MSUB Wins NCAA Community Engagement Award for Second Year in a Row

BILLINGS, Mont. – For the second year in a row, Montana State Billings is one of 22 schools to win the NCAA 2009 Community Engagement Award, the NCAA announced Thursday.  The Yellowjackets win a $500 grant from the NCAA to be used for future community engagement efforts.

MSUB’s “Native American Heritage Weekend” was tabbed the best community engagement project in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.  All 21 Division II conference winners were awarded the $500 prize and Kutztown University’s “Paint the Town Gold” project took home $1000 as the best overall community-engagement project.  Last year Northern Michigan took home the top prize in the first year of the community-engagement initiative.

The “Native American Heritage Weekend” took place Dec. 11-13 at Alterowitz Gymnasium on the campus of MSUB.  The weekend events kicked off with a basketball game between the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council National Basketball Team and the Little Big Horn College.  The game featured several recent, former Native American basketball standouts from colleges and universities across Montana and Wyoming as well as Little Big Horn College.  The game preceded the MSUB men’s basketball game versus Montana Tech as all Native American fans were admitted free to both games.

Plenty Coups High School Holiday Basketball Classic followed, Dec. 12-13, featuring six boys teams and six girls teams from across Montana and Wyoming.  Ten of the 12 teams were Native American teams.  The two-day tournament was a success as 6,100 fans attended and Native American vendors filled the foyer of the Physical Education Building with an assortment of Native American novelties.

Also on Dec. 12, 16, individuals and/or teams were inducted as the second annual class into the Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame at a luncheon on campus.  Over 200 individuals filled the Student Union Ballroom with the keynote speaker, MSUB Head Men’s Basketball Coach George Pfeifer, who spoke about one of the greatest Montana Indian basketball players of all time, Jonathan Takes Enemy, who Pfeifer coached at Hardin High School. 

Last year, MSUB won the community engagement award for its “Soccer Home for the Billings Community,” a state-of-the-art artificial soccer field at the College of Technology campus.  Local organizations, such as Magic City Soccer Club and Yellowstone Soccer Association use the field, as well as MSUB men’s and women’s soccer.