Chadron State College Athletics

After he was named the outstanding athlete at the Wyoming State High School Track and Field Meet his senior year at Lusk High School in 1930, Montague was recruited to come to Chadron State. A bit of subterfuge may have been involved in landing him.  During a 1998 interview, he recalled that when two CSC athletes visited him he mentioned that he was “nuts about airplanes.”  When they told him the Eagles were going to start flying to their games, “it hooked me on going to Chadron,” he said.
We now know it was 66 years before the Eagles flew to a game. It finally happened when the NCAA paid their way to the playoff game at Central Oklahoma.
 Montague still did well at CSC. He earned all-conference four times. He played linebacker on defense, was an end on offense his freshman year and then moved to fullback for the rest of his career. At 6-3, 200 pounds, he was a big player who could run.  The Eagles were particularly potent his final two seasons, going 6-1 and winning the conference championship in 1933 and 6-2 the following year.
It’s not generally known, but Montague went with his CSC teammate, Dub Miller, to try out with the Chicago Bears in the fall of 1935. During the ’98 interview, Montague said he thought he would have made the team, but suffered a knee injury in a preseason scrimmage and was forced to give up football.
Again, things turned out well for Montague. He coached two years at both Lingle and Wheatland, Wyo., and then joined the Navy in 1942. During the next 28 years, he was the commanding officer of five ships and had three shore commands. He spent about 10 years showing the Chinese how to operate ships the U.S. had given them and three years working with the Central Intelligence Agency in the Orient.