Montana

Never say Marcus Rosser is afraid to try something different. Having spent two years in Kansas after starring in basketball at University City High, Rosser is primed for a two-year hitch in, gulp, Montana. The 6-8 power forward, who last season averaged 15.1points and 10.2rebounds for Kansas City (Kan.) Community College, has signed with the University of Montana. "I always wanted to get away from home, so I could grow up as a person," Rosser said. "I did OK in the Midwest and now I'm going to try the West, and see how it's different out there.

If Joe Montana had waited much longer to have back surgery, he might have suffered a permanent weakness and loss of feeling in his left foot, the surgeon who performed the operation said yesterday. Montana was "very close to permanent numbness," said Dr. Arthur White. "If we made him wait another week, he would have maybe had some permanent weakness and numbness. " The doctor, appearing at a news conference with Michael Dillingham, the 49ers' team physician, also suggested that Montana could play quarterback again before the end of the 1986 season.

The third time was the charm for Montana. David Bell nailed a three-pointer with 4.3 seconds left to lift the Grizzlies to a 70-68 upset of No. 17 Stanford last night in the first round of the Stanford Invitational. Montana (4-6) was facing a ranked team for the third time after losses to Michigan State and Gonzaga. Bell scored 24 points. Montana will meet Pepperdine in tonight's championship. Stanford (5-2) will play Richmond in the consolation. In other games: At Creighton, Brody Deren scored 14 points to lead the No. 20 Bluejays (8-0)

Montana survived a last-second rally to beat Appalachian State, 24-17, last night in Missoula, Mont., and reach the Football Championship Subdivision title game. Jabin Sambrano had caught a 25-yard touchdown pass from Andrew Selle with 1 minute, 31 seconds left to give the Grizzlies the lead over the Mountaineers (11-3). Montana (14-0) dealt with frigid temperatures and slippery conditions on a snow-covered field to make the championship game for the second straight year. The Grizzlies will play Villanova on Friday night in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Two explosions caused by runaway railroad cars rocked Montana's capital city yesterday, cutting off electricity and forcing the evacuation of thousands as wind chills dipped to 70 degrees below zero. The runaway cars derailed and hit a propane tank near the railroad tracks, setting off an explosion. Minutes later, the fire from the blast caused one of the derailed cars containing a highly flammable chemical to blow up, authorities said. A second car containing plastic also burned, producing a cloud of black smoke that prompted the evacuations.

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Cole McKenzie had a two-run double and Billings, Mont., overcame three solo homers by Rapid City, S.D., in a 6-4 victory Thursday in the Little League World Series. The boys from Billings won in the first appearance by a Montana team on Little League's biggest stage. McKenzie's double followed Connor Kieckbusch's two-run single to highlight a five-run fourth. McKenzie allowed six hits over five innings, and Sean Jones pitched a scoreless sixth for the save.

Only in Montana. We arrived in Big Sky, Mont., several days early for my son's wedding. We planned to do some sightseeing first. The day before our tour of Yellowstone National Park, I got a call from my daughter, Jenny, saying her truck (which was pulling her camper) had broken down an hour from her home in Dillon, Mont. My granddaughter told the tow-truck owner how important it was that they get to her uncle's wedding: She was the flower girl, her brother was the ring bearer, and her grandma had bought her a pretty long white dress to wear, and they just had to be in this wedding.

That quiet, frail-looking guy who dominated the NFL in the decade just ended looks like he might do OK in the new one, too. His team isn't doing so badly, either. He still doesn't have a nuclear-powered arm, still isn't 6-5, and still looks far more comfortable running past linebackers than meeting the media afterward to describe how he does it. But Joe Montana still wins. And in the big games, he is downright invincible. In the '70s, in the '80s, now in the '90s. And he probably will keep on winning as long as he can tolerate the inconveniences.

The little team from the Big Sky carried on the winning tradition of No. 12 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. Montana overcame a sizable height disadvantage and became the latest No. 12 seed to pull an upset, beating fifth-seeded Nevada, 87-79, yesterday in the first round of the Minneapolis Regional. Since 1985, at least one 12th-seeded team has upset a No. 5 seed in the tournament every year except for 1988 and 2000. A year after being overwhelmed early in a first-round loss, the Grizzlies (24-6)

David needed a bigger slingshot. UNLV, cast in the Goliath role and booed wildly by the crowd, stomped on little Montana, 99-64, last night in Tuscon, Ariz. to kick off a run for a second consecutive NCAA championship. "They're like an NBA team," a slightly stunned Montana coach, Stew Morrill, said. "Nevada-Las Vegas is for real. " Too real. Too big. Too fast. "You get past one player and there'd be another one waiting for you," Montana forward Kevin Kearney said.

