Trio from LAHS playing football in Montana

By Pete Borello, Town Crier Staff Writer

courtesy of TJ Wood Former Los Altos High football players, from left, Marcus Boone, Mike Sage and TJ Wood have been reunited at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont. The three are expected to play significant roles on the Rocky Mountain football team, which opens its season Saturday.

You could call TJ Wood the pioneer - he was the first Los Altos High graduate to land at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont., to play football. Last fall, in his first season with the Battlin’ Bears, the Foothill College transfer started every game at offensive tackle.

Wood’s former Los Altos High teammates - back/returner Marcus Boone and receiver Mike Sage - came in the next semester. The transfers from De Anza College also quickly discovered they definitely weren’t in Los Altos anymore.

“I showed them around when they got here in January, and it was kind of a shock for them,” said Wood, who helped recruit Boone and Sage. “But it was kind of a shock for me, too - there was snow everywhere.”

A scene Boone won’t soon forget.

“The weather - oh, man,” he said. “I’d never seen snow fall before.”

For Sage, adjusting to what turned out to be a mild winter - at least by Montana standards - was easier than getting used to the small-town feel of a city of just more than 100,000 people.

“It’s a more rural way of life,” he said. “It’s so wide open - Billings is the biggest city in the state, and it feels like a suburb back home. It’s a different atmosphere.”

The most familiar thing for Wood, Boone and Sage has been football. No matter the landscape or temperature, football is still football.

Rocky Mountain competes in the Frontier Conference of the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletes), which Wood compared to the level of football played in Division II of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association).

“It’s the same as (junior college) ball or a little better,” he said. “Foothill prepared me well for it.”

That preparation helped Wood get recognized for his performance as a junior last season. The 6-foot-3, 270-pound right tackle was selected to the all-conference team by the Frontier coaches, validating the full scholarship he received from Rocky Mountain.

Juniors Boone and Sage are hoping for a smooth transition as well.

Boone’s versatility has him in the mix at several positions: running back, defensive back, kick returner and punt returner.

“I’m going to play a lot,” said Boone, competing with a returning player to be the team’s top running back.

Sage - who like Boone is on a partial scholarship - also expects to make an impact on the Battlin’ Bears.

“I think I can start, but there are a couple other good receivers, too,” he said. “I think potential-wise, I can have an all-conference year at the four-year level - if I work hard.”

The Los Altos alums have more than individual goals on their minds. All of them mentioned a desire to help turn around a Rocky Mountain team coming off a, well, rocky season. The Battlin’ Bears went 1-10 under new coach David Reeves.

“We had a bunch of young people,” Wood said. “This year, we should be better.”

The first chance to prove it comes Saturday when Rocky Mountain opens the season with a neutral-site game against Minot State in Miles City, Mont.

A preseason poll has Rocky Mountain finishing fifth in the conference, ahead of only new member Eastern Oregon. Boone knows that won’t satisfy the backers of the Battlin’ Bears, who draw a few thousand fans for home games.

“We’re the only football team in town - it’s like ‘Varsity Blues,’” he said, referring to the movie about a high school football team revered in a small Texas town. “I’ve had elderly people come up and ask me, ‘Are you going to have a better team this year?’ I told them, ‘Hopefully, that’s why they recruited me.’”

Boone also looked at colleges in Missouri, but he chose Rocky Mountain after getting a call from Reeves. Wood had recommended Boone to the coach and also spoke highly of Sage when he found out Reeves was recruiting the receiver. Wood found his way to Billings with the help of Marshall Sperbeck, his head coach at Foothill.

“He got a call from them and put my name out there,” Wood said. “I also looked at schools in Virginia and Kansas, but I was more excited about Rocky Mountain and it was closer to home. Being in the mountains kind of appealed to me.”

The oldest college in the state - it was founded in 1878 - Rocky Mountain has approximately 1,000 students. Not many of them come from California, and the three Los Altos grads are among only five from the state on the football team.

Billings is far from Los Altos - 1,208 miles to be exact - and there are no direct flights from the Bay Area.

When you go outside the city, “there’s absolutely nothing,” Wood said. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated Montana’s population at 935,670 in 2005.

It’s a place known for nature - not culture.

“There’s nothing much fancy about Montana,” Sage said. “But there are great mountains for snowboarding.”

Living where 91 percent of the people are Caucasian isn’t always easy for Boone, who is African-American, but he said the positives outweigh the negatives.

“I sometimes get those racist stares, and I’ve had pennies thrown at me at a bar,” he said. “But there are also a lot of really nice people to hang out with. It’s good living.”

Reuniting with friends he played with just a few years ago in high school is an added bonus.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun playing with those guys,” Boone said.

Sage agreed.

“It’s kind of a trip to be all the way up in Montana and playing with them again,” he said. “They’re both good players and good guys, and I’m glad to end my college career with them.”