Trophy honors rivalry, most notable figure in Alaska football history

Jamie Mayo was probably never as happy to get his hands on an old pair of boots.

Friday night, the Colony Knights scored their first win of the season, a 48-32 victory over the North Pole Patriots in North Pole. The win was the first for first-year head coach Brian McIntosh, and it pushed the Knights to 1-0 in the Railbelt Conference standings.

But even as significant as the first wins of seasons and careers are, this victory was much bigger because the Knights had won the Battle of the Boots.

In an effort to recognize the budding Colony-North Pole football rivalry and honor the memory of Alaska football icon Buck Nystrom, coaches from each staff came to create the Battle of the Boots, an annual rivalry complete with a traveling trophy — a bronzed pair of cleats that Nystrom, Alaska’s all-time winningest prep football coach, wore throughout his playing career at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

“As happy as I was for Brian to win his first game, I think I just may be a little bit happier to get the boots,” said Mayo, Colony’s defensive coordinator and a longtime friend of Nystrom. “Quiet honestly, what a better way to get your first win? We told this to the kids, we tried to make it real clear to them, how important this win was. It was the first win, the first conference win, but Buck’s a legend in the state of Alaska.”

Nystrom, who died in 2006 after complications following heart surgery at the age of 64, continues to remain synonymous with Alaska football. He amassed a state-record 151 wins during his 31 years as head coach, and led two different program — Eielson and North Pole — to state titles.

Mayo said the Colony coaching staff stressed the importance of this new trophy.

“We told our kids we’re playing for the all-time winningest coach’s college cleats,” Mayo said. “That’s the point that was driven home.”

Mayo said coaches from Colony and North Pole have tossed around the thought of creating a traveling trophy in memory of Nystrom since he died. The idea of bronzing the boots and making the North Pole-Colony rivalry was actually born at the Potato Bowl a few years back, Mayo said.

Mayo said current North Pole head coach Richard Hennert and longtime assistant Luke Balash, one of Nystrom’s former players at Eielson, were among those who stood and watched Palmer and Wasilla play the night they first kicked around the idea of creating an annual tradition.

“What better honor than play for his college cleats?” Mayo said. “That’s where it came from.”

During Nystrom’s final years with the North Pole program, the annual Colony-North Pole game became one of the state’s best rivalries not confined by a specific region.

“Every year it kind of grew,” Mayo said. “I can easily say, it’s a special game when you play Palmer or Wasilla. But the Colony-North Pole game has developed into a bloodbath. There’s some tremendous hitting going on it that game.”

A few years of casual conversation evolved into the creation of the Battle for the Boots.

“Every year, we talked a little more,” Mayo said. “Finally, last year they came down and played us and we pretty much all agreed, starting this year, we’d play for the boots.”

Mayo said Balash had the cleats bronzed and a plaque will be attached that will feature the final score of each regular season game between the Knights and the Patriots.

As the teams lined up to shake hands after the Colony win, Mayo said it was easy to see how important the boots are.

“After the game, we’re shaking hands and half the kids on that other team are crying,” Mayo said. “They’re crying because they lost the boots. The other part that made it real good is every one of those (North Pole) coaches came by — and they all coached with Buck or played for Buck — and said this is the game Buck would have liked. He would have liked this game.”

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.