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.
It was a chilly night. Rain mixed with snow was falling as we warmed up before returning to the visitor’s locker room. We went through some pre-game checks and started to go outside. We didn’t get far. The doors were padlocked on both ends of the locker room.
We yelled but no one came.
In Basin, the old visitor’s locker room was underneath the stage. There were two barred steel doors leading up the steps on each end and we couldn’t get through either one of them. We finally broke a window and a freshman squeezed through and found someone to open the door.
We made it back to the field and the officials gave us a 15-yard penalty for being late to start the game.
It was just another night in Basin with coach Andy Johnson leading the Bobcats.
Basin ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown, and we played from behind the entire game before dropping a 28-16 decision.
As a sophomore, I didn’t play much that game, but standing on the sidelines with the snow falling, and the rain steadily increasing made for a memorable night. Basin was one of the oldest fields in the Big Horn Basin, dating back to the days when the Bobcats played the likes of Gebo, Cody, Lander, Riverton, Worland and Powell.
Their enrollment dropped and now it was Wind River, Dubois, Cowley, Shoshoni, Byron, Burlington and Meeteetse.
The lights dated back to at least the 1950s and perhaps beyond. Basin and Byron were the only fields with lights in those days, the rest of us played in the afternoon.
As the rain fell, sometime in the second period a light bulb burst around the 30-yard line. The lights were huge incandescent bulbs with a protective hood over them. The rain was intense enough that the water was trickling under the hood, down the wire and hitting the bulb. We lost two lights on our side and watched another one explode on the Basin sideline.
Now, every high school in Fremont County has lights on the field except Dubois, even Arapahoe, with just a junior high football program has lights.
Times have changed, and so it seems, has the weather.
In the 1970s and 80s, it was common for the final games of the season to be played in the snow, that rarely occurs today.
In 1984, Shoshoni fell to Mountain View 21-0 in Uinta County on the last Saturday in October in Arctic conditions. The frozen field was augmented by 10-degree temperatures with winds over 30 miles per hour. It would have killed teams from Texas, California or Georgia to play in these conditions, but the Buffs and Wranglers did their best.
A year later, Shoshoni braved a first-half blizzard at Oakie Blanchard Stadium in Cheyenne before coming from behind to beat Cheyenne Seton 18-7 for the 1985 state championship.
We played our share at Morton, memorably against Byron and Dubois.
As a coach at Lusk, we swept the field with shovels and wheelbarrows alongside fathers and community members to clear Gibson Field for a semi-final tilt with Sundance.
On a clear Thursday afternoon, I loaded my Shoshoni Junior High team on the bus for a game at Ethete against Wyoming Indian. As we approached Kinnear, the clouds were black and ominous toward Ft. Washakie.
By the time we arrived at the newly constructed field at Wyoming Indian, it was snowing hard. The Chiefs wore white uniforms and the snow was so heavy that at times all we could see were the occasional pair of yellow “Chore Boy” gloves the Wyoming Indian kids were wearing. I wore a short-sleeved coaching shirt and no coat in an attempt to show the boys the weather wasn’t that bad. By half time I had a layer of snow built up from my right shoulder to my neck. The boys weren’t buying it.
Since then, there have been many cold, snowy games played across Wyoming.
That’s why I always question the decision to hold the state championships in Laramie every year during the second week of November.
Has anyone experienced the joy of Laramie in a month with an “R” in it? There isn’t much to say except it’s an Arctic hell on good days, and worse on bad.
Advocates claim the experience of playing at the “War” as many refer to War Memorial Stadium is worth the treacherous roads, the howling wind and the sometimes sub-zero temperatures. I’ll pass.
What is a certainty is that teams with a running game fare far better than those that whip the ball all over the field, “West Coast Style” when they do make the big dance at Jonah Field.
Running teams always advance in the playoffs.
In 2012, my friend Rick Lindblad opened the playoffs at Yoder against the Southeast Goshen Cyclones. Southeast hammered the Wranglers the year before in the opening round 60-0, but Rick had a better team this time.
The weather in Goshen County the days before the game was atrocious. Heavy snow filled Barry Miller Field and covered the surrounding corn and beet fields with a foot or more.
Southeast officials scrapped the snow off the field to the south, the visitor’s side. By Friday, the weather was warmer and piled snow began to melt.
On the Shoshoni sideline the water was ankle deep as far as the first hash mark.
The Wranglers threw the ball all over the field, but Southeast ran the ball with multiple breakaways and won the game 61-21.
They faced their only challenge of the season at home the next weekend with a 16-8 win over Cokeville. Cokeville has a tradition of power football, and Todd Dayton’s Panthers ran the ball well, just not well enough to win.
The following week the Cyclones avenged a 7-6 loss to Lusk in the second week of the season, blowing out the Tigers 40-6 to win the state championship.
The state title games begin this Friday with Big Horn and Cokeville squaring off at noon. Star Valley and Cody follow at 3 p.m.
Saturday’s games begin with a temporary sideline set up for the smaller 6-man game when Little Snake River and Burlington meet for a rematch of the 2023 title game at 10 a.m.
At 1 p.m., perhaps the best game of the weekend will take place with unbeaten Lingle Ft. Laramie playing 9-1 Pine Bluffs. The Doggers edged the Hornets by a field goal during the regular season.
The finale sees Sheridan under former Riverton standout Jeff Mowry looking to extend their incredible win streak to 42 games against Cheyenne East at 4 p.m.
It’s the final week of the season and the last glint of summer before May, enjoy it