One day during the 2009 college football season Steve Hackney, in his final year as the University of Montana’s equipment manager, told a local reporter, “Hey, got something for you.”

It was a ballcap, black with the Montana Grizzlies’ distinctive claw logo dead center. 

“I’d like you to have this,” Hackney, or “Hack” as everyone called him, said. “I like your work.” 

Hack passed away in early May at the age of 81, unleashing a flood of tributes on social media. As well he should: He kept jerseys on 300-plus athletes each year at UM; now times that by 30 and you have an idea of how many lives he affected. 

“Hack came in when I came in,” Bobby Connors, a quarterback in his playing days in Missoula, said. “Nineteen-eighty-one. He was frugal, but he was great. Tough but fair.” 

The early years, when punts were going backwards at windswept Dornblaser Stadium, were tight. Connors recalled a campus rec softball game in which it snowed, and everyone who had it threw on their Griz gear. Hack drove by, saw all this inventory that hadn’t been turned in and ertch, stopped and collected every sweatshirt.  

Rob Stack, recruited as a linebacker out of Whitehall, met Hackney as a work study kid in 1984. By 1990 he was full-time, completing the team everyone called, “Hack and Stack.”  

“I was going to work until I got my degree,” Stack, who succeeded Hackney as equipment manager, said. “I got my degree, but I never left. And it was all because of Steve. It’s the man you work for. He saw something in me I probably didn’t see.” 

“Who’s your favorite author?” Hack asked one of his employees, Chris Torgerson. “Alexander Dumb---? To be roasted by Hack was the UM equivalent of Don Rickles stopping by your table: an honor, really. Everyone was fair game; everybody loved how he got on them, but not too hard. 

“Some people you feel like there’s too much truth in it,” said Grady Bennett, who transferred to UM from Montana State and started three seasons at QB. “He was so fun. He knew how to give you guff. He’d always give me a little grief and at the same time let me know how excited to have me there to be a Griz.” 

He also set the tone. A sign in the equipment room read, “This not Burger King. You do not get it your way.” But if an athlete did what Hack asked, respected his many workers, he or she’d be taken care of.  

“Oh, just turn them around so the hole’s on top,” he’d say when someone asked for new socks, before handing out new socks. 

“Let’s get you to Butte,” he said to Ryan Nielsen, Torgerson’s close friend who also worked in the equipment room. When Nielsen asked why, Hack said, “So we can mine the lead out of your ---.” Nielson, for the record, now lives in Butte. 

Bennett feels fortunate: He played for Don Read and got his helmet from Hack, two people he calls, “Genuinely the best people in the world.” Hack’s job wasn’t as glamorous; it was pretty far from it. 

“But he did it in such a kingly way,” Bennett said. “It was pretty special. I loved him.” 

Hack will be missed. He already was missed, like during the 2023 title game against South Dakota State when Stack used a shoelace to piece together defensive tackle Alex Gubner’s torn (for whatever reason) jersey.  

Stack still uses some of Hack’s greatest hits. “Why am I putting a 30-dollar pair of gloves on a two-dollar body?” he’ll ask. Then he’ll dole out a new pair. 

I never got roasted, but I got a hat. I’m wearing it as I write this, and it has held up extremely well for 16-plus years. Like Hack, they don’t really make ‘em like that anymore. 

Sports Editor Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 406-758-4463 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.