DILLON — Montana Western’s national championship celebration is far from over. This past week has been filled with appearances and dinners all over southwest Montana.
Monday, the Bulldogs, who won the NAIA Division I women’s basketball national championship on March 19, got to stay local and celebrate with their hometown fans.
The team got to ride in the back of a firetruck as it paraded down the main streets of Dillon for onlookers and fans who showed their support Monday morning. The team has a couple more appearances to make, including a trip to the state Senate.
Even with all the parades, media attention and public appearances the Bulldogs are making, the fact they are national champions has not fully sunk in for head coach Lindsay Woolley. For him, it’s just now starting to, little by little.
“Starting to, yeah,” he said. “Day by day. It’s funny, you try to lay down and go to sleep, and you can still kind of run through things in your head, all the great messages we got from across the state. It’s pretty cool.”
“People are just coming out of the woodwork, ‘I’m an alum from ’58,’ and, ‘My daughter went there, my grandmother went there,'” said Montana Western Chancellor Beth Weatherby. “And it was sometimes people who had no connection to Montana Western but were so proud that we were their Montana team in the championship.”
