The Hall of Famers :: Scott McGowan
9/6/2022 12:52:00 PM | General, Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
The latest census data shows Poplar, Montana – the Indian reservation located in the northeast tip of Montana – to have a population of 773 people. It is currently the nation's 11,342nd-largest city.
Small in size and notoriety, Poplar, though, raised and produced one of the greatest middle-distance runners, not only in state or university history, but nationally.
Scott McGowan, who this weekend will be inducted into the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame, doesn't like to talk much about his achievements, so we'll let his collegiate accolades do the talking:
Still, getting the call notifying him of the honor came as a surprise to the 41-year-old.
"As an athlete, you don't really go into your career with the goal of getting into the hall of fame," McGowan reflected this week from his home in Poplar. "You want to work hard, you want to be a good teammate, you want to do things the right way… I guess I never really thought of the end-result stuff, but I'm happy that it paid off and that people think I represented Montana and the Griz the right way."
McGowan's first love was basketball.
His father, Felix, was a legendary basketball coach on the reservation, where he is a member of the Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame. He has an older brother, Felix Michael, who played collegiately at Gonzaga before also becoming a basketball coach.
Naturally, Scott McGowan wanted to follow in his family's footsteps.
"Growing up on the reservation, basketball was the thing," he said. "The problem was, I couldn't dribble or shoot."
Basketball didn't pan out, and after playing two years of football, his lanky build wasn't meant for a contact sport like football either.
But he had a running coach who took particular interest in him and he saw steady improvement in that sport.
"It suited me well and it kind of blossomed from there," he said.
Running in college wasn't on McGowan's mind until his senior year of high school, when longtime Griz coach Tom Raunig began recruiting him. McGowan grew up going to Griz basketball camps during summers, so he was familiar with the campus and city.
It turned out, running was his in and Montana was his opportunity.
Before we get to the good stuff – the championships and All-America honors – there are a few things to know about McGowan.
First, he doesn't like talking much about himself. Second, he definitely doesn't like talking much about his successes.
When asked about what stood out from his hall-of-fame collegiate career, he, naturally, deflected his answers to his teammates and coaches – the people who supported him, the lifelong friends he made, the city of Missoula and all it gave to him.
After a couple of questions, though, McGowan started to crack. When pushed again to reflect on his career, he finally gave an answer about himself.
"When you come in as a freshman from small-town Montana, you're a small fish in a really big pond," he said. "I just remember getting my ass kicked."
The above and following quotes, perhaps, best sum up what made McGowan so great.
"I remember my first cross country meet as a freshman and finishing 3, 4 minutes behind the other runners," he said. "That's a tough pill to swallow when you come from dominating races in high school.
"But I learned a lot from getting abused by those other runners. You learn more from your mistakes and the things that you don't get right than the things you do. It sets you back and puts you in your place, but luckily I responded to it."
It would have been easy for McGowan to fold after that first season, perhaps deciding that running wasn't for him. He credits his coaches and parents for helping him mentally stay in it.
By his junior season, he started to enjoy the process of getting better.
The process was a steep upward trajectory. Despite battling pneumonia during cross country season and injuries to his arch and knee during the winter that nearly kept him from competing during the indoor season, McGowan battled through the setbacks to have an All-America-worthy 2002 season, placing 12th in the country in the indoor mile and 10th in the outdoor 1,500 meters.
"I'm such a hard-headed individual, I wasn't intimidated easily," McGowan said. "Deep down I knew I could do it."
Despite more injuries that kept him away from running in 2003, McGowan came back in 2004 – his senior season – and had one of the best seasons by any athlete, in any sport, in Griz history.
During the indoor season, McGowan won a conference title in the mile, before setting a school record at nationals with a time of 4:02.07, which placed him fourth in the entire country (the second-best indoor performance in school history). He also set a still-standing school record that winter in the distance medley relay (9:49.23).
His outdoor season was even more impressive, as McGowan won Big Sky titles in the 800 and 1,500 meters, setting a school record in the 1,500 meters (3:41.87). He went on to again represent Montana at nationals, finishing seventh in the entire country.
The big stage, and who and what he was representing, was not lost on McGowan, who felt an obligation to run for more than himself.
"I was competing against kids from California, Oregon, New York, who basically have run every day of their lives from seventh grade on," he said. "There were kids with more talent or more resources, but there's a toughness from a rural kid in Montana that is intangible.
"I didn't really give a damn who you were or where you were from, I was going to try and beat you."
McGowan had a chip on his shoulder that fueled him, as did the pride he took in representing the Griz, the state of Montana and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation he grew up on.
