BOZEMAN — The scenes in the videos make it appear West Wilson and his crew are living the idyllic college life. Days on the lake, nights at concerts or around a fire, beautiful co-eds and not a care in the world – the ultimate Montana experience.
Wilson’s Montana Summer 2014, 2015 and 2016 movies have nearly 30,000 cumulative views on YouTube. Players from up and down Montana State’s football rosters make cameo appearances. In the center of most of the scenes is Wilson, the ringleader of the festivities, often sporting a Kansas City Royals jersey, cap hat or both.
It’s that fun-loving, outgoing personality that has endeared the Montana State senior safety to his teammates over the last five years. Wilson has served as a sort of bridge across cultural lines, one of the Bobcats that brings the locker room together regardless of background or place of origin.
“He brings a very diverse personality, the guy who is able to talk to inner city LA guys and also kids from Circle, Montana, the small town guys, everyone,” said former MSU defensive tackle Matt Brownlow, Wilson’s former roommate and close friend. “Those kind of guys are very few, especially these days. That alone has mended a lot of great friendships, relationships, videos. That alone is a great, great talent and asset to any program.
“He’s literally just being himself. That’s the coolest part: he has had so much of an impact on so many people’s lives just by being West.”
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When Wilson first moved to Bozeman as a preferred walk-on from Columbia, Missouri, he made it his personal quest to meet as many people as he could as often as he could. Five years later, you’d never know he’s played sparingly on the gridiron in his football career judging by the respect he’s garnered from his teammates, both current and former.
“West is just a good guy to be around,” said former Bobcat receiver Mitch Griebel, one of Montana State’s captains during the 2015 season and another of Wilson’s former roomates. “You can always talk to him about something. He is very social, which I think helped him in the very early stages of his career fitting in with everybody.
“I haven’t talked to one guy who I ever played with who didn’t like West. He’s one of those guys who everyone latches on to, has fun with, jokes around with, brings the team together. But come game day, he’s as serious as they get. He’s a great guy, a great man and that’s how he fits in.”
Even with older players like Griebel, Brownlow, Gunnar Brekke, Trace Timmer and Alex Singleton — among Wilson’s best friends — moved on to life after football, Wilson’s impact now resonates with his current teammates equally.
“He sets up activities for the DB room all the time,” MSU senior safety and captain Bryson McCabe said. “We are from all over in that room – Iowa, Texas, California, you name it, Missouri — and he sets it all up. He keeps us all in line. He knows how to have a good time.”
While it seems like Wilson has lived the dream during his college years, the good times have been balanced out by stark struggles as well. He has lettered at Montana State for four straight seasons, achieving one of his primary goals after walking on after an all-district senior year at Rock Bridge High in Columbia.
But just as Wilson had the inside track on earning his first bit of scholarship assistance, he suffered a devastating injury that felt like “a bomb going off inside my leg” during spring football in April of 2016. It was the next and most serious of a variety of ailments the undersized defensive back has incurred during his time at Montana State.
“He’s been through it, man” MSU senior cornerback Bryce Alley said. “There’s not too many people here who have been through it with us. He’s one of them. Throughout the coaching changes, throughout everything, we have a good bond.”
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During a basic 7-on-7 drill during spring football in 2016, Wilson collided with Brekke, like Griebel a former Bobcat captain and roommate of Wilson’s. The running back got the better of the crash. Wilson suffered a spiral fractured to his fibula. The force of the injury “snapped almost all the muscles and tendons in my ankle”, Wilson said.
“I’ve never done anything, never torn an ACL, so I thought that was it at first,” Wilson said. “I fell to the ground, threw my helmet off, was yelling profanities. But 10 seconds after, it all went away and I lost my breath, then I went into shock.”
Wilson needed surgery, a procedure that leaves him with three pins, two screams and a sort of “tight rope” in his left leg. Doctors told Wilson his spring drills were over but said he would likely be able to return sometime during the 2016 season, his fourth in the program, if he gutted out the next seven months of rehab.
“I’ve had plenty of road blocks since I’ve been here and that was just another one along the way,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t about football at that point. It was about trying to be healthy. But there were so many stages of coming back. I didn’t walk for two months.
“The rehab was so intensive and it was like seven months of rehab, by the time I tried playing, I had been running for a month before they let me play football.”
Wilson did make it back for the 2016 season, making his debut in MSU’s third game at home against Western Oregon. In the fourth quarter, Wilson snared an interception, affirming the work he had put in to come back from the devastating break.
“I’ll tell that story for awhile and ride that one out,” Wilson said with a chuckle. “Being a football player in Bozeman is great given the community and the love we get here. That’s been the motivator to stay. That makes you feel pretty good, the way everyone treats you. Then to make a play is even more sweet.”
Wilson earned all-district honors and ran a leg on a standout 4×100 meter relay team in track during his senior year at Rock Bridge. He was also a team captain, a member of National Honors Society, the athletic student body president, the Bruin Cup student board president, a member of student council and his class’s student board representative.
