By Chadd Cripe -
ccripe@idahostatesman.comEdition Date: 10/26/07
Fresno State quarterback Tom Brandstater turned giddy when he was told that a trophy would be at stake Friday night when the Bulldogs and Boise State Broncos renew their budding rivalry at Bulldog Stadium.
"Now that I know about it, I'm going to start hyping it up in the locker room," Brandstater said Monday during a telephone interview. "As soon as I hang up the phone, I'm going to go tell the guys, ‘We've got to get the Milk Can back!' That just made my day."
The Milk Can — a chromed, 10-gallon, old-school milk can that made its debut in 2005 — was the brainchild of dairymen in Fresno and Boise, who saw an opportunity to formalize the rivalry between the teams and promote the benefits of milk.
The trophy also signifies the level of commitment from dairy booster groups to each program. The Bronco Dairy Boosters raised $103,000 for summer-school scholarships at a banquet last summer. The South Valley Dairy Group has raised as much as $200,000 in a year for the Fresno State program.
Boise State coach Chris Petersen and Fresno State coach Pat Hill have embraced the trophy as a new tradition — onePetersen made sure his players knew about early this week.
"In the Big Ten, it seems like every game is a matchup for some sort of trophy," Petersen said. "There's not much of that going on out here."
Boise State annually plays for one other trophy — the Governor's Trophy against Idaho.
The Milk Can is the only traveling trophy for Fresno State.
"I think that brings something to our conference that is pretty neat," Hill said.
Dairy boosts both programs
The Milk Can's roots lie with two separate dairy groups that decided to get involved in their local football programs. California (No. 1) and Idaho (No. 4) are two of the nation's leading dairy producers.
The South Valley Dairy Group began raising money for Fresno State football in 2001. They like the way Pat Hill runs the Bulldogs program and the fact that the school honors the agricultural accomplishments of the San Joaquin Valley with a green "V" on the players' helmets.
The group has raised more than $700,000 for Fresno State football, said Roger Fluegel, a dairyman in Visalia, Calif. The dairymen also have a large tailgate presence at home games, with 220 season tickets and as many as 1,200 tailgate participants.
The Bronco Dairy Boosters started in 2005, when Treasure Valley dairymen Dan Van Grouw (Meridian) and Mike Siegersma (Nampa) met with Bronco Athletic Association executive director Bob Madden about a tailgating spot for Boise State games. Gary Herriott, who owns a trucking company, is a former dairyman and was already a Bronco booster, made the introductions.
The trio knew about the fundraising at Fresno State. Fluegel and Van Grouw are longtime friends and Van Grouw's brother is part of the Fresno group.
"We said we wanted a tailgate spot, but we think we can raise some money, too," Van Grouw said.
The Bronco Dairy Boosters held a dinner and auction in the summer of 2005 that raised $45,000 for summer school scholarships. The next year, they raised $65,000. And this year, they raised $103,000.
It's an invitation-only, $100-per-plate event for members of the dairy industry, and coaches Dan Hawkins and Chris Petersen have attended. The dairymen come from all over southern Idaho, and many are newcomers to the Boise State program.
"It's starting to get pretty darn big and they're getting well-organized," Madden said.
The Dairy Boosters also helped create a program in which the dairymen's association donates more than 10,000 pints of chocolate and strawberry milk to the BSU weight room.
A trophy is born
Fluegel and Van Grouw came up with the Milk Can idea during their banter about their rival teams. They have been friends for 13 years.
"It was a friendly rivalry between Dan and I," Fluegel said. "I'd said it would be fun to have something to go between us. I brought up, ‘Let's do the Milk Can and treat it like the Stanley Cup.' … It's a unique item that everyone can identify."
The two dairymen agreed to start the trophy and received positive feedback from both programs. The can was produced by the Fresno boosters in time for the 2005 game, but because of administrative changeover at Fresno State the details weren't finalized to get the trophy on the field for that year's game in Fresno.
The Bulldogs won 27-7 — and their boosters put that win on the can. Each year's game will be memorialized with a plate added to the trophy listing the date, score and name of every player on the winning team.
"We weren't quite ready to start it, but they won the game and they said, ‘Hey, we started it,' " Madden said. "All the sudden the can surfaced."
It made its first appearance at a game last year, when the Broncos won 45-21 in Boise and carried the Milk Can off the field. It spent the past year in the Allen Noble Hall of Fame.
The Broncos packed the Milk Can in their equipment truck Wednesday for the drive to Fresno. The dairymen hope the Broncos will carry it onto the field with them before the game.
The dairymen also plan to sign a sponsorship agreement that would put a corporate logo on the can's lid and provide $5,000 to each school.
Dairymen from both states will tailgate together before this week's game, just as they did last year in Boise.
"Dairymen, they're kind of a tight-knit breed," Siegersma said. "We're competitors, but we're also relatives and friends. It makes for a good rivalry."
Recent Comments
Friday, October 26, 2007 - 4:01am | shaunfrederick1
no logo
This is great for both programs. Just dont sell out for a measly 10K and put a logo on it. Leave it bare!! It would be much better that way. It would be a trophy just for the sake of the win! Boo that Logo.
Friday, October 26, 2007 - 7:17am | Tater42
re: no logo
I say if they can get some more scholarship money for the school with a corporate logo. I say "logo for it"
