Seth Bachman first attended a football game last month at the 122nd Brawl of the Wild in Missoula. While most Montanans’ attention was on the annual Grizzly-Cats rivalry, a historic game that decided the conference title, a crowd of more than 27,000 at Washington Grizzly Stadium. There was another reason why the minority was there.
Bachman is one of 13 recipients of the Montana Athletes in Service Award, which recognizes student-athletes from the state’s public universities who have shown exceptional dedication and involvement in community service through the Montana Campus Compact during games. He was one of the.
“I had never been to a football game before, so it was great to be able to go into the stadium and walk on the field,” Bachman said. “I’ve had a desire to serve the community all my life. I just wanted someone to recognize me that day.”
Bachman, 35, is a sophomore at Flathead Valley Community College studying small business management and is captain of the college’s nationally rated Logger sports team.
Bachman was nominated for the award by Rogger Sports team advisor Ann Beal.
“I noticed early on that Seth always found something he wanted to do. He was always happy to have it,” Beal said. “If he needed a new practice log, he’d go cut down a tree. He’d drag a teammate out for extra practice, set up a new ax target, clean the arena, etc. He always does things without being asked and leads by example.”
Bachman, a veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq, first heard about Logger Sports more than 10 years ago while on his second deployment. He was wondering what to do after leaving the Army and considering attending college in Montana. When he saw that FVCC had a Logger Sports Club, the idea took root somewhere in his mind.
“I thought it was a really great sport and if I ever went to college, that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “But I completely forgot about it for 10 years until recently.”
After leaving the Army, Bachman returned to his hometown of Billings and later worked as an engine mechanic on the national drag racing circuit. That lifestyle wasn’t ideal for his young family, so Bachman moved with his family to the Flathead Valley, where he worked for Proof Research and then used his military education benefits to attend FVCC full-time. decided to attend.
As it turned out, he was still fascinated by the competitive world of lumberjacking and joined the team during his first semester.
“What really drew me to this team was the camaraderie I saw as part of the military and racing teams. Working together to achieve goals, win and be competitive, I really miss that. “It was,” he said. “I’m really interested in everything from the competitive side to the scientific side, like how sharp a saw is. Masu.”
Bachman quickly fell in love with the sport and became a top player in cabertoss (lifting 20-foot logs to measure distance), doublebacks, and pulptoss.
His favorite event may be the single dollar, “just you and the 7-foot saw.”
“This is like looking back at a personal version of this sport. At the end of the day, I’m the only one there, so whatever the result is, it comes directly from me,” Bachman said. . “But overall, logger sports remind me of track and field, because we all have strengths and weaknesses in individual events. We need to come together.”
Team success is a core value for Bachman. He is always willing to spend extra time practicing with his teammates or take workers into the forest to harvest and work on new trees. When he found it difficult to practice barring (also known as log rolling, where two contestants spar on a floating log) during the winter, he found a synthetic log for his team to train on and We worked with a local fitness center to find a pool. Time between swimming practices. That mentality led to him being named team captain this year.
“We always feel like we need to support each other, we need to represent the Flathead Valley and we need to embody the spirit of logger sports,” he said. “It’s a culture of helping not just your team members, but other schools and other people, no matter what. It’s a culture this sport has had for decades, and it’s a culture worth keeping alive.”
“This sport is different than other college sports,” Beal said. “This is a sport where you lend your best equipment to someone from another school and sit back and cheer while they use it. It really attracts the kind of people I call ‘keepers.’ . People who are generous and willing to help in any way they can will become lifelong friends. ”
Bachman is one of the “keepers” of the job both at FVCC and throughout the Flathead Valley, Beal said. There is hardly an hour in his day that he does not spend improving the local community.
As a volunteer committee member for crisis intervention training, Bachmann speaks with members of the sheriff’s department about veterans suffering from war trauma and PTSD. He is a member of Underwater, a nonprofit organization that provides scuba diving to physically and mentally traumatized veterans and first responders, and organizes cleanup dives in lakes around northwestern Montana. He is also a volunteer for the Soldiers.
Bachmann said his service-oriented mindset is “second nature.”
“It’s part of my nature, but it’s also a lesson I learned in the military about being selfless. Always helping others before yourself, this is a lesson that changed my life,” he said. Told. “My kids are growing up and watching me do these things, and I think about it a lot. What good leadership looks like and serving others. I want them to understand that doing so is how they achieve great things in life.”