United Community Bank Athlete of the Week: Rugby’s Lathan DeMontigny

RUGBY, N.D. -- The Rugby Panthers love multi-sport athletes.

“We’re all kind of one big family, just through every sport,” said senior Lathan DeMontigny.

Instead of focusing on sport-specific training, coaches encourage athletes to try new sports.

“We really don’t care what their favorite sport is, just get out and learn to compete,” said boys track and field coach Scott Grochow.

Lathan takes that one step further.

“I’ve rodeo’d my whole life pretty much. I ride bulls and do some roping and ride horses, I do all of it,” said Lathan.

Lathan said he uses track to stay in shape for rodeo.

“They understand that competitiveness, so I think that’s really huge. We really encourage for kids to get out for other sports just because we feel that competitiveness will help them in every sport,” said Grochow.

“We just all get along with each other and we all follow each other… we’ve always played all these sports for our whole lives. We just stuck with them,” said Lathan.

He also plays football and basketball; and competes in the high jump, long jump, triple jump and 4x100 relay.

“It gets busy on the weekends,” said Lathan.

“You look around the gym here, you look at all the banners that are up, we’ve had success in a lot of different sports and I think that’s why,” said Grochow.

Trying a new sport can be an adventure.

“try it! Enjoy as many sports as you can in high school. Have fun with them. You can’t be in it forever. Just do ‘em, have fun with it,” said Lathan.

Who knows?

You might get roped in.

At the Hazen Early Bird Meet, Lathan finished 5th in the triple jump and 8th in the high jump. He plans to attend NDSU in the fall to compete on the rodeo team.

Copyright 2022 KFYR. All rights reserved.