Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
I spent many winter nights listening to the Wyoming Cowboys on my 1927 Zenith console radio. I had other radios, but it was just better with the walnut-finished gigantic box with the 15-inch speaker.
The games were broadcast on AM 1030 “Clear Channel KTWO” out of Casper. Even in the afternoon, you could get a signal from KTWO, albeit with a little bit of static.
The same was true for Cowboy football.
It was all we had. Televised football from War Memorial Stadium or basketball from the adjacent War Memorial Field House were rare. Getting them on KWRB Channel 10 from Thermopolis was like finding the Holy Grail. It just didn’t happen, ever.
Once I hit the hallowed halls of the University of Wyoming, I never missed a home football or basketball game. I made all the home softball and baseball games as well, though the Cowboys and Cowgirls didn’t get a chance to play at home much in the frigid Albany County spring.
It was easy to be a football and basketball fan. I was in the same dorm as most of the UW Football team, Crane Hall. They were my idiot friends. The things we did would be automatic expulsions today, but hey, it was the 1970s, and expectations, attitudes, and society in general were much more lenient.
As a nation, we could improve the dire situation we’re in if only we could get back to those times. But no, we won’t. There are too many eternally offended people walking among us, and far too many attorneys waiting to exploit those 24/7 grievances.
Many of the football players under Fred Akers and Bill Lewis were animals on their best nights. Coke machines were tossed from sixth-floor windows, fights with other students were rampant, and the marijuana smoke that rolled out of the windows of parked cars outside Orr Halls just minutes before curfew each night was epic. After the Cowboys were embarrassed in the “Fiasco Bowl” (Fiesta Bowl) by Oklahoma, after Akers left for Texas, there weren’t many wins.
Could it have been their work ethic?
Juxtaposed against the Animal House style behavior of the football team were the Pokes on the hardwood under Don Devoe, and then Jim Brandenburg.
Devoe wasn’t as strict as Brandenburg, but it was a question of scale. It’s akin to playing under General George Patton or Genghis Khan.
Many of the basketball players were friends. Tub Bradley, Ken Ollie, and Chris Engler all made it to our place at 918 Grand Avenue. I took notes for Tub and Ken in classes we had together.
The football players, despite the insanity, and the basketball team, that was suddenly competitive under Brandenburg, were students, just like the rest of us.
For a sports guy, I have to admit, the only Wyoming Cowboy basketball game I watched this season was last night, and it was purely by chance.
I have one of those V-See boxes that brings in thousands of stations across the USA and every Division I football and basketball game. Yep, every NFL, NBA and MLB team are all included.
How they do it is a mystery.
I read that the Cowboys were eliminated from the Mountain West tournament 73-70 by Nevada Las Vegas and just assumed that was it for the Pokes.
Early Tuesday evening I realized the NIT (National Invitational Tournament) was starting so I tuned the magic box into a category titled NCAAB. There was an entire lineup of NIT games on the late-afternoon/early-evening schedule.
In the third spot was Wichita State and Wyoming. I was surprised. I shouldn’t have been; the Cowboys had a decent season, 18-14, good enough for the NIT anyway.
They were in the dance, not the big one, but a dance nonetheless, and playing on the Shockers’ home court.
So, I watched Sundance Wicks of Gillette lead the Cowboys into the postseason. I didn’t know any of the kids. I hadn’t watched a game before last night. Wyoming still had the same problem they’ve had for years. Their offense takes forever to set up, and they’re constantly hustling to get a shot off, any shot, before the shot clock expires.
Wichita State would make a run, take a seven-to-nine-point lead, and the Pokes would chip it back to two. Wyoming led a few times in the second half before falling 74-70 to end their season.
Last fall, the box came in handy. Every Wyoming football game is broadcast, but they’re on some of the most obscure networks, and most of them have a pay wall.
With the V-See option, those pay walls disappeared, and it was easy to find the Cowboys. It was great getting frustrated week after week by the lack of offense. Is there a pattern here?
Social media is quick to blame the coaching staff after every loss. These Monday morning quarterbacks are experts at detailing the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” that every coach despises in a fan.
My late friend and legendary coach, Harold Bailey, said it best, “You don’t win the Kentucky Derby with a plow horse.”
In the age of NIL money and the ever-present portal. The Cowboys will never be able to compete with the top 25. It just isn’t possible to buy that much talent in a little town like Laramie.
In direct contrast are the Cowgirls, where NIL money is much less of a factor and the portal isn’t used nearly as often. Plus, many of the Cowgirls are real cowgirls, from Wyoming.
The men are mercenaries. Here for a season, then into the portal in the quest for greener pastures somewhere else.
It does get tiring.
I was a diehard Wyoming fan for decades. It’s hard to be a fan today. When there’s so little loyalty with the players, how can you expect the fans to be?
On Halloween day 1981, I coached in my first state championship game. The Lusk Tigers hosted the Pinedale Wranglers in the Class B title game, and we won 21-0.
There was an elderly couple in town who never missed a game. They even traveled to the exotic locales of Pine Bluffs, Burns, Guernsey, Lingle, Saratoga, Hanna, Cheyenne, St. Mary’s, and Yoder.
They came by practice on Thursday night and told us they were sorry. They were going to miss the state championship game. They had season tickets at War Memorial, and the Pokes were playing in the Border War against Colorado State.
It was the first state title game in Niobrara County High School history. They’d been in the stands since the 1940s, but their loyalty to the Cowboys trumped their loyalty to the Tigers.
Wyoming hammered CSU 55-21 while we were putting it to the Wranglers.
Does that type of loyalty still exist in the age of big money for “amateur” sports?