The Griz gear alone weighs a ton.
Shoulder pads, gloves, practice jerseys, game jerseys, pants, belts, helmets, knee pads.
And then there’s the sideline equipment. Another couple of tons of heaters, electronics, cold-weather capes, exercise bicycles, coolers of Powerade, kicking nets, fans, and precisely 15 practice balls and 22 game balls.
Every square inch of cloth, metal, plastic, leather, rubber and titanium occupies a space in Steve Hackney’s head, and if any of it spills out his ears, there’s always the carefully itemized equipment sheets.
He is “Hack,” for 29 years the equipment manager for the University of Montana Grizzlies, the leader of team “Hack and Stack” (with assistants Rob Stack and Dave Griffin) and the guy responsible for every last nickel’s worth of Griz athletic gear.
Thursday was moving day. Then again, so was Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday and, when the Grizzly football team hits the road, any other day that ends in “Y.”
“It’s a little piece of life,” said Hackney, “that not many people know about.”
Oh, but everyone would know about it if Hackney, his two assistants and the 15 work-study students who move this mountain of stuff left even one little thing back home in Missoula.
But after nearly three decades of organizing this chaos, it’s clear that Hack can hack it.
“We check,” he said. “And check. And back-check. And then check again.”
On Thursday, four students and team Hack and Stack spent the afternoon in the athletic equipment room in UM’s Adams Center organizing and stowing the gear for 58 Griz football players, getting set for the Brawl of the Wild in Bozeman.
“Can I get those numbers again?” a student screamed.
“Yes, they’re 94, 96, 98 and 99,” Hackney answered back.
If Nos. 94, 96, 98 and 99 ran out onto Bobcat Stadium on Saturday with no pants or missing a shirt or helmet, the blame wouldn’t be difficult to assign.
But in Hackney’s decades in charge, and Stack’s 24 years at his side, nothing like that has ever happened with any of the Griz sports programs.
Well, not really.
“Once we packed (Griz basketball player) Scott Zanon’s bag with a pair of women’s shorts,” said Hackney, remembering that game in the early 1980s. “So we had to borrow some.”
Stack, who was a Griz football walk-on in 1984 and has worked this job since that time, witnessed the program explode in the 1990s, especially after the 1995 national football championship.
“What’s happened is the volume of stuff we put on these athletes has tripled,” said Stack. Players now bring at least four pairs of shoes, numerous practice jerseys and other game gear, and there is far more sideline equipment than was ever present at Dornblaser Field.
It all starts when the clock reads “00:00” in the fourth quarter on Saturday.
That means it’s laundry time, and everything gets soaped up and scrubbed, then dried. The other player gear is set aside to be inspected for repairs. A dented face mask? Oh yeah, that gets straightened.
All the big sideline equipment? That goes, too.
Once the laundry is done, any damaged jersey, glove or sock is sent away for stitching and sewing, and is typically back in the equipment room by Tuesday.
The lifespan of the $80 game jerseys is expected to be three years.
Thursday is packing day, and every article of game gear is placed in numbered bags for the student-athletes, who pick them up on Friday to take on the bus or charter plane – depending on where the road game is.
Also Thursday, most of the major game and training room equipment is loaded onto a rental truck, which will make its way to the airport Friday morning, only to be unloaded again into the jet’s cargo bay.
Once in Sacramento or Portland or wherever they’re headed, team Hack and Stack load it all in another rental truck then drive it to the stadium, where it is again unloaded and accounted for.
Hold tight, Griz fans. We’re only halfway there.
“When the game’s over,” said Hackney, “it’s all back in the truck, back to the plane, to Missoula and another truck, then back to the fieldhouse, and that’s sometimes around 2 or 3 in the morning. Then we get all the gear in, sorted into the laundry system so that all of it can be washed that morning.”
Rinse and repeat all season.
And with nearly a spotless record, team Hack and Stack is pretty proud.
“We try to be as efficient as possible, so there are no bobbles on game day,” said Stack.
Not one bobble of any of those 15 practice balls or 22 game balls.
That’s 15 for quarterback Dave Dickenson’s retired jersey, and 22 for running back Terry Dillon’s, the only two retired jersey numbers in Griz Nation.
“That makes it easy to remember at the end of a game,” said Stack.
Reach reporter Jamie Kelly at (406) 523-5254 or at jkelly@missoulian.com. Reach photographer Michael Gallacher at (406) 523-5270 or at mgallacher@missoulian.com.