Two coaches with ties to Jefferson High School will be honored next week by the Montana Coaches Association (MCA).
Dick Norden, a long time JHS basketball coach, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the MCA convention in Great Falls August 2-4.
Bill Mulvaney, a JHS graduate involved in football, basketball and track and field during high school, will receive one of two Class C Assistant Coach of the Year awards. The award ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, August 3.
Norden started his coaching career at Beach, North Dakota in 1971. After spending two years there, he went to Westby, Montana for three years, 1974-1976, where he coached Westby to a Class C boys state basketball title. From Westby he moved to Poplar for one year before he and wife Linda moved to Boulder, where they continue to live.
Under Norden’s guidance, the 1983-84 JHS boys’ basketball team won the state Class B title. Coach Norden’s impressive stats as head boy’s basketball coach show two state titles and a 405-222 win/loss record. In four years as a girls’ basketball head coach, his win/loss record was 65-48. He led the 1990-91 girls to first in the regular season, first at district, first at divisional and a tie for fifth/sixth at state.
Along with basketball, Norden has coached football and track and field and was a Little League baseball commissioner for 15 years. HIs coaching took him to the college level for two years when he was an assistant girls’ basketball coach at Carroll College. In all he has coached high school and college for 42 years. He has also been an athletic director nine times in his career. Norden still volunteers as an assistant boys’ basketball coach at JHS. His induction into the Montana Coaches Association Hall of Fame is yet another sign of the high regard coaches throughout Montana and the region have for him.
The assistant coaching award going to Mulvaney “recognizes that long-serving assistant coaches are rare and invaluable to the athletic programs they serve,” MCA Executive Director Don Olsen said. “Long-term assistant coaches are treasures that often go hand-in-hand with successful athletic programs.”
A 1972 graduate of Jefferson High, Mulvaney credits lessons learned under JHS coaches with helping to lift him to success as a coach. “I had many wonderful coaches and role models from my early days at Boulder through my playing days at Western (Montana College in Dillon),” said Mulvaney. “The Rieder boys, Dan and Dave, were two of my first inspirations,” he said. “They even took me hunting. And Dan was my baseball coach and he was the organizer of local baseball for many years. Dave coached my brother Tom in high school and I always looked up to Dave.”
Mulvaney lettered in JHS sports 11 times, four each in football and basketball and three in track. Over the course of his four years on the turf, he rushed for over 1700 yards on 310 carries and had only four fumbles for the Panther gridders.
On the basketball court he set records of 371 career assists and 160 in a single season, records that stood for many years.
On the track, he set a school records in the 100-yard dash of 10.1 seconds and in the long jump at 21 feet, 1 1/2 inches.
“We were fortunate to have some great coaches all the way through high school,” Mulvaney recalls. “Jim Connole was my basketball and track coach; and in football, Mike Charlton and Hank Elliott were our coaches.” Charlton and Elliott had the task of restarting the JHS football team from the ground up after it was defunct for about 15 years, and Mulvaney credits them with getting it headed in the right direction. “And I also remember Phil Koterba, who was an inspirational assistant basketball coach,” he adds.
“All these coaches were positive people that made you want to keep working hard and make yourself better. I think back to those days, and I really appreciate the support and coaching effort they put in to make my teammates and me better athletes.” That prepared Mulvaney for athletic successes in college and the coaching career which will be honored next week.
Much of his coaching has been done along the “Hi-Line” in northern Montana, and he is now a coach for the North Star Knights, which consists of student-athletes from Kremlin, Gildford, Rudyard and Hingham. Over the course of his coaching career, Mulvaney has assisted with winning 15 district championships, four divisional titles and four top-three state finishes, including one state title, all in track and field. He also has assistant coached basketball and football programs.
