there was scarcely time for Byrd
When Coach Withrow peered out captain, Spurlock drifted in and out of Later, Emily would regret the deci- to react. The truck collided with the bus,
the window and saw that it was storm- sleep. He had his sights set on the state sion, wishing that she’d been sitting be- its front end bursting into lames.
ing, he shook his head, knowing the championships, which were just three side her husband and the Davis family.
“What I remember was just a real
roads would be hazardous, particularly weeks away, and he was gunning for the “After the accident I was really mad quick sound of locking-up brakes. I was
along the constrictive stretch of High- state crown — a title that had long eluded at him because I would have much pre- sitting above the rear wheel well of the

way 2 and over Marias Pass, or “the hill.”
the ledgling Bulldog wrestling program, ferred to die with them. Those were our bus and I could feel the slamming on of
“He turned to me and said, ‘we have except for when the Tarr brothers, Mark best friends,” she said of the Davises. the brakes,” Norby said. “There was no
no business going out there,’ and I said, and Warren, won years earlier.
“We did everything together.”
swerving, there was no riding it out. It
‘no, you don’t,’” Emily recalled three de- Under the auspices of Withrow, most Before departing for Browning, the was just slam on the brakes and kaboom.
cades later.
locals recall the 1984 Whiteish wres- team milled around outside the high It was instantaneous, a split-second
Jim Withrow moved to Whiteish tling team as the program’s paragon school, waiting for their usual charter deal. I remember the loudest crack you
from Washington in 1979 to teach ju- achievement, and Spurlock wanted to bus and then watched in disbelief as the could imagine and then I was airborne.

nior high biology and, a short time later, capitalize on the squad’s momentum.
yellow school bus pulled up.
Everybody was airborne.”
to coach high school football and wres- “We’d just had the match in Brown- “Normally we were in a diesel char- The force of the impact sent the
tling, a program he shaped and deined. ing and it was a tough match. I had to ter bus, and here we are about to trek wrestlers and cheerleaders lying into
Most of the community had no concept lose a lot of weight beforehand and it was over the hill in this damn school bus,” and over the seatbacks, which toppled
of high school wrestling, including Em- tough, but I won,” Spurlock recalled. Norby said. “Coach Withrow wasn’t like dominoes as the athletes and the
ily, who upon meeting her future hus- “Afterward, Coach Withrow gave me a happy about it, but it was our only op- seat rends slid toward the front of the
band envisioned a theatrically roped-of big bear hug. He said, ‘you’ll get anoth- tion. Later that night, we wondered if bus in a chaotic heap, knocking some un-
ring, a la the gratuitous World Wrestling er hug like that in three weeks at you- anyone might have fared better or worse conscious and breaking others’ bones.

Federation that was popular at the time.
know-where.’ He was insinuating about if we had been on a big diesel charter bus. Spurlock remembers that his irst
When Emily irst laid eyes on Jim,
going to state. In my mind, my ultimate
Those were the conversations we had.”
conscious moment after the crash was