Montana Lawmakers Take it To the Rim (Sometimes)

By Daniel Testa, 3-29-07

	Caption: Senate Coach (and in real life, President) Mike Cooney rallies the huddle. Photos by Dan Testa.

It’s not every day you attend an event where you can see the Speaker of the Montana House stretching his groin and the Senate President ripping his sport coat off screaming in someone’s face. And, the antics did not have anything to do with tax cuts, gun rights or that whole budget thing.

Wednesday night the aroma of Icy Hot was on the air, knee, ankle and elbow braces were donned, and the “pfft-pfft-pfft” of nylon pants filled the Capital High School gymnasium for the 15th Biennial Legislative Basketball Championship.

And lawmakers, for a change, played nice.

Then again, it’s hard to take yourself too seriously when you’re wearing goggles, mesh shorts and a T-shirt with “Play Horse” across the back, like Sen. Gary Perry, R-Manhattan. Each player had a self-effacing moniker printed on the back of their jersey.

“You can tell the age of the players by their socks,” said Sen. Don (Old, but Slow) Ryan, D-Great Falls, shortly before tip-off. The thicker, higher and whiter the tube sock, the more, um, senior the legislator.

Senate President Mike Cooney, D-Helena, coached the Senate team and did his best to mimic Bobby Knight at every opportunity, eventually getting himself ejected.

Before the game he joked that he was going to split the game into eight separate parts, then condense those parts to four. Thankfully, it was the last budget joke of the night (Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is possible to have too many “budget” jokes).

The game consisted of four 8-minute quarters and after three months of non-stop talking and sitting through 12-hour hearings, lawmakers looked grateful to run around, crash into each other and scream in a socially-appropriate context.

And some of these guys could ball.

Sen. Joe (Steve Nash Wanabe) Balyeat, R-Bozeman, led his team with 13 points, while Rep. Kendall (Van Dyk) Van Dyk, D-Billings scored 11 for the House. Not everybody had a funny nickname.

Not everybody brought their A-game, either. I’m no sports reporter, but I know when a ball bounces twice, that’s not a good pass. There were also a slew of airballs and a couple shots from the outside that managed to hit the outer edge of the backboard and blast out of the gym and down the school hallway.

The bleachers took on a disconcertingly high-school vibe as well, with the cool, young legislative staffers and lobbyists sitting high in the bleachers and heckling the players.

We, the press, were the nerds. We sat in the front at center court and hoped no one would throw anything at us.

By the night’s end, the Senate held onto their championship with a 44 to 28 victory, historically the seventh Senate win against the House’s eight. But the House players managed to raise more money for Big Brothers Big Sisters, the evening’s other purpose.

Ever the competitor, Balyeat chalked the Senate’s fund-raising disadvantage up to the House’s greater number of players.

Balyeat led his team in points and fouls. Explaining his occasional Wilt Chamberlain-esque style-of-play, he said “I like to throw the ball to the shooters, but sometimes we don’t have any shooters.”

Along with Sen. Jesse (LAZ-Y) Laslovich, D-Anaconda, Balyeat has never played for a losing team. He said he maintained that record last night and helped to raise some cash for a good cause.

“Laz and I are still undefeated and that’s the only thing that matters, aside from the money.”

If only the legislature got along this well the rest of the time.