Special Awards Salute: Dave Guffey (Montana), Lifetime Achievement Award

Special Awards Salute: Dave Guffey (Montana), Lifetime Achievement Award

• 2015 CoSIDA Special Awards general announcement/release

• Special Awards feature story schedule

Dave Guffey & The Montana Grizzlies – A Side-by-Side Walk In Victory Lane
by Lawrence Fan, San Jose State Athletics Media Relations Director

Steering an unchartered course for his university’s athletics rise to the top of its conference and national success for nearly 40 years, Dave Guffey paved the way for the University of Montana’s transition in the
state’s picturesque far western location adjacent to the Rocky Mountains.
 
Guffey, the Grizzlies’ associate athletics director for communications, personified reliability, dependability, consistency and
excellence in a 37-year career at Montana culminating with a 2015 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Lifetime Achievement award at the organization’s annual convention in Orlando, Florida.
 
From 1978 to the present, “Guff” was the Montana Grizzlies’ beacon of
lore, fact and knowledge after
growing up in Central California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley towns of Atwater as a toddler and, later, Modesto, after his dad, the late Charlie Guffey, retired with the rank of Master Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.  
 
Like the Valley’s rich and vast agricultural resources, Guffey became the resource for all things associated with Grizzlies athletics. He promoted, witnessed and reported on Montana’s Division I-AA and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) championships in 1995 and 2001, and six more FCS football title games, 14 men’s basketball post-season appearances since 1985, and numerous Big Sky Conference championships by the Grizzlies’ 15-sports program.
 
Guffey’s path to Missoula bore a resemblance to the daredevil motorcycle stunts by Montana native and showman Evel Knievel – calculated, measured, entertaining and wildly successful.
 
Raised in Modesto, California, Guffey was a versatile Modesto Junior College athlete who threw the discus in track and field and was a wide receiver on the Pirates’ football team. He would major in journalism at Fresno State, about 100 miles south of his hometown. Guffey wrote for and later became sports editor for the Daily Collegian and Insight campus newspapers and caught the attention of Fresno State SID Tom Kane.
 
“He was a great asset to me,” said Kane, who gave Guffey his start in the sports information field in 1974 as a graduate assistant covering baseball and assisting with football. “Dave was very knowledgeable. Our football coach, Jim Sweeney, had a saying, ‘Bulldog-born, Bulldog-bred and a Bulldog till the day I’m dead.’ That was Dave.”
 
“When covering a university for a newspaper, you had to maintain your ethics,” Guffey said about his transition from sports writing to sports information. “You couldn’t cheer for a team. But, when you work for a university, you’re part of the deal now. It made it a lot more fun to cover sports. That was one of the main attractions for me.
 
“One of the main qualifications in 1978 was someone who could write. It’s still important now, but not as much as before.”
 
After a stint at the Fresno Bee reporting on prep sports and serving as the sports editor for the Fresno Guide magazine, Dave and his bride of nearly 40 years, Mea Andrews, a Fresno State journalism major, too, made the trek to Montana. She would eventually join the staff of the Missoulian, the daily newspaper of western Montana, as a news reporter covering health, business and education. Together, they would raise two sons, Matthew and Patrick.
 
“Dave is the epitome of professionalism and dedication,” related Mick Holien, the veteran play-by-play radio voice of
Montana sports. “He is the essence of the athletics department with the number of coaches and ADs they’ve had. He is the one staple.”
 
As a SID who received a CoSIDA 25-year award in 2004, numerous CoSIDA publications awards, accepted a Scoop Hudgins Outstanding SID Award from the All-America Football Foundation, served on CoSIDA committees, and been a Big Sky and NCAA Tournament Basketball Media Coordinator, Guffey is a shining example of perfecting time management skills.

Guffey was one of the few Division I SIDs with primary football and men’s basketball responsibilities into the 21st century. If that’s not enough, he occasionally joined Holien as the color commentator for Grizzlies’ play-by-play broadcasts.
 
“It’s a great balancing act,” Holien added. “For two-and-a-half months (during the late fall and earl
y winter), he’s got to shuffle stories and handle different media. They didn’t expand the SID office. He’s the contact person for football and men’s basketball. Dave is very well organized and excellent at prioritizing.”
 
Together, Guffey and Holien collaborated on the book, “Montana Grizzlies: Odyssey to a National Championship,” published in 1998.
 
For many years, Guffey handled his SID responsibilities with only one full-time assistant. Still, he forged ahead and
impressed his superiors to earn three administrative promotions to his present status as the associate athletic director for communications.
 
“There are so many great people in our profession,” Guffey said about his chosen profession. “The average person has no idea what the workload is. There are people who couldn’t do or wouldn’t do it.
 
“I have so much respect for SIDs for the hours we spend. We’re underappreciated, but still it is a very rewarding profession.”
 
The balancing act also included serving as the chair of the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame since its inception in 1993, publicity director for United States Association of Blind Athletes National Championships and Special Olympics of Montana, master of ceremonies for numerous university-related functions, a Little
League baseb
all and a boys’ basketball coach for local YMCA and AAU leagues.
 
“You think of all the history Dave has witnessed
over the years, and it’s really remarkable,” Montana director of athletics
Kent Haslam told the Montana Standard after Guffey announced his retirement in September 2014.
 
“He’s seen the growth of Montana from a regional university to one that now has a nationally-recognized athletics program. He saw where the football program started and what it’s become today… He’s been a witness to it all and holds a lot of knowledge of this place. That’s very valuable, so we look forward to keep Dave engaged in what we do here, even in retirement.”

“Dave loved Missoula. It’s a place where he wanted to be. He worked very hard on all sports. Basketball was a big deal in Missoula back then and he had a soft spot in his heart for Grizzlies’ basketball,” said former Montana men’s basketball coach Mike Montgomery, whose eight seasons from 1979 through 1986 produced 154 victories during Guffey’s first eight years as the Grizzlies SID.
 
Guffey plans to keep Missoula as his home base. That will give celebrities like actor Dana Carvey, a Missoula native, and well-known sports personalities Brent Musberger and Phil Jackson an opportunity to catch Dave and his family out and around the city of 70,000 residents.

Guffey's likely to travel within the state, volunteer in new community activities, and spend time fly-fishing. But after having a hand and a voice in more than 450 Grizzly football games the last 37 seasons, he’ll also probably chart a course for beautiful fall weekends in the stands at a sold out Washington-Grizzly Stadium for his Montana Grizzlies.