Opinion: Friends have fond memories of Greg Bauska

He could run a business, dominate the low blocks and pour a mean pitcher, but Greg Bauska’s impact on the Flathead Valley is best measured in the friendships he made.

Bauska passed away Saturday in Hawaii after a debilitating stroke. He was 64, and his friends are still trying to let it sink in.

“This whole thing is one of the most shocking things,” said Jack McWhorter, Bauska’s basketball coach at Flathead High for two seasons. “I’ve had a number of friends die recently, and probably the last guy I thought this would happen to is Greg, being in 64 and in great health.

“This is probably one of the hardest ones I’ve dealt with.”

Bauska, a former bar manager at Moose’s and a successful business owner, suffered a stroke on March 3. His companion Kelly was at his vacation condominium and called 911, but Bauska wouldn’t recover.

The Kalispell native played forward for the Flathead Braves and was good enough to get a full-ride basketball scholarship, alongside teammate Rick Zanon, from Jud Heathcote at the University of Montana. This was 1975-76; Heathcote left after that season, to be replaced by Jim Brandenburg.

“It didn’t really work out for Greg there, and he saw he wasn’t going to get much playing time,” said Jeff Hibbert, another high school teammate. “So I talked him into coming down to Western (Montana) and playing with me.

“His last year there I think we went 23-6.”

Hibbert’s relationship with Bauska dates to eighth grade, when he moved back to Kalispell from Salt Lake City. He and “Goober,” born eight days after Hibbert on Dec. 27, 1956, became tight.

“Goober’s been my best friend for I don’t know how long,” Hibbert said.

This is a pattern: McWhorter, Hibbert, high school teammate Mark Weed and a Thompson Falls Bluehawk named Steve Ferkovich all described Bauska as their best friend Tuesday. It’s Ferkovich that went into business with Bauska in 1992 with Ozzy’s Sports Bar, a few years after they met.

“I moved here in 1989,” Ferkovich said. “I was looking to get on a city league basketball team, and a friend said, ‘Well then you need to go meet Goober.’ ”

Ferkovich first joined a team with Montana State alum Holg Hollo, but ended playing alongside Bauska after Hollo moved away. Eventually he asked Bauska about filling in as bartender at Moose’s. Soon a partnership was born.

“Then when he bought the Ozzie’s, I ended up working for him there,” Ferkovich said. “After about a year, a year and a half, we partnered on the bowling alley (Glacier Lanes, in Columbia Falls).”

They sold Ozzy’s in 2000 and the bowling alley a couple years back, but were still partnered for Ferk’s Casino, which opened in 1998, the Gold Country Casino in Kila, and the Glacier Gold Casino out by the airport.

The straight line through this all is hoops. Bauska grew up watching Brent Wilson star at Flathead, and Weed recalls playing, “hundreds of games together in city league, and I think we went 8 or 9 years without losing.”

“I’ve known him for 50 years,” Weed said. “We actually met in sixth grade: He was an Elrod kid from the West side and I was a Hedge kid from the East side. I’d heard stories about what a good basketball player he was — and then I learned first-hand. He was way better than we were.”

Weed also worked at Moose’s for a few years, and remembers in the 80s that Bauska would arrange for a city league game to be filmed, then shown on the bar’s big screen TV while the teams rehydrated.

“We’d go to the game, then get a couple free pitchers and watch us beat up on each other,” Weed said. “It worked out pretty well. He liked his sports, and he liked Moose’s.”

Longtime Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg has known Bauska since his brother Craig began playing against Flathead.

Then from 2002-12 he had Bauska on his staff, coaching the post players. You probably shouldn’t call it coincidence — Finberg won’t — that the Wildcats won their first four State A titles during that run.

“It was about my fifth year in — I’d known him for years and years — that I finally got a chance to talk him into joining the staff,” Finberg said. “It was one of the best hires I made.”

It was a volunteer position and Bauska, co-owner of four businesses, stepped away not long after that fourth title. There was the Hawaii condo to get to, which he did every January before returning around state tournament time. Then it was time for March Madness.

This year, though, he intended to stay in Hawaii for 100 days.

”There’s about 10 of us that got together before he left,” Finberg said. “It’s fortunate we did it. Obviously, not knowing what was going to happen… we made sure we got together before we left. We had a lot of laughs, and talked a lot of basketball.

“It was a shock for everybody. He was a very close friend and an awesome guy.”

“He always thought about others before himself,” Ferkovich said. “He was happy when people did better for themselves, and always gave people a chance. ‘Everybody has a story,’”he said.

“I’m just a little bit lost without him. He’s the guy I went to, you know? He mentored me a lot. And I think he did for a lot of people. We had a good thing going.”

Bauska’s parents (Dad’s name: Ozzy) and one brother preceded him in death. He had one marriage and no children. He is survived by a sister Leslie and a brother Jack.