Column: Found on the cutting room floor

As the interviews rolled in and the stories piled up about the 1988-89 Flathead Braves, I had this dread about all the good stuff among the 7,000 words that wouldn’t make the April 5 Daily Inter Lake.

It was a lot. Sacrificed for flow and space, it was not noted that the late Bill Epperly was rarely quoted in the local paper after Flathead’s boys’ basketball games that season. Assistant coach Fred Merrick got most of the lines. He did yeoman’s work.

“I can’t say enough about the seniors,” Merrick told the Inter Lake on March 4, 1989. “They really did the job and accepted their roles.”

The best line I found from Epperly came in a Missoulian story on the Braves’ 53-50 win over Butte in the AA title game: “It feels great,” he said. “I’m glad we didn’t screw it up.”

This is why sports writers like to talk to players. Not that Merrick was any bad actor. Nor was another assistant, Jim Hahn.

“They were very instrumental with me and Lon Savik,” said Jason Sonju, who like Savik was slightly undersized to be playing in the low post. “For weeks straight they took us aside and said, ‘We’re going to feed you the ball and you’re going to pump-fake.’ And every time we didn’t pump-fake, we did a lap.

“After a couple weeks I was like, ‘Holy cow.’ My average had jumped six or seven points. So tell them thanks.”

Done. Meanwhile Hahn had more to say 31 years later.

“The guy that was the glue was Eric Hilleboe,” Hahn said. “He was a great player. He knew he was a great player.

“He was on the ground floor of that cross-over then step through for the shot.”

It wasn’t his only weapon – the guard recalled Epperly’s son Jeff coming to practice and saying, “Hilleboe, you have to shoot like you are shooting out of a box that’s a foot over your head.”

“That stuck with me forever,” he said. “I still preach it.”

Researching the team three decades later, it is clearer now that Hilleboe could hit the three. But that wasn’t the extent of his gifts, either. If those Braves were a rock band, Hilleboe was lead vocals.

“We’re at practice and he got a little lippy,” teammate Craig Stotts remembered. “Epps told him to sit down, and he keeps lipping off.”

Epperly kicked him completely out of the gym, adding: “Don’t come back until you remember who’s coaching this team.”

“The next day at school we’re all like, ‘Dang, Hills, what are you going to do?’ Stott said. “He says, ‘I guess I’m going to tell him I’m still not sure who’s coaching the team – I’m not sure I can practice.’ ”

I feel like I can relate this story from one guy who was best man at Hilleboe’s wedding, about the guy that was best man at Stotts’ wedding.

Of course Hilleboe did agree that Epperly was the coach, and back to work they went.

Maybe this was old hat for Epperly. He’d coached another Flathead team to a title in 1982, and that bunch had also lost three times to the school it eventually knocked off for the championship (Missoula Hellgate). In 1986 Grady Bennett and Co. had ruled Missoula Sentinel all season, only to have the Spartans knock the Braves off in the chipper.

Whatever the reason, the venerable coach let his horses be a little wild. Did he like the hirsute Dana Hashley swamping underclassmen (“I spent a lot of time after practice hiding,” Renny Hellickson said. “I can still smell the Sweaty Armpit.”)?

Probably not. But he gave the Braves enough rein that they never quite broke stride.

So forgive us for indulging these memories, such as they are. I thought 1989 was a pretty cool time, and it turned out I had no idea.

“We thought we were the greatest,” Hilleboe said. “Somehow this team, that season, that game – it just keeps going on and on.”

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 406-546-1122 or by email at fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com. You can follow him on Twitter @Fritz_Neighbor.