MSUB SPORTS - Husband and wife Ty and Heather (Reiter) Elkin both played basketball at Montana State University Billings in the 1990s. Heather is originally from Gillette, Wyo., while Ty hails from Red Lodge, Mont. Neither Heather nor Ty began their collegiate careers at MSUB but they did finish them there. Heather played basketball at Rocky Mountain College in Billings while Ty played at Montana State University in Bozeman. Ty graduated in 1995 and Heather graduated in 1997. Heather was inducted into MSUB's Hall of Fame and Distinction in 2003.
 
The following interview was conducted by Kyle Hansen, who recently caught up with the Elkins in Billings.
 
KH: Where are both of you now in your professional careers?
 
HE: I'm a health enhancement teacher here in Billings. I teach P.E. and health to kids in grades K-6. I teach classes in a CrossFit gym.
 
TE: I'm at Yellowstone Bank. I'm the president of our bank here, and I've been with these guys since 1998. I worked for two years out of college at a company called Business Properties and then started at Yellowstone Bank. Graduated in 1995. I've been with these guys pretty much my entire working career.
 
KH: What were some of your highlights from your collegiate career at MSUB? Academic or Athletic?
 
HE: Meeting Ty. Meeting good friends. Some of the gals that I played with are still my good friends. I really liked Coach McCarthy. We all liked him. He made basketball fun and light. I enjoyed playing for him and it makes a big difference when you enjoy who you are playing for.
 
TE: I better say it was meeting Heather. Outside of meeting Heather, I'd say the highlights for me were the relationships that I started there because those were relationships were the same ones that I have now. Relationships that got me into my job here.
 
KH: What made you both want to pursue athletics in college?
 
HE: I thought it was fun. I loved playing basketball and obviously a scholarship helps pay for your school. I'd rather play basketball than work. I didn't want to get a job so I decided to play basketball. I wanted to stay in Billings when I was out at Rocky. I didn't really want to leave Billings. It was Eastern Montana College at the time and I called Coach McCarthy and said, "I want to transfer." That's literally what I said and then he's like, "Ok!" and then I was able to transfer over and I was glad I did.
 
TE: What's interesting for both me and Heather is that neither of us started our college athletic careers at MSUB. I ended up at MSUB and she ended up at MSUB and kind of interesting how we both took kind of the same path to get there. At least in my case, coming from Red Lodge where I had an identity and I was able to be myself. When I got to MSU, I had a hard time figuring out how to fit in to something that big and how to have my own identity. Going to MSUB kind of gave me an environment that felt a lot like where I came from. I didn't have to go create something that wasn't me I was able to be me.
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TE: I was actually recruited to MSUB by Coach McCarthy too. They had not named a men's coach. I was at MSU playing basketball and decided I wanted to leave and they did not have a coach at MSUB at the time because they had let go of the previous coach. So Coach McCarthy was the one who called me because he knew they'd recruited me out of high school. So he always talks about that, that I was the only male basketball player he ever recruited.
 
KH: What have been the biggest ups and downs in your professional careers after MSUB?
 
HE: The ups would be the flexibility of being part time to raise kids and we both refereed basketball. I would say the challenges would be the scheduling. My job is pretty flexible. I can take a day off here or there and also have a day and a half off a week. With our kids being in sports right now, the traveling is a challenge and time management.
 
TE: The challenges of us both being super competitive and we both kind of always need to have competition in our lives. When we first got done playing basketball, we both refereed division one basketball and that had us traveling to everywhere the Big Sky Conference is. That was Thursday, Friday, Saturday type travel that we were trying to work into our professional and personal worlds. Now we both do CrossFit and compete in CrossFit. Those are ups that also create challenges for us. I would say that one of our biggest blessings is my job here and the people that I work for have always financially supported us and supported us in our extracurriculars and understand what we need to make our lives work. 
 
KH: Where do your children play?
 
HE: My daughter plays for West High. She'll be a senior in basketball and she's on an AAU traveling team this summer which in July we head out for nine days. We'll go to Portland, and then from Portland they'll fly to Denver for Tate's baseball team. And then my daughter and I will go to Seattle for the remainder of that week. Tate plays for the 14-year-old Regulator baseball team. He's done that since he was 10.
 
TE: He'll go to West (High) next year, he'll be a freshman.
 
KH: Do you think your daughter will continue to play in college?
 
TE: I think that's largely, in part, up to her. I think Heather and I would selfishly like to see her do that. But that's up to her and we'd support her in whatever she decides.
 
HE: I think part of that is how we experienced it. We had a positive experience with friends and the social atmosphere and the travel wasn't bad at MSU Billings. It was fun. Living in Billings was fun. When I look back at how positive it was, and rewarding, it's the only thing I hope for her when she plays. I'm like 'well this is how great it is, why wouldn't you do it?'
 
TE: Neither of us know any differently. We don't have another experience to share with them. The experiences that we both share is that we both played college basketball and loved it.
 
KH: What lessons did you both learn as student-athletes that you brought with you into your professional careers?
 
HE: You have to set goals and manage time and you have to commit to whatever you said you would do. And that carries over into your workplace. Your character is revealed and it builds integrity. There are so many positives from being part of a team. You learn about yourself and you learn how to work together in order to achieve whatever goal it is whether it is a job or a sport. All of those things carry on to your professional world after you leave college.
 
TE: Team sports and what you get out of it, it seems like it's hard to take yourself away from that. I know that if I didn't have athletics as giving me a bit of a rudder as I was getting through my four or five years of school, I may not have kept myself as in line as much as I did, which wasn't perfect, but it at least gave me some guidance. It's an awfully big commitment but if you're committing to doing it with 10-12 other people that have like minds it doesn't become a job. It's still a sport.
 
KH: Who are you two cheering for in this year's NBA Finals?
 
HE: I want Golden State.
 
TE: Yeah I'm cheering for Golden State. I have a debate with one of our guys who is just a LeBron lover. I talk about when (James) Naismith designed the game of basketball did he have LeBron in mind or did he have (Stephen) Curry in mind. I think there's no way he could've had LeBron in mind because who could ever think you could be built like LeBron? I don't think back then they'd think you'd have athletes like that. So when I watch Curry, the guy that can shoot from 25 feet or 30 feet and handle the ball like he does do what he does. I have to think that's what Naismith had in mind when he created the game of basketball. I find myself cheering for Golden State because of Curry.