The 1929 letter sweater Montana State football champions pass down

The sweater's first owner

The sweater belonged to Max Worthington. Today his name is mostly known from Worthington Arena, Montana State's long-time basketball home, and he starred on the school's famous 1929 'Golden Bobcats' basketball team, which Montana State celebrates as a national champion. He was a football player too. Worthington was an end from 1928 to 1930 and caught both touchdown passes in the Bobcats' 14-12 win over Montana in 1929, a game the school's own history calls legendary. He captained the 1930 football team and the 1931 basketball team.

My favorite line in his school biography is about a train. According to Paul Wylie's book on the Golden Bobcats, as retold by Montana State athletics writer Bill Lamberty, the teenage Worthington and a boyhood friend were riding west from Billings to visit the University of Montana in Missoula. The train broke down outside Bozeman. Worthington got off, walked to find his brother, looked up coach Ott Romney and decided to become a Bobcat instead.

He then spent decades on campus as an administrator and turned up at Bobcat practices and games for the rest of his life. That matters for what came next.

How a sweater became a relay baton

When Sonny Holland's team won the Division II title in 1976, Worthington gave his letter sweaters to that team's captains, center Bert Markovich and linebacker Tim Nixon. MontanaSports.com reports that he gave two, with the idea that the tradition would continue with each Bobcat championship. When Montana State won the national title again eight seasons later, in 1984, the 1976 group passed the sweater to that team.

Then nothing happened for four decades. The 1984 title was the last one until the Bobcats beat Illinois State 35-34 in overtime on Jan. 5, 2026.

Sept. 5, 2026: the handoff

Montana State held the ceremony about half an hour before kickoff of its Gold Rush home opener against Butler. Markovich and Nixon were there, along with Bozeman's Paul Wylie, identified by the university as the nephew of 1929 team captain Gus Wylie. A member of the 1984 team made the handoff. On the 2025 side, the university listed captains Paul Brott, Kenneth Eiden IV and JT Reed, plus Julius Davis, Alec Eckert and Hunter Parsons. More than 40 players and staff from the 1976 team came back for their 50th anniversary.

The sweater will now stay framed in the football locker room. Head coach Brent Vigen told the Chronicle that champions handing down a piece of history is what it is all about.

Why a sweater beats a ring

Rings are for keeping. This one is for giving away, and it only moves when a new team earns it, which is why I think it is the best object in the building. It also skipped a generation and nobody lost it, which says something about the people who held it.

The 1976 team seems to have taken the hint. Markovich told MontanaSports.com that his teammates plan to fund a scholarship endowment themselves for future Bobcat players.

Loose threads

Reports differ in small ways. The Chronicle writes about one sweater; MontanaSports.com says Worthington handed over two, and that graduated 2025 players received one in a frame. None of the reports says where the second sweater lives today. Paul Wylie, the author of the Golden Bobcats book, shares a name with the Paul Wylie at the ceremony, but no report confirms they are the same man, so we are not claiming it. Somebody in Bozeman surely knows. It just is not in print yet.