At times it developed into a kind of Wild West variety show, a fair in bright colors and a colorful mixture of different folk festivals.

The Weeks brothers, John and Willie, from their small town of Wolf Point on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, added charm to the folklore.

Officially it was called Class A Basketball, but was called the Big 32 Conference, with the 32 largest Class A and AA institutions divided into four divisions.

There were many reasons for its introduction, but one of them was to increase competitive diversity.

For Montana, it was “the best quality of basketball ever,” says Jim Haugen, former executive director of the Montana High School Association.

To reach the total of 32 teams, some Class B schools would have to be upgraded to Class A in all sports.

Some, like Cut Bank, resisted. Others, including eventual 1966 champion Libby, Columbia Falls and 1968 champion Wolf Point, embraced it. These schools, along with several others, moved up from B to A.

Cut Bank fell into the 400-plus enrollment range required for the Big 32. But the school appealed and remained in Class B. Why? A move to Class A would have created enormous travel requirements for football players to Libby, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, as well as Deer Lodge and Dillon.

The top two Big 32 teams from each divisional tournament would advance to the “Tournament of Eight,” which would be played either in the concrete Civic Center in Butte or in MSU’s gymnasium—the only venues that could withstand the locust swarms of participating Montanans.

The 1969 tournament broke all attendance records. 10,700 spectators watched Kalispell Flathead beat Great Falls CMR 73-72 and beat undefeated Laurel Butte Central 63-56 in Friday's semifinals, surpassing the record of 10,200 spectators set a decade earlier when Elgin Baylor's Seattle University team faced MSU.

When Laurel defeated Flathead 59-56 the following night to win the final title, another 10,700 spectators turned up. Another 500 were defeated.

Over the two nights, 10,700 fans gathered to form the largest crowds ever to watch a high school basketball game in Montana.

In its first season in 1963-64, the league was actually the Big 30, with plans to expand to 32 teams. The following year, Missoula County High split into two divisions – Hellgate and Sentinel – making the Big 31. When Great Falls CMR joined for the 1965-66 midseason, the four divisions were now complete with eight teams each – and God Bless Montana's Big 32.

In the early years of the Big 32, Missoula County and Great Falls were the largest schools, each with about 3,000 students, before they were each split into two more schools.

Some reports put Great Falls at 3,740 students and the number is growing. It must be noted that reported enrollment numbers are inconsistent at best. Some newspapers only counted grades 10-12, but Montana's policy was based on four grades.

When Laurel won the Big 32 in 1969, some reports said there were only 450 students, although it was more likely 560 (including the junior high freshmen). Interestingly, a 1963 Laurel Outlook article railed against the Big 32, claiming it was “absurd” due to geographic and political considerations, and pointed out that Great Falls and Billings schools would not compete against their parochial counterparts from the other half of town.

One more note: When Great Falls and Missoula were each split into two schools, enrollment at all four schools continued to skyrocket during the baby boom era.

In the final year of the Big 32 state tournament in 1969, Great Falls CMR was the largest school with 2,363 students and Wolf Point was the smallest with 458 students.

The two smallest schools during this six-year period were Helena Cathedral (soon renamed Helena Central) and Anaconda Central. They each had about 350 students, sometimes much fewer.

Still, no team in the Big 32 was a punching bag. Every school put up resistance and threw low blows.

And no small school struck harder than Wolf Point with its special provocateurs Big John and Willie Weeks.

The league gained prestige and was a constant state of uninterrupted top-level competition. The small institutions felt honored to be in “the best basketball league ever,” as Dick Norden, former coach of the Sidney Eagles and Hall of Famer, recalls.

Big schools were afraid of losing to the Helena Cathedral Greenies, Whitefish Bulldogs and Anaconda Central Saints. Whether they were playing just down the valley or 300 miles across the Great Divide, every school, regardless of size, knew from the opening tip that they could get a gasp.

It was the only time the MHSA scheduled basketball games, and it did so for about 80% of the games for the Big 32 teams, leaving the remaining open dates up to the schools.

Before the season, the individual institutions asked who they wanted to play, but there was never a guarantee.

As powerful as they were, Billings West and Billing Senior were careful about scheduling. Over the years, they noticed that Wolf Point was a thorn in the side of the Great Falls Bisons. They knew that Butte native Bill Salonen coached the Glasgow Scotties and was ready at a moment's notice to jump in cars, cross the dirt roads of the Missouri Breaks and play the Broncs and Golden Bears in Billings.

Tiny Hardin, 47 miles from Billings, was dangerous. In six years of Big 32 play, Senior never had a game scheduled against the Bulldogs. West and Hardin eventually played two games, once in 1967-1968 and again in the 1968-1969 season. West won both, but he should, right?

And driving down I-94 to Miles City, Glendive, or Sidney? Well, whether they were victorious or not, the big schools couldn't win the propaganda wars.

Many fans hoped that on any given night, microscopic schools like Hamilton, Deer Lodge or Dillon could defeat Helena, Kalispell Flathead or the mighty Butte.

Regardless of enrollment, it was a relentless battle for every Big 32 team. They had to be ready, regardless of size, tradition or competitive speculation. For many reasons, the gloves came off before stepping into the ring.

“Senior and West had strong teams,” Norden recalled of the early days of the Big 32. “Mike Welton (West) was the best I played against. And (laughs) the great Pete Lazetich (Senior) – I saw him sink a basketball on his first dribble. Or was it his second?”

Missoula County's Mike Lewis played in the ABA for several years, and Laurel's Tom Perrigo and Ron Johnson and Hardin's Gayle Three Irons were a bane on any team.

Anaconda Central's Jim Meredith, a 6'0″ center, was revered by rivals Anaconda, Butte and Butte Central. Pat Donovan of Helena Central and later Helena High (when Central closed) was not only an All-State player in three sports, but also an All-American in two sports.

What a time in Montana's history.

The state's newspapers splashed in bright colors: “And last night at the Big 32 games…”

The 1969 Trainmen of Laurel went undefeated and won the last Big 32 crown, embarrassing the other 31 teams.

Total attendance of the last three-day tournament: 41,000.

The next year, the league disappeared into a Big 16 and Little 16 format. It was never the same. Lower attendance, some boring games, blackouts.

Some said the larger schools were afraid of losing to the smaller teams, which was not unfounded, as Class A programs Libby, Wolf Point and Laurel won three of the six Big 32 titles. Some smaller schools still opposed the move, feeling they had little chance of winning the title.

The myth of the Big 32 remains.

Could something like this happen again? Yes, if the schools voted for it.

Wade Reynolds, who played for strong Laurel Locomotive basketball teams in the 1990s, said his teammates always wished they had had a chance at bigger schools. The Football Shrine Gamer mentioned a legendary Great Falls team in particular.

The Weeks brothers from Wolf Point have improved the Big 32 story.

They have created their share of stories – dramas, tragedies and comedies, unsurpassed and captivating to this day.