Local Legends: Paoli truly a 'Mr. Do-It-All' for CMR, beyond

Fred Paoli was never the biggest athlete.

But from his days with C.M. Russell High to the Division I gridiron or the rugby fields with the U.S. National Team, he certainly loomed large.

With C.M. Russell High opening its Hall of Fame this past school year and Great Falls High working to have its first class honored later this year, the Tribune is looking back this summer at some of the athletes and people that helped put the Electric City on the map.

Dubbed the Rustlers’ “Mr. Do-It-All,” Paoli was an All-State performer in football at both offensive and defensive lines as a junior and senior in 1970 and 1971, respectively, the only player in Class AA to be named All-State along the line on both sides of the ball.

In January of 1972, Paoli was named by Letterman, a national high school athletics magazine, as the Right Guard Lineman of the Year among hundreds of nominees throughout the United States.

Then Great Falls Central head coach Dale Pohle was quoted in the 1971 season as saying that Paoli was “as fine a lineman as there is in the state,” ahead of his Mustangs’ clash with the Rustlers.

Also a top performer on the wrestling mat, Paoli finished second at the state tournament at 185 pounds as a junior before moving up to heavyweight as a senior. In the final match of the state tournament and his career, Paoli squared off with No. 1 heavyweight Rick Moore of Kalispell Flathead, who by differing accounts outweighed Paoli by anywhere from 30-50 pounds. However, Paoli came out on top 4-3 on the favored Moore, breaking a 3-3 stalemate with the advantage in riding time in the title bout in Kalispell.

Despite the accolades and legendary moments at CMR, Paoli was not highly recruited out of high school as it was thought he was too small to play big-time college football at lineman.

He eventually earned a full-ride scholarship on the Colorado State football team, and by his sophomore year he was fifth on the team in tackles as a noseguard and part-time starter.

“Fred does not have great size for a defensive lineman,” Rams head coach Sark Arslanian told the Tribune in 1974 of the 5-11, 224-pound Paoli. “What Fred lacks in size, he makes up for with hustle, determination and strength.”

By the end of his career at Colorado State, where his father Fred Paoli Sr. also attended, the player who was once thought to be undersized for major college football was a team co-captain, first-team All-WAC and third-team All-American at defensive line, with 78 solo tackles.

While attending law school in Kansas, Paoli found a new way to stay in competition, as he joined the rugby team. Turned out he was a natural for the sport, and made the U.S. National Rugby Team, The Eagles, in 1982 and played with the team through 1991. During his tenure with the national team, the U.S. club made two World Cup appearances, in 1987 and 1991.

Heading into his final competition with the national team in August of 1991, Paoli had already earned 19 “caps,” a high honor indicating the number of international matches played. At 37 he was the oldest player on the national team at the time, playing alongside fellow CMR grad Mark Pidcock.

“Rugby keeps you fit. It’s a much healthier sport than football,” Paoli told the Tribune in 1991. “You play a 40-minute game with a five-minute halftime, and you stay on the field the whole time.”

And after a career blocking for others, he didn’t mind getting a little bit of the glory in rugby either: “And I like it better (than football) because in rugby, I get to run with the ball sometimes.”

Paoli was an inaugural member of the CMR Legends Hall of Fame in 2023 and was elected to the Montana High School Association Hall of Fame in 2022. Paoli has retired from law and lives with his wife Anita in Livingston and Patagonia, Arizona, according to his MHSA bio.

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Local Legends: Paoli truly a 'Mr. Do-It-All' for CMR, beyond