BOZEMAN — In the history of Montana State football, the program has retired only four jersey numbers:
No. 78 for Jan Stenerud, No. 77 for Bill Kollar, No. 52 for Sonny Holland and No. 21 for Don Hass.
Stenerud is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Kollar had an NFL playing and coaching career that spanned nearly 40 years, Holland is Mr. Bobcat.
And Hass was an unassuming Glendive native who went on to star with the Bobcats in the 1960s, earning perhaps the greatest nickname in MSU history — the Iron Tumbleweed — and rolling his way to numerous Bobcat records.
The university announced Saturday that Hass recently passed away in Oklahoma.
“There weren’t too many like him, to be honest, in those days,” said Dennis Erickson, a former MSU teammate of Hass. “He was special. He broke tackles, he had great vision, and he just made plays all the time.
“He was a very quiet guy, but he was very much a team guy, and he had no arrogance whatsoever in him at all. You talk about a tough son of a (gun) now, man.”
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Hass rushed for 146.0 yards per game in 1966 and 101.5 yards per game for his entire career. Both are still MSU records.
He owns one of the legendary performances in Montana State annals. He carried the ball 42 times for 209 yards and a touchdown in the Bobcats’ 14-8 win over rival Montana in 1967. It was MSU’s fifth consecutive win over the Grizzlies, and they won their third straight Big Sky Conference championship that season.
“It made me one of the great quarterbacks ever to have played there, because all I had to do was hand it to him and get the heck out of the way. We won a lot of games there, and he had a great deal to do with it,” said Erickson, who quarterbacked the Bobcats from 1966-68 and held all the program's passing records at the time of his graduation. He was inducted into the school's athletic hall of fame in 1991.
“He was in a world by himself, as far as I’m concerned," Erickson continued. "He could play right now and be pretty danged good. He was very special. ... He was one of the best players that ever played for the Bobcats.”
For his career, Hass rushed for 2,954 yards and 29 touchdowns — 20 of which came in 1966, the single-season record for an MSU running back. He was a two-time All-American and played in the 1967 East-West All Star game.
Hass was inducted into the Montana State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1989, and the football team's most inspirational award is named after him.
More than stats, though, Hass was an eastern Montana kid who helped lay the foundation for future generations. Mike Person followed in Hass’ footsteps from Glendive to Bozeman four decades later.
“When I first got to Bozeman my freshman year, you look up and you see the No. 21 retired for the Iron Tumbleweed, you know that there's a lot of pride that goes into him being from your community,” said Person, who had a nine-year NFL career after finishing his Montana State tenure in 2010. “Just knowing that I would have the opportunity to be the next one from Glendive to play for the Bobcats was pretty special, and I always wanted to live up to his name.”
Hass died before Montana State’s historic win over Montana in the FCS semifinals on Dec. 20. Before the game, the Bobcats held a moment of silence for their fallen legend.
But during the game, maybe Hass was pulling the strings, as the Cats played with a passion and physicality befitting the Iron Tumbleweed.
“He'd be so proud of us right now, and I'm sure he was before he passed,” Erickson said. “I look at the team playing the other day against the Grizzlies, and it brought back a lot of memories. If people could follow Don Hass, they'd be very successful on and off the field.”
