BILLINGS — Emotions were high as Montana State prepared to leave team headquarters for Toyota Stadium on the morning of the 2021 FCS national championship game in Frisco, Texas.

Waded Cruzado, the much-revered president of the university and a preeminent champion for unprecedented growth and development at Montana’s land-grant institution, couldn’t help but be swept up in it all.

“I was the last person to leave the hotel,” Cruzado recalled during a recent video call with MTN Sports from her office at Montana Hall. “When I got to the lobby and the doors opened, there was head coach Brent Vigen. And tears came to my eyes.

“Everybody was so happy and so proud and everybody was rooting for the Bobcats.”

It’s a subtle anecdote, but it serves as a symbol for all the things Cruzado has tried to instill on the MSU campus since becoming president in January 2010 — pride, passion, identity and belonging.

And Montana State athletics has been one of the greatest beneficiaries.

The Bobcats didn’t win that championship game in 2021, but the fact that they were there underscored how far they’d come. It had been 37 years since the football program had advanced that far, and there were times in the late 1980s and certainly the 1990s that suggested it might never happen again.

It takes talented players, dedicated coaches and forward-thinking administrators to achieve sustained success. It also takes a president that has bought in. Cruzado has been that in spades. But now she’s on her way out.

Cruzado announced her retirement in August, effective next summer. As she gets ready to watch the annual Cat-Griz rivalry for the 15th and final time as MSU president, nostalgia can be added to a thorough list of emotions she’s feeling.

“After my appointment … it became evident to me that Cat-Griz was a very important event in the life of both universities,” Cruzado said. “I could feel the passion. I could feel the rivalry, which was far more intense than what I had (seen) at my previous institutions. Every year it’s a great cause for celebration and anticipation.

“Even when I have been in Missoula, fans have been so kind to me, so nice to me. And I really appreciated that.”

That doesn’t mean Cruzado didn’t want her Bobcats to kick the Grizzlies’ butts.

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Cruzado has without question lifted Montana State’s academic profile and points out that the university has more research expenditure dollars on an annual basis than all the other public and private universities in the state combined.

But her impact on MSU athletics cannot be overstated.

Ninth-year athletic director Leon Costello said Cruzado’s support “completely exceeded my expectations. It was unlike anything that I’d ever been a part of.”

Diminutive in stature, Cruzado bursts with immeasurable love for the university. She’s channeled that into doing whatever it takes to raise the bar for an athletic department that seemed to be stuck in neutral in terms of fundraising and infrastructure for several years prior to her arrival in Bozeman.

On the whole, as everyone knows, football — the opiate of the masses — is the primary driver of revenue in Division I sports. But how did a native of Puerto Rico, who had no relationship with American football in her youth, come to realize its importance?

“Baseball in Puerto Rico is sacred. Just need to say one name — Roberto Clemente,” Cruzado offered. “So I grew up watching a lot of baseball. When I turned 13, 14 years old, I became (a fan) of men’s basketball, and Puerto Rico had a very decent national team. So there is a lot of enthusiasm for sports in Puerto Rico.

“In my adulthood, of course, I was in the U.S., and you cannot escape football, the allure and what it brings. And in the state of Montana, football speaks for our culture. It’s a very important thing for us. I was blown away to see how long people will drive in the state just to join us for a game.”

Early in her tenure, Cruzado saw the improvements that had to be made to Bobcat Stadium. She noticed fans leaving during games, especially students. There had to be a transformation.

It began with the south end zone project in 2010, an undertaking Cruzado spearheaded with a fundraising challenge to the Bobcat Quarterback Club that ultimately collected $11 million.

The Sonny Holland end zone, completed in time for the 2011 season, bowled in the south side of the facility and was the proverbial jolt the department needed to achieve future goals.

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In the years since, the stadium has added lights, and it now boasts an $18 million athletic complex and a state-of-the-art 30-by-100-foot Daktronics scoreboard on the north end.

MSU has also upgraded its track and field facility, made improvements to Worthington Arena and Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, and is now erecting a $26.5 million indoor practice facility to benefit all programs, not just football.

For everything that’s happened at MSU on Cruzado’s watch — the 33% growth in enrollment, the 133% increase in research dollars, the more than $600 million in construction projects on campus, etc. — her backing of athletics is immense.

Montana State fell behind rival Montana in athletics in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But that gap doesn’t exist anymore. And students are no longer walking out of the stadium prematurely.

“She’s done nothing but support our vision — my vision — even when maybe we had differing opinions,” said Costello, whose own exuberance has given the Bobcats a certain dynamic they seemed to lack in years prior. “That partnership is the benefit that you now see in Bobcat athletics.”

Bill Lamberty, MSU’s assistant AD for communications, has been with the department since 1990. He’s had a front-row seat to the transfiguration.

“The easiest ways to gauge president Cruzado’s impact on Bobcat athletics are to look at an aerial overlay comparing the athletic physical plant of today to 2009, and to compare our across-the-board success in competition in that time,” Lamberty said. “Those areas are both vastly superior today to when president Cruzado arrived.

“Positive energy, Bobcat spirit, and commitment to supporting MSU students are the cost of admission to being part of the Montana State community, and it all starts with president Cruzado. She’s a transformative person, and her presidency has transformed Bobcat athletics.”

As far as the on-field rivalry with Montana, the Bobcats are on much better footing than they were not that long ago. The series is even at 10-10 since the Grizzlies’ 16-game winning streak was halted in 2002.

Cruzado even made mention of “The Streak” when talking about all this growth, saying she noticed upon her arrival that it still pained fans and boosters — even though it ended eight years prior to her appointment.

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When she met with the Quarterback Club in June 2010, Cruzado said she “let them vent. At the end I said, ‘I hear your passion. I know that you care about this place. But as far as I’m concerned that’s in the past, and I would love for us to turn the page. I want to focus on the future.’”

Thus, athletic growth became one of her top priorities.

Saturday’s Cat-Griz game is the 123rd all-time and the 15th of Cruzado’s tenure. It will be her last as president. Her No. 2-ranked Bobcats, trying to complete the program’s first 12-0 regular season, were 17-point favorites on Tuesday.

They’re one of the favorites to make it back to Texas for this year’s national title game, especially if they secure home-field advantage with a top-two seed.

Cruzado, for one, would love to go back to experience more tear-inducing moments, to perhaps see MSU’s first football title in 40 years.

But her legacy will be greater than that.

“When the university speaks about excellence, it has to be excellence in every realm,” Cruzado said. “And (our) new facilities speak to that excellence. But the most important thing at Montana State cannot be those buildings. It has to be the people.”

“What I will feel very, very proud of is that we were able to expand that tent. Athletics is a very big tent, and everybody’s welcome,” she added. “I hope that I have been able to add a little bit of, you know, my grain of salt, to instill that sense of identity, of belonging and passion about being a Bobcat.”