Pre-hyphen, he was the speedy tackle
Sep. 15—Before he was Jim Smithwick-Hann, he was just Jim Hann, a quick tight end who in 1971 caught two passes for 10 yards for the Montana Football Grizzlies.
In 1972, he was an even quicker right tackle.
"He was fast; he ran a 4.6-second 40," says his son, Shay Smithwick-Hann. "He told me, 'Tight end was the one where I could've made it, but I couldn't catch.'"
On June 11, Jim Smithwick-Hann passed away suddenly, which was unique for someone that had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease in January. There would be no steady decline: He had minor surgery on a Friday; he fell the next day and was just gone. He was 70.
The son of a minister, Jim had been a standout high school athlete in Aberdeen, Wash., and stayed there to play football for Grays Harbor Junior College. He was good enough there — playing against Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, among others — that Griz Jack Swarthout came calling.
There, his life kept getting charmed. He was coached by Jack Elway, with ballboy John Elway nearby. His teammates are a who's-who of Griz football: Barry Darrow, Terry Pugh, Mick Dennehy, Greg Salo and more.
"Greg Salo was one of my dad's good buddies," Shay said. "He was coaching Butte when I first started playing at Glacier. They killed us."
Let's back up: Jim also met his wife Lori at UM, who charmed him enough that after a short 14 years of courtship they were married in 1988.
Because why wait? There was a possible future Griz to raise, and a couple years after melding their names Jim and Lori welcomed Shay to the world in 1991. The quartet — daughter Grier came along in 1993 — watched from near the 50-yard line at Washington-Grizzly Stadium as Montana built its Cat-Griz winning streak to 17 games and won national championships in 1995 and 2001.
Things were really taking off. After Shay had roamed halls of Glacier High for a couple years, his dad took him on a tour of colleges and camps that included, but wasn't limited to, Montana and Montana State.
The Bobcats offered first. Two days later Montana offered. Jim didn't press, and Shay reserved his decision until after his official visits. But the trip he made to UM, where a dormitory is named for his grandfather Early "Burly" Miller, sealed the deal.
"I was pretty much, 'You know, if in the next five years football doesn't work out, where do I want to spend my time?' " Shay remembered. "The Bobcats honestly recruited me pretty hard. Coach Hauck had left. Jordy Johnson had committed (to UM)."
Jim Smithwick-Hann's son was recruited as a quarterback, but who knew what might happen. Yet for a time — from the second quarter of a game on Oct. 22, 2012 through the end of that season — Shay Smithwick-Hann was Montana's QB, and one wonders how pumped his dad must have been.
"I think he was just proud of somebody accomplishing something he'd thought about since he was little," his son offered.
That first game, though. It was spectacular, or as the quarterback on the field remembered, chaotic. Smithwick-Hann threw for 309 yards and three touchdowns in relief of starter Trent McKinney. But North Dakota's QB, a guy named Braden Hansen, threw for a Big Sky Conference-record 660 yards in the Hawks' 40-34 win.
"I just remember that quarterback," Smithwick-Hann said of Braden, who threw five TD passes, including one to current New York Giant Kenny Golladay. "He was a lefty. It was like in basketball, when they say you're in the zone. He was. It was incredible."
Two years later Smithwick-Hann was on the field when Montana got a measure of revenge, beating North Dakota 18-15. Soon he was entering into a financial career, and rushing into a marriage to Grace after a scant eight-plus years of dating.
He moved to Ameriprise Financial's Kalispell office in 2017, and one wonders how much golf a father and son can possibly play.
But in 2018 Jim's hip was bothering him, and after a replacement seemed to fix that, back issues and a case of drop foot cropped up. An ALS diagnosis often happens after many possibilities are exhausted; it also usually strikes younger men.
When it came, Jim Smithwick-Hann — who'd retired after 30 years of teaching, 27 of them in Kalispell, in 2010 — was upbeat.
"If you sat at a table, and had a conversation with him, you wouldn't know anything was wrong," said his son, who took his dad to the Waste Management Open in Scottsdale in February. "It's an ugly one. There's really no cure. But he never got down. He was pretty great. He really got into sports betting down there in Arizona."
In the end, Jim Smithwick-Hann got 11-plus solid retirement years, which isn't to say he didn't deserve more. Many have had less, and hit fewer fairways and greens.
"I was over at the house one day," Shay Smithwick-Hann said. "I said, 'Let's go play a little bit of catch.'"
The son gave his father a pair of Nike gloves and zipped some passes at him.
No problem.
"He said, 'If I'd had these gloves when I was playing?'" Smithwick-Hann remembered. "'I might have made it.'"
Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.
