The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Orange’s Montano checks all boxes for Walter Camp weekend
NEW HAVEN — Moments before the Stay In School Rally started Thursday, Christian Montano pointed to a spot in the stands at one end of a packed Floyd Little Athletic Center.
“I was right up in that section there six years ago today as a high schooler,” Montano said. “On the complete other end of this event. Going to Brown, the entire process of playing football, the academics, I couldn’t be more honored receiving this award.”
Montano, a graduate transfer who started all 13 games at center in 2019 at Tulane, is the Walter Camp Connecticut Player of the Year.
He needed six years to get in four seasons of college football, yet during that time Montano got a bachelor’s degree in economics from an Ivy League school, is putting the finishing touches on an MBA in finance from Tulane. And, oh yeah, Christian Montano saved a life along the way.
This is the 53rd Walter Camp Weekend. Some of the biggest names in the sport will find their way to New Haven before the national awards dinner is completed on Saturday
night. LSU quarterback Joe Burrow is Player of the Year. LSU’s Ed Orgeron is Coach of the Year. And on and on.
Yet as Montano watched Yale basketball coach James Jones kick off a group of speakers at the Stay In School Rally and later joined a group visiting Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, it was alltogether evident that no one belonged to this day more than this 6-foot-4, 300pound son of Orange.
Academics. Check. He stayed in school all right.
A bone-marrow donation that gave a man in his 40s from upstate New York named Jim Calhoun a second-chance at life. Check.
Play outstanding football, leading to a shot at the NFL. Check.
“Growing up in the shadow of Yale, it was always the highest point of college,” Montano said. “It was where I wanted to go. I was recruited a bit by Yale, but I think Brown was a better fit for me coming out of high school. I wanted to stay somewhere close so my parents could come to the games.”
He did not play his first year in college. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease his senior year at Hamden Hall. Sick on and off for five months, he lost a considerable amount of weight.
“I was healthy enough to go school, but nowhere near healthy enough to play my freshman season,” Montano said. “A big thing with Crohn’s disease is knowing what foods irritate you individually. I learned what I do and don’t go well with.”
Healthy again, Montano forged a successful career at Brown. In 2015, he won a starting job as a redshirt
freshman at center at midseason. By 2017, he was second team All-Ivy after moving to tackle. Heading into his final season, he was a 2018 Phil Steele Preseason All-Ivy selection. The Bears opened on the West Coast against Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. First quarter, he broke his foot.
“I got hit from the side, my foot twisted and I ended up with a Jones fracture,” Montano said. “For someone lighter, they can usually have surgery and come back. Being a 300-pound guy, that was the end of the season for me.”
He had surgery. He considered his options. One was not putting on the pads again for Brown. The Ivy League does not allow graduate students to play. The NCAA granted Montano’s appeal to play a sixth season.
“The coaches at Brown were awesome,” Montano said. “They reached out to schools. They cut up film for me. They knew I felt like I had been robbed of a last season and wanted to see me play another year.”
He looked at Villanova, at Richmond, James Madison, Vanderbilt and even Penn State. He chose Tulane.
“Providence to New Orleans, definitely a change in culture,” Montano said. “My teammates, my coaches were great. It was a fantastic experience.”
The Green Wave finished a 7-6 season that included a 49-7 rout of UConn with an Armed Forces Bowl victory over Southern Mississippi. With the UConn game in New Orleans, Montano missed a chance to return to Connecticut. He did get to enjoy a few minutes with UConn defensive back Kyle Williams, a former Hamden Hall teammate.
Montano played in the Tropical Bowl All-Star game last weekend in Florida. He has started training at TEST Football Academy in New Jersey. Six weeks in
preparation for his Pro Day at Tulane and the NFL Combine in hopes of hearing his name in the draft or hooking on as a free agent. Joe Linta, his Hamden Hall coach, is his agent. In the meantime, Montano will complete his master’s with one online class and one independent study course.
“Pro Day is going to mean a lot for me,” Montano said. “Teams have told me that. ‘Your film is good. You’ve got to see how you compare on those days.’ I’m definitely an interior guy, center or guard. I love having the ball in my hand, communicating with the quarterback, working with him to figure out defensive schemes on play calls. A lot of that was in my hands at Tulane. But for a chance at the next level, I’d be happy to play anywhere.”
At 23, Montano was the oldest player on Tulane’s roster. Smart, mature, grounded, he also is one of those guys who could be 33 or 43. So when he looks into the Floyd Little stands, exhales and then smiles about the past six years, you know a lot of things flying around in that memory bank of his. Some of those memories are special.
Montano was a freshman at Brown when he had his mouth swabbed as part of the spring drive for the national bone marrow registry run by the Be The Match campaign. This is the organization Yale is tied so closely. It wasn’t until nearly three years later in November of 2017 he was asked to come in for more testing to confirm he was best match for someone. He was.
“I was thrilled,” Montano said. “And my family was super-supportive.”
In a 21⁄2-hour operation at Dana Farber in Boston in February 2018, he had stem cells extracted. He was left sore.
“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Montano said.
There is a mandatory no-contact period of one year between donor and recipient. Montano said Calhoun, who had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, wouldn’t have lived without the transplant. Montano said one year and one week later his phone rang. It was Calhoun. They exchanged information.
Montano lost grandparents to cancer. Calhoun had just lost his father when he was diagnosed. By last spring, it was time for a celebration of life. And that’s what Christian’s parents Kendra and Gary had at their home for friends and family of both sides. Calhoun came in the door that day in May. Hugs ensued. Tears flowed.
“He was crying, I was crying, my mom was crying, his wife was crying,” Montano said. “Everyone was crying.
“It was incredibly emotional. I couldn’t be more appreciative to be part of the story, to give him a second chance at life. It was amazing to get to know him and his family and to see his side of the story. I was just a college kid who went to the hospital one day. For him it was a two-year battle with cancer.”
Calhoun, from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., would serve as Tulane’s honorary captain for the game against Army on Oct. 5 at West Point. He stayed with the team at the hotel the night before, attended the team meetings, was on the field pre-game, spent some time after the Tulane win with Montano.
“I have a friend for life, definitely,” Montano said. “A brother for life.”
Yeah, the son of Orange decided, “2019 was pretty great year.”