Terry Pugh laughed off the idea that he watched the most recent Camellia Bowl, played on Christmas day in Alabama.

That’s some 50 years and nearly a country removed from the ones in which he played.

“You’ve heard of the baker that doesn’t eat donuts anymore, right?” he asked.

Pugh is a 1969 Flathead High graduate who, between playing football for the Montana Grizzlies and now, has seen more than his share of sporting events. He built a business around them, Premier Sports Marketing -- think big scoreboard displays -- that was a leader in its field before Pugh sold it to Los Angeles Angels’ owner Arte Moreno in 1998. For a big number.

Now living in Scottsdale, Arizona, Pugh still has connections to Kalispell. He put his parents’ names, Earl and Leone, to donations he made to help build the KidSports fields.

We’re maybe a generation or two removed from the B&B store Earl and Leone ran, just as we are from the office supply store Doug Bain’s dad owned, with a summer employee named Jim Sweeney working the counter.

But Pugh still owns 16 acres somewhere along Two Mile Drive. “I still have my checking account from Glacier Bank,” he adds.

He also has his connections to the Griz, starting with those Camellia Bowl teams of 1969-70. He first roomed with Butte’s Ron Richards - dorms were assigned alphabetically, and Pugh led straight into the Rs - and later with Robin Peters.

“That was a real tough group of guys,” he said, noting players like Jim Nordstrom, Steve Daputo, Pat Dolan and Peters. Camellia Bowls aside, it was part of a crew that beat the actual Griz in an Alumni Game. Remember those? The Griz played four of them, from 1986-89.

Let’s go back: Jim Sweeney coached Flathead High to back-to-back state football championships in 1958-59 and had a big pull on Kalispell kids when he was Montana State’s head coach from 1963-67. It was rare enough when one or two of the Braves slipped down to Missoula.

For Pugh it was because Gallagher, a neighbor two years his senior, had gone there. For Gallagher, it was because Montana offered him a scholarship before Sweeney got around to it. Sweeney -- who lived next to Pugh, who lived next to Gallagher -- had promised, then drug his feet.

When Gallagher graduated UM, Pugh took over his outside linebacker spot and drew the attention of Gil Brandt of the Dallas Cowboys, just as Gallagher had.

Pugh figured he was on his way when -- after a party to celebrate Steve Okoniewski being taken by Atlanta in the 1972 NFL Draft -- he was jumped by two guys outside a downtown Missoula bar.

“Next thing I knew I was in St. Pat’s critical care,” Pugh said this week. “Five fractures in my bottom jaw, two top, a skull fracture. I lost part of my chin.”

He also lost 40 pounds that he had little chance to get back for his senior season. He played, wearing a special helmet the Cowboys made for him, his jaw still wired shut. He wasn’t quite the same.

“Kind of a major turning point,” he said. “Because I started focusing on other things. You talk about guys having magic moments in their athletic careers - that was a major moment for me. It redirected me to finding out what else I might do.”

He credits Gallagher for a lot. Gallagher went into business administration at UM; so did Pugh. Gallagher spent his summers bartending at Moose’s Saloon; so did Pugh. When Gallagher struck out for the real world, landing a job with IBM, it wasn’t long before Pugh decided he’d better do the same.

“I found a company in Spokane that did all the time and temperature signs,” he said. “They had a sports division, which did scoreboards. I liked that.”

In the 1990s he was tasked with replacing a display board at Times Square; he figured the old one might still have use, and it ended up in Washington-Grizzly Stadium. He estimates it cost $50-60,000 to move and install that first GrizVision, but that was a far sight better than the $350,000 it would take to buy new.

Such was the connection to UM, even if those trips to Sacramento didn’t come up roses (or Camellias).

“We weren’t really in the games,” Pugh said. “It was always a fun trip, and we always had great support. We’d fly down and it was a good get together, but in the same sense we wanted to win the game, and you want to play with your entire team.”

Fast forward to those alumni games; what a time to be able to throw on pads. The young Grizzlies went 1-3 against the oldsters before Don Read pulled the plug.

Days spent dealing with Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones would come later. Many Final Fours were seen. Now Pugh’s a consultant, he still has an office, and prominently displayed is a picture taken in 1986.

“One of my favorites.” he says. “We came back for that alumni game... And we beat them. That was a really fun thing.”

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or at [email protected].