The rapper French Montana and his entourage left Philadelphia on Friday afternoon after a day spent answering questions from detectives about a late-night shootout that erupted near Montana's tour bus, leaving one man dead and another injured. After Montana's sold-out show Thursday night at South Street's Theater of Living Arts, the rapper's bus was parked near the Holiday Inn Express on Columbus Boulevard around midnight, surrounded by hundreds of friends and fans, when a car with tinted windows drove up and shots were fired from a rolled-down passenger-side window.

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly says quarterback Everett Golson did well during a full workout and will start for the No. 5 Fighting Irish at No. 8 Oklahoma on Saturday. Kelly said Tuesday that Golson is at 100 percent. Kelly benched Golson against Brigham Young last week as a precaution, saying he wanted to give him more time to recover from a concussion suffered Oct. 13 in a helmet-to-helmet hit against Stanford. Kelly says Golson is feeling confident heading into the game against the Sooners (5-1)

Sherman Evarts Perkins, 87, a retired executive of a Philadelphia publishing company, who later raised cattle in Montana and Oregon, died of cancer on Sept. 20 at his home in Birchrunville, Chester County. Mr. Perkins had been vice president and director of the sales department at W. B. Saunders Co., a medical book publisher in Philadelphia that was founded by his grandfather. He gave up the office life in the 1970s and bought a ranch in Montana and raised cattle there and later in Oregon.

BILLINGS, Mont. - Rapidly expanding wildfires across a broad swath of southern Montana have caused injuries and burned homes, buildings and vehicles, authorities said Thursday, as firefighters struggled to contain the flames amid hazardous conditions. The precise toll of the latest spate of fires to hit the state remained uncertain. But at least three evacuation orders were in place and well over 150 homes were threatened by blazes that in some cases burned unchecked. High temperatures and erratic winds were forecast to make the fight more difficult.

BILLINGS, Mont. - Grass and freshly planted trees are sprouting in a new town park that sits atop the site of a vermiculite plant that once spewed asbestos dust across the mountain community of Libby - a welcome dose of normalcy for a city that has become synonymous with lung disease and death. It's a major milestone for the mining town of about 3,000 people near the Canadian border where an estimated 400 people to date have been killed by asbestos exposure. More than 1,700 have been sickened.

Bill Stoudt was so popular as an assistant football coach that after he retired from Sterling High School and moved to Montana, it wasn't unusual for his former players to make the long trek and visit him and his wife, Linda. Three of his former players - Charlie Mitchell, Bill Masciulli, and Dave Paulson - traveled to Montana last month to be with him during his final days. Stoudt, 74, died after a short battle with leukemia. He left hundreds of admirers. "Bill Stoudt was a great man," said Mitchell, who played football for Stoudt and was by his side in his final hours.

TWIN BRIDGES, Mont. — Ahead of my fishing trip to Montana in early July last year, my old fly-casting instructor gave me some troubling advice. "Cancel your trip," said Dusty Wissmath, who guides in the region. "Rebook for September, it's going to be epic. " It was the end of June and the fabled rivers of Southwest Montana — the Big Hole, the Madison, the Gallatin — were swollen and impenetrably brown from the runoff of huge snowfall, leaving them nearly unfishable.

A narrowly divided Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed its landmark 2010 decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited money on elections, deciding 5 to 4 that a state court was wrong to uphold Montana's century-old ban on political spending by businesses. The curt decision - two paragraphs issued without hearings or debate - further inflamed a national argument over the role of big money in politics, which has become a central feature of the expensive race for the White House between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

BILLINGS, Mont. - A West Virginia man who claimed to be a victim of a drive-by shooting along a rural Montana highway while working on a memoir called "Kindness in America" has confessed to shooting himself, authorities said Friday. Ray Dolin, 39, of Julian, W. Va., made the acknowledgment Thursday night, said Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier. The case remains under investigation and charges are possible, though none have been filed. Dolin claimed he was hitchhiking along U.S. Highway 2 west of Glasgow on Saturday when the driver of a maroon pickup pulled over and shot him in the arm. Authorities later arrested Lloyd Christopher Danielson 3d, 52, and charged him with felony assault.