After graduating from Montana with a degree in history, McGowan continued to run, competing in national and international competitions across the world. He landed sponsorship deals and competed in Europe. His body didn't always remain as durable as he had hoped, but still, he had monumental successes, including winning a U.S. championship in the indoor mile at the 2005 USATF Indoor Nationals and qualifying for the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 1,500 meters, placing 12th.
Perhaps his biggest athletic feat, however, came in January 2005 in Boston, Massachusetts.
In mid-distance running circles, it's no secret that breaking the 4-minute barrier in the mile is the coveted goal that escapes nearly all runners. Since Roger Bannister first did it in 1954, it is estimated that fewer than 1,700 people in the world have accomplished the feat, which is the equivalent of running at a speed of 15 miles per hour.
Naively, he admits now, McGowan thought he would do it early in his career at Montana. As a senior at Poplar High School, he ran a mile in 4 minutes, 12 seconds. Surely, he thought, he could shave off 12 seconds.
Turns out, that last little bit is a lot harder to accomplish, which is why so few people have ever done it.
Finally, in 2005, McGowan entered the pantheon of mid-distance running, finishing the Reebok Boston Indoor Games with a time of 3:58.91 and becoming the first person ever from the Treasure State to accomplish the feat.
"I don't really talk about it or tell anyone about it, but I guess it is pretty cool that forever I can know that I was the first Montanan to ever do it," said McGowan, who was invited to the state capitol in Helena after returning home. "When I crossed the finish line and looked up at the scoreboard, it was a sense of relief.
"In running circles, the 4-minute barrier is a pretty big deal and I'll admit I wanted it pretty bad – maybe too bad at times, putting too much pressure on myself. But I did it, and I was happy as hell."
Today, McGowan jokes, the only running he does is chasing his four kids around his farm in Poplar. He's a fourth-generation Montanan, and many of his close family members will be back in Missoula this weekend to celebrate his hall-of-fame induction.
He gets back to Missoula about once a year, calling it his second home. Most of his time, though, is kept busy farming, the same things his father did, which helped instill the work ethic that made him so successful during his time at Montana.
It's fitting, he admits, that he became a farmer, because in many ways, he sees similarities between farming and running.
"You have to get up early and take care of things when no one's watching or patting you on the back," McGowan said. "From putting the seed in the ground to harvesting, you put in all of the work to hopefully produce a few crops, a few good races at the end."
It's safe to say that, for McGowan, the harvest has been plentiful.
Small in size and notoriety, Poplar, though, raised and produced one of the greatest middle-distance runners, not only in state or university history, but nationally.
Scott McGowan, who this weekend will be inducted into the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame, doesn't like to talk much about his achievements, so we'll let his collegiate accolades do the talking:
- Four-time NCAA All-American, finishing as high as fourth place at the 2004 indoor nationals in the mile.
- Three-time Big Sky Conference champion, in three separate events.
- Three-event school-record holder nearly two decades after he last competed for the Griz.
Still, getting the call notifying him of the honor came as a surprise to the 41-year-old.
"As an athlete, you don't really go into your career with the goal of getting into the hall of fame," McGowan reflected this week from his home in Poplar. "You want to work hard, you want to be a good teammate, you want to do things the right way… I guess I never really thought of the end-result stuff, but I'm happy that it paid off and that people think I represented Montana and the Griz the right way."
McGowan's first love was basketball.
His father, Felix, was a legendary basketball coach on the reservation, where he is a member of the Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame. He has an older brother, Felix Michael, who played collegiately at Gonzaga before also becoming a basketball coach.
Naturally, Scott McGowan wanted to follow in his family's footsteps.
"Growing up on the reservation, basketball was the thing," he said. "The problem was, I couldn't dribble or shoot."
Basketball didn't pan out, and after playing two years of football, his lanky build wasn't meant for a contact sport like football either.
But he had a running coach who took particular interest in him and he saw steady improvement in that sport.
"It suited me well and it kind of blossomed from there," he said.
Running in college wasn't on McGowan's mind until his senior year of high school, when longtime Griz coach Tom Raunig began recruiting him. McGowan grew up going to Griz basketball camps during summers, so he was familiar with the campus and city.
It turned out, running was his in and Montana was his opportunity.
Before we get to the good stuff – the championships and All-America honors – there are a few things to know about McGowan.
First, he doesn't like talking much about himself. Second, he definitely doesn't like talking much about his successes.
When asked about what stood out from his hall-of-fame collegiate career, he, naturally, deflected his answers to his teammates and coaches – the people who supported him, the lifelong friends he made, the city of Missoula and all it gave to him.
After a couple of questions, though, McGowan started to crack. When pushed again to reflect on his career, he finally gave an answer about himself.
