Football: Labbe's labor of love

Andrew Waite

Mineral Independent

Brian Labbe’s life has almost always revolved around sports.

Football in particular dominated the recent graduate’s Superior High School career.

But on the brink of his college career at the University of Montana, a Division-1 program that wants him to play football,

Labbe, 18, says he might be done with the sport forever. Even Labbe’s summer workouts seem to tell the story. His weight lifting lacks its usual power.

No squats or dead lifts this year.

Instead, the 300-pound former center, who says he can bench press his weight, curls 30-pound dumbbells and only throws about 50 pounds on each side of the barbell when benching.

He no longer cares about football shape. He just wants to stay healthy.

Labbe said he wants to take a break from football at the start of college to see what else is out there.

He will be majoring in journalism with the hopes of possibly beginning a career in sports broadcasting.

Most important, Labbe said, is that after such a focused high school career, he is looking for a bit of variety.  “I’m going to mix it up a little bit, make sure I am not focused on one thing,” he said.

Labbe says school will come first, but he also expressed an interest in a good social life in Missoula.

“I just want to see other things and see if I like that better than I do football,” he said.

Football might be hard to let go of, though. Labbe and most of his high school teammates have been together for as long as he can remember.

“Even in elementary school we knew that we were going to win a state championship,” he said.

In Labbe’s senior year, the boys’ prediction came true. Superior High School won the Class C state title.

Labbe even earned personal accolades by being nominated to play in Montana’s Shrine football game, which he recently travelled to Great Falls to participate in.

The all-star contest pits the best high school players from eastern Montana against the best high school players from western Montana.

The West beat the East this year with a winning field goal in overtime.

Although players from teams of all classes are eligible to make the game, it is less common for someone from a Class C program to make it.

The hard work that led to a successful final season started in the Superior High School workout room the summer before Labbe’s senior year.

Unlike last year’s intense team workouts, these sessions over the summer are more relaxed.

Almost the whole team would be in the gym every day lifting together for three hours.

These workouts paid off, as Labbe and his teammates won the state championship.

“Having that dream together was probably the best part of my whole high school experience,” Labbe said about the state title.

As Labbe thinks back on his life in football, he said he knows he will miss the physicality of competing, the brotherhood of the team and the moment right before game time.

Labbe will not have that at college, at least not right away.

His only competitive football will be of the flag variety in which collisions usually only happen accidentally.

He will be watching the Grizzlies play from the stands instead of learning how to play with them from the sidelines.

That’s where Labbe thinks a void may present itself.

“If I watch and think I really want to be part of that, and if I know that I can’t live without playing football, that’s probably what it’s going to take,” Labbe said. “Just having that urge to hit somebody I guess.”

So he will continue to work out while in college, not just to avoid the “freshman 15” but to be ready in case he wants to put a helmet and pads back on.

Or he might be brushing up on his vocabulary, getting ready to help broadcast Grizzlies games for the college radio station.

Whatever Labbe decides, he wants it to be the choice that is right for him.   “You just have to be happy with yourself,” he said.