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.
There were some coaching changes over the summer, most noticeably on the gridiron. There are always changes in the world of high school athletics.
Lander’s head coach Jim Burton took an offer he literally couldn’t refuse on the other side of the mountain in Pinedale. A substantial raise, district housing and a new challenge await coach Burton.
Burton had a tremendous season last fall, leading the Tigers into the Class 3-A semi-finals with one of the best records in recent history. His game against the rival Riverton Wolverines was one for the books. Coach Mark Lenhardt and his teams prevailed after taking a big lead, but speculation still fills conversations in Lander on the Tiger comeback. ‘If there were three more minutes in the game…’ you get the idea.
John Rounds has been a Lander football coach for a long time. He was the Tiger head coach for four seasons beginning in 2014 and has been an assistant under John Scott and Burton. Rounds returns as the head coach next month.
At Wind River, former Riverton head coach Troy Anderson takes the helm after previous head coach Rod Frederick resigned to take a teaching position at Wyoming Indian. Frederick finished his four-year stint at Pavillion with an overall record of 18 and 19. The Cougars played for the state championship against Big Piney in 2023 in Frederick’s second year, finishing the season with an impressive 8-2 record.
Departing with Frederick was longtime assistant coach and head wrestling coach Kyle Hunter, who took a position at another school.
At Shoshoni, venerable head coach Tony Truempler has also stepped down, but continues to teach. Truempler had the second-longest tenure in Shoshoni High School history with 13 years as head coach. Only the late Harold Bailey coached longer. Bailey was Wrangler head coach for 27 years.
Truempler had an overall record of 64 and 57 in his 13 seasons, including a Class 1-A Nine-Man state championship in 2021 and a runner-up finish in 2022.
Questions surround the upcoming season at Shoshoni. Numbers are expected to be low, and there is concern that the Wranglers may struggle to field a team.
Assistant coach Jody Good has also stepped down, with the head coaching position open at this point.
“Joe Fan” has no idea of the pressure coaches have, especially head coaches in football and boys’ and girls’ basketball. Everyone is an expert, and everyone’s child is the next Michael Jordan, Caitlin Clark or Peyton Manning.
Watching professional football and college sports does nothing to prepare you for becoming a high school coach. That’s the only idea most fans have of what it takes to manage a high school athletic team.
Parents are often worse. Your son or daughter is talented in your eyes and will improve under the supervision of a good coaching staff, but there are no Clarks, Jordans or Mannings walking the halls of Wyoming high schools.
Teachers need a couple of months off each year, if only to preserve their bladders so they can go to the restroom when they need to. For nine months of the year, they can’t.
Coaches need the break as well, though they now often work through the summer at off-season sessions, in the weight room, and at individual and team camps.
The job has evolved into an intense off-season, but the pay remains piddling with compensation for only the few weeks of the regular season.
Coaches seek solace in the off-season, especially after a disappointing finish.
“You’re only as good as your last game,” Harold Bailey often said, “And we lost ours.”
Many coaches find solace in fishing, farming, or construction during the summer months. Fishing and farming aren’t likely to make you much money, but construction can be quite lucrative, so lucrative that coaches sometimes resign over the summer and begin building homes as a new career.
In 1993 we had a frustrating season. We had only two upperclassmen. Our best athlete was an outstanding football player, but hoops wasn’t his sport. The rest of the team was composed of sophomores and freshmen.
You might get by in some Class 1-A and lower-level 2-A conferences with a team of ninth and tenth graders, but not in the old Five Rivers Conference.
Lovell, Wyoming Indian, Rocky Mountain, and Riverside all had stellar teams. So did Dubois. Adding to the challenge was an administration bent on limiting athletic success.
They cut our freshman program, cut the number of varsity games we could play, outlawed Friday or Saturday practices, and moved the activity bus routes up by 25 minutes, severely cutting into the practice time that remained.
Why they did it remains a mystery, but it was an effective way of crippling a successful program.
After an 0-18 season, with the first half of the year all blowouts, and the second half overtime and single-digit losses, I resigned.
It wasn’t good for me to continue and was much worse for my family.
That summer I found solace on Green Mountain. My friend Clay borrowed a twin-axle truck from the late Gary Jennings, and with six-year-old Brian in tow, we headed up Beaver Rim with a handful of cutting permits.
Clay was cutting corral poles to pay off a knee surgery he’d had. I helped him cut and load 150 poles. We cut five dozen six-inch logs, 12-foot long, for a log cabin I was building for the kids.
It was hot, dirty, and windy at the top of Green Mountain.
When we came down, the lights of the Split Rock Café in Jeffrey City were just coming on.
If you’ve ever spent a day on the mountain, or on the nearby Red Desert, a Split Rock burger and fries, with a cold one, is a little slice of heaven.
We unloaded my logs at our home on Eastview Drive and stacked them south of the garage. Over the next few weeks, I started peeling the logs with a drawknife. The fragrant sap flew off the green logs, covering the hair on my arms. Only a little turpentine could remove the heavy sap.
After football practice that fall, I’d cut and shape each log before fitting it into place. I visited a few log homes in town to determine the type of cove to use. In the end, the Swedish style worked best for my limited skill set.
I was still working construction in the summer. On one job, we tore shake shingles off the roof of a house in Lander. They were still in great shape, so I took a pickup load of them home.
They’re still in place and still shedding water 33 years later and two miles west of where I built the cabin.
It was a play place for my two children, and now the four grandkids love it as well.
You could call it a legacy, just as vibrant as the one that good coaches leave with their athletes.
Coaches need a break. Try to remember that when the fall season opens in a few weeks.