"When you come in as a freshman from small-town Montana, you're a small fish in a really big pond," he said. "I just remember getting my ass kicked."
The above and following quotes, perhaps, best sum up what made McGowan so great.
"I remember my first cross country meet as a freshman and finishing 3, 4 minutes behind the other runners," he said. "That's a tough pill to swallow when you come from dominating races in high school.
"But I learned a lot from getting abused by those other runners. You learn more from your mistakes and the things that you don't get right than the things you do. It sets you back and puts you in your place, but luckily I responded to it."
It would have been easy for McGowan to fold after that first season, perhaps deciding that running wasn't for him. He credits his coaches and parents for helping him mentally stay in it.
By his junior season, he started to enjoy the process of getting better.
The process was a steep upward trajectory. Despite battling pneumonia during cross country season and injuries to his arch and knee during the winter that nearly kept him from competing during the indoor season, McGowan battled through the setbacks to have an All-America-worthy 2002 season, placing 12th in the country in the indoor mile and 10th in the outdoor 1,500 meters.
"I'm such a hard-headed individual, I wasn't intimidated easily," McGowan said. "Deep down I knew I could do it."
Despite more injuries that kept him away from running in 2003, McGowan came back in 2004 – his senior season – and had one of the best seasons by any athlete, in any sport, in Griz history.
During the indoor season, McGowan won a conference title in the mile, before setting a school record at nationals with a time of 4:02.07, which placed him fourth in the entire country (the second-best indoor performance in school history). He also set a still-standing school record that winter in the distance medley relay (9:49.23).
His outdoor season was even more impressive, as McGowan won Big Sky titles in the 800 and 1,500 meters, setting a school record in the 1,500 meters (3:41.87). He went on to again represent Montana at nationals, finishing seventh in the entire country.
The big stage, and who and what he was representing, was not lost on McGowan, who felt an obligation to run for more than himself.
"I was competing against kids from California, Oregon, New York, who basically have run every day of their lives from seventh grade on," he said. "There were kids with more talent or more resources, but there's a toughness from a rural kid in Montana that is intangible.
"I didn't really give a damn who you were or where you were from, I was going to try and beat you."
McGowan had a chip on his shoulder that fueled him, as did the pride he took in representing the Griz, the state of Montana and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation he grew up on.
After graduating from Montana with a degree in history, McGowan continued to run, competing in national and international competitions across the world. He landed sponsorship deals and competed in Europe. His body didn't always remain as durable as he had hoped, but still, he had monumental successes, including winning a U.S. championship in the indoor mile at the 2005 USATF Indoor Nationals and qualifying for the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 1,500 meters, placing 12th.
Perhaps his biggest athletic feat, however, came in January 2005 in Boston, Massachusetts.
In mid-distance running circles, it's no secret that breaking the 4-minute barrier in the mile is the coveted goal that escapes nearly all runners. Since Roger Bannister first did it in 1954, it is estimated that fewer than 1,700 people in the world have accomplished the feat, which is the equivalent of running at a speed of 15 miles per hour.
Naively, he admits now, McGowan thought he would do it early in his career at Montana. As a senior at Poplar High School, he ran a mile in 4 minutes, 12 seconds. Surely, he thought, he could shave off 12 seconds.
Turns out, that last little bit is a lot harder to accomplish, which is why so few people have ever done it.
Finally, in 2005, McGowan entered the pantheon of mid-distance running, finishing the Reebok Boston Indoor Games with a time of 3:58.91 and becoming the first person ever from the Treasure State to accomplish the feat.
"I don't really talk about it or tell anyone about it, but I guess it is pretty cool that forever I can know that I was the first Montanan to ever do it," said McGowan, who was invited to the state capitol in Helena after returning home. "When I crossed the finish line and looked up at the scoreboard, it was a sense of relief.
"In running circles, the 4-minute barrier is a pretty big deal and I'll admit I wanted it pretty bad – maybe too bad at times, putting too much pressure on myself. But I did it, and I was happy as hell."
Today, McGowan jokes, the only running he does is chasing his four kids around his farm in Poplar. He's a fourth-generation Montanan, and many of his close family members will be back in Missoula this weekend to celebrate his hall-of-fame induction.
He gets back to Missoula about once a year, calling it his second home. Most of his time, though, is kept busy farming, the same things his father did, which helped instill the work ethic that made him so successful during his time at Montana.
It's fitting, he admits, that he became a farmer, because in many ways, he sees similarities between farming and running.
"You have to get up early and take care of things when no one's watching or patting you on the back," McGowan said. "From putting the seed in the ground to harvesting, you put in all of the work to hopefully produce a few crops, a few good races at the end."
It's safe to say that, for McGowan, the harvest has been plentiful.
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