MSU takes the lead in football and community donations

Cat-Griz Football? Food drives? Blood donations? It doesn’t matter, because MSU swept the floor with the Griz in all three categories.

On Saturday, Nov. 19, the famous 121st Brawl of the Wild concluded with a 55-21 ‘Cats victory. However, during this time, both UM and MSU were also competing fiercely outside the field to support their communities with lifesaving blood and food donations.

Though not as famous as the football game itself, the Montana Red Cross Cat-Griz Blood Battle and the Can the Cats-Griz food drive are critical to both communities and display a spirited effort by both schools to overtake the other off the football field.

The food drive began on Nov. 5 and continued through Nov. 19, while the Blood Battle held four blood drives on various dates for each school in Missoula and Bozeman, respectively.

Well, the results are in — and MSU emerged in the lead for both events.

This year, Bobcat fans donated 164 units of lifesaving blood while the Grizzly nation gave 100 units, meaning hundreds of patients across Montana will receive the benefits from both sides’ combined efforts.

“The collected units [of blood] were transported to Great Falls immediately after the drive where each unit was separated into individual transfusable products — red cells, platelets and plasma,” said Jacob Halligan, a member of the Air Force ROTC who helped organize a blood drive for MSU.

The Air Force ROTC had its own stake on the MSU side of the Blood Battle. Its blood drive alone had 36 donors registered and collected 32 units of blood, one unit above their goal of 31, Halligan said.

“This was an incredible turnout from the community and our AFROTC detachment,” he said.

In the past ten years alone, the Blood Battle has put more than 1,760 units of blood on hospital shelves all across Montana.

Matt Ochsner, communications director for the Red Cross of Montana, Idaho and East Oregon, also weighed in on the importance of the blood drive in a press release following the event. “Keeping hospital shelves across Montana stocked is a win-win no matter who you cheer for,” he said.

The food drive can also be marked down as a decisive Bobcat victory. MSU raised 613,054.12 pounds and dollars of food combined, while UM raised 428,022 pounds and dollars of food.

“This competition is so important because, collectively, these communities have been able to raise over 1 million dollars and pounds of food in the span of just two weeks,” said Kimberly Cleary, community engagement program manager at MSU. “This provides critical support for these food banks and shows how much these school communities stand behind their work.”

The Air Force ROTC detachment participated in the Can the Griz food drive. The team raised a net weight of around 694 pounds of food during their event alone.

“The volunteers at the collection site said they hadn’t seen so much food from any one organization in the entire two weeks they had been working at the site,” Halligan said.

Additionally, 2022 marks the 23rd year that the Can the Cats/Griz food drive has occurred. Adding the results of this year, the ‘Cats have successfully canned the Griz 19 out of 23 times.

On the competition between MSU and UM, Cleary said, “It doesn’t hurt that there is a little friendly competition behind things either – the strong school spirit in each community is a huge part of what makes this food drive so successful.”

UM will have another chance to regain its title next year, but for now, MSU has swept the board. Go ‘Cats!