In Memoriam: Matt Ulrich
On November 5th, 2023, Matt Ulrich of Gallatin Gateway died suddenly, and the world lost a giant of a man – a man whose heart was as large as this Gallatin Valley.
Born Matthew James Ulrich in Hoffman States, Illinois on December 30th, 1981, Matt was bright, adventurous, physical, and playful. His interests were endless; he loved Star Wars, Thundercats, Superman, and Kermit. Recently, he recalled an early memory, “My grandfather once promised me a two-dollar Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book if I could conquer the monkey bars thirty times. Despite my hands being bloodied and blistered, I pushed through and completed the last three reps with sheer determination and heart. It was a transformative experience for me, revealing the importance of setting goals, embracing grit, and maintaining unwavering determination, qualities that continue to drive me forward in life.” He excelled in his schoolwork, was a three-time Academic All-State in Illinois, and loved playing the trumpet. His school friends remember how nice he was and how he was friends with everyone.
In his short time with us, Matt succeeded in two separate professions. First, he was an athlete. At Streamwood High School in the suburbs of Chicago, he competed in shot put as part of the track and field team, but one day a coach saw Matt walking down the hallway (he was big even then) and said he should come to football practice. He went, and he quickly fell in love with the sport, winning All-State and All-Midwest honors for his performance.
Out of high school, he had several offers to play Division I football. He chose to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he was a member of the Academic All-Big Ten team, a three-year starter on the offensive line, and team captain his senior year in 2004. He helped lead the team to two bowl games and the Big Ten Championship in 2000. He earned numerous other awards while at Northwestern, especially in the weight room, where he still holds records in bench press (475 lbs), incline press (425 lbs), squat (715 lbs), and Dumbbell Military Press (120 lbs for 7 reps). He was a three-time IRON CAT, a 2004 All-American Strength and Conditioning winner, and was recognized as the best-conditioned athlete at Northwestern University in 2003. He made lasting friendships at Northwestern and cherished every single one of them. Purple will always be his favorite color and every Saturday was spent cheering on his Northwestern Cats. Folks around Bozeman will remember his “Hogpride” license plate.
His success in college landed Matt a free-agent contract with the Indianapolis Colts minutes after the 2005 NFL Draft. Part of that was because he had inked the best lineman combine scores on his Pro Day (40-yard dash in 5.05, Pro Shuttle in 4.22, Cones in 6.76, Vertical Jump of 32 inches, Broad Jump of 8 feet 8/5 inches, and 31 reps at 225 – all while weighing 304 lbs), but it was also because of his drive and love of the game. As a free agent, Matt earned his way onto the team, beating out draft picks in both 2005 and 2006. He loved the Colts and in particular admired coach Tony Dungy’s understated but highly effective leadership style, as well as quarterback, Payton Manning’s intelligence and kindness. In February 2007 Matt became a Super Bowl champion as a member of the Super Bowl XLI Indianapolis Colts.
After football, he dug into his second career as a businessman, first serving as director of operations and sports performance at Winning Edge Athletics in Chicago as a National Academy of Sports Medicine Performance Enhancement Specialist, and later co-founding Dexa Fit, a Chicago-based multi-location fitness measurement company. After moving to Bozeman, he joined a fledgling business enablement services company, PIE, as a consultant. Quickly rising through the ranks, he was named managing director of and partner in PIE in 2014 and became Chief Growth Officer in 2022. As Chief Growth Officer, he was part of the company’s management team and drove a 12-fold increase in revenues over a decade, serving professional services businesses as diverse as Accenture, KPMG, Boston Consulting Group, and IBM across six continents.
It was the summer of 2008 when he met his wife Alison who was visiting Chicago. He always said their love was “electric” from the start. A native Montanan, Alison was teaching in Alaska. The two of them had a long-distance relationship, commuting to see each other, and used to say that these were some of his best memories. Alison and Matt were married in Bozeman, Montana on July 24, 2010.
In March of 2011, they were blessed with their first son, Gunther Matthew. Matt was so excited to be a father and took Gunther everywhere, the two of them grinning at everyone they passed. In April of 2012, they were blessed with another son, Dalton Gary. Again, Matt was overjoyed. He was made to be a dad. Both he and Alison wanted their boys to grow up in the Mountain West so they might have a childhood full of animals, camping, mountains, and rivers. They moved to Bozeman, Montana in October 2012. They were blessed with another boy in August 2013, sweet Bowden Mathison, and in 2018, their family was made complete with the birth of a fourth boy, Thoreau Anchor. Matt’s hands were full, but his heart was bursting. Matt was the light of his children’s eyes, and, in turn, he loved his boys beyond measure. They were the best part of his day. He was the fun maker, the joke teller, the fiercest tackler, and always the best snuggler. He coached several of their football teams and was always talking football facts, plays, and tactics with them. Whether it was sports or school, he used every opportunity to teach the boys how to be good humans, give 100% to everything they did, pray, and trust in God. The highlight of his week was always taking his family camping, fishing, skiing, to the beach, or attending NFL games.
Matt was a fierce competitor and worked extraordinarily hard because he liked to win. Recently, he set a goal for himself of benching 500 lbs. by age 40 which he exceeded at adopted his gym home, Prime Performance, by 5 lbs. A book he loved to recommend was The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, which explores the attitude and science behind high performance. But at his center was a great generosity of spirit. Dedicated to building facilities and programs for kids, he served on the board of the Gallatin County YMCA for six years and ran Mountain Edge Athletics, a sports performance.
Since 2015 he served as a player advisor for the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, a long-term research effort into NFL players’ health. He had a long-standing interest in the neurodegenerative disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and his family has donated some of his brain tissue as a way to further the understanding of this disease. He was named Bozeman’s 20 Under 40 in 2022 and selected to participate in Leadership Montana in 2021 where he loved his cohort. Always eager to learn, he also completed post-graduate certificate programs at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School.
Everyone adored Matt. He was the life of the party. He brought the jokes, the fun, and the love wherever he went. An amazing father, husband, friend, teammate, coach, colleague, and human, he truly was larger than life. He will live on in our hearts through his impish grin after he pranked you, his way of making you feel special and seen, as if you were the center of his universe, and, of course, his way of making moments into memories. Everyone has a Matt Ulrich story, and they always leave you laughing. He is deeply loved and will be greatly missed by his wife, their four boys, his neighbors, friends, teammates, and colleagues.
Matt is survived by his wife, Alison (nee Flikkema); and their boys, Gunther, Dalton, Bowden, and Thoreau; as well as his father, James Ulrich (Theresa Ulrich) and mother, Debby Ulrich, sisters, brothers, in-laws, cousins, aunts and uncles.
Originally appeared in the Bozeman Chronicles on November 11, 2023