Wilson grew up next door to Missouri wide receivers coach Andy Hill. Hill — who ironically was a finalist for MSU’s head coaching job before president Waded Cruzado hired Jeff Choate in December of 2015 — helped Wilson get in touch with former Montana State secondary coach Toby Neinas.
Wilson came on an official visit to Montana State’s 2012 playoff game against Stony Brook, a contest which resulted in former head coach Rob Ash’s second playoff victory. Wilson enjoyed his experience and planned on committing if an offer came. Then Neinas left to become the special teams coordinator at Colorado.
Still, Wilson joined the team as a preferred walk-on the following fall. When Choate took over, Wilson only had a dozen or so practices under his belt to prove himself before suffering the broken leg. Although he played in seven games as a junior and plays consistently on Montana State’s special teams units this season, he is still receives no financial assistance.
“I know this as well and it comes down to you are doing a lot of things for free,” said Brownlow, himself a walk-on from Missoula. “I think he knows that as well. Walk-ons don’t have it easy. We can talk about that forever. I think when (the injury) happened, it threw him through a whirl and that opportunity that may have been there was taken away from him so quickly from one of his best friends on the team. Gunnar felt bad, he felt bad. But he decided to not quit and finish out something he has been committed to for five years.
“That culture alone always makes you that outlier. It’s just different for walk-ons. It’s always like that until you get that money. If you can push through that and in West’s situation, you do, everyone around you respects you because you just did what they did for no return. You did it because you care about them that much.
“He has made it through and now he’s going to be able to attend his senior day. In my book, that’s a medal of honor nowadays.”
Wilson’s sacrifices, from paying his own way to dealing with an ailing back for most of his career to the shattered leg, has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the Bobcats.
“Props to him for doing that because that is not easy,” Griebel said. “To go through your entire career and not have any money, not have any of the perks if you will, that the guys on fulls do, proves how good a teammate he is. He doesn’t care about that kind of stuff. It would be nice and he would like it, but at the same time, he enjoys being a good teammate and being a good Bobcat.”
“It’s always a treat with West because he has a good attitude and he always makes sure he is helping out, whether it’s the youngest guy in the room or the oldest guy in the room, West is there for him, the glue guy in our room,” MSU safeties coach Kyle Risinger said. “If the mood is down, he’ll be the one to say something to pick it up. He’s been around a lot of changes and he’s been a consistent guy to lean on for our guys.”
After redshirting in 2013, Wilson played in five games as a redshirt freshman in 2014, including appearing in MSU’s last playoff game, a first-round home playoff loss to South Dakota State. He also played an integral role on scout team, earning Defensive Scout of the Week twice and special teams Scout of the Week once.
In 2015, Wilson notched seven tackles, including four on special teams, two that pinned opponents inside the 20. That off-season, Ash and most of the staff was not retained. Wilson made it through the coaching change and the injury to play in seven games last season.
This season, Wilson has played in five games and made three tackles. Wilson has started on all four MSU special teams units at various points this season, just as he has been since he was a sophomore. He said his leg still aches, especially when it’s cold or when used excessively, like during fall camp in August. But he has gutted his way to reach the final month of his fifth season.
“He’s a guy who has always embraced his role,” Choate said. “He’s a unifying force in our locker room. I was actually just looking out the window a minute ago from my office and he was giving (running back) Eddy Vander a ride to class. He’s one of those guys who reaches across demographic lines in our locker room and unifies our team.
“He has a lot of personality, a lot of different talents. He’s doing this ‘Bobcats go West’ series when we travel and that’s been entertaining to watch. But he also can play. He made a really critical tackle on a punt return against Portland State. He’s filled in and helped us a ton on special teams. He loves football and he loves being a part of a team. And I think he loves Montana State, a kid from Missouri who came out here and found a home and enjoyed his experience here.”
College football is not easy. Wilson will be the first to tell you that. But he has stayed true to achieving his goals and sticking to the tenet instilled within him by his parents, Bruce and Elizabeth Wilson, to finish anything he starts.
Of his football goals, the only one he has not yet achieved is to start. He has made it five years. He has earned four letters. He has carved out a role that provides him a healthy amount of playing time. He has persevered. And he would not trade any of the adversity, any of the aches and certainly none of the fun for anything.
“What we all struggle accepting is working hard for something and not getting the immediate results we want,” Wilson said. “Whether that’s winning, playing time, you name it. But that’s life. You keep going. To make it through this I can honestly say I will fear nothing from here on out.
“The friends I’ve made, I will be friends with until the day I die, no question. The experiences we’ve shared, the fun, the summers…I left for Bozeman when I was 18, I came out here and I didn’t know one person and I can say I grew up in Bozeman. I became a man and learned how to live life out here. I can’t think of a better place to go to school. I had such a good time. I’m sad it’s almost over. The friends and the people here are one of a kind.”
Brooks Nuanez and Bill Lamberty contributed to the reporting of this story. Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
