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.
The most popular topic at the all-class state track championships in Casper is never who will run the fastest 800-meter race, or which relay team has a realistic chance at breaking the 4×400 meter relay record. No, the overriding topic each season is always the same, “How bad will the weather be this year?”
To answer that question, you have to take a long look back at the state track championships.
I remember long ago in the old Wind River cafeteria near Morton when head coach Leroy Sinner came in at lunch to announce to the guys who had qualified for the state finals in Cheyenne that there was a change coming.
The capital city was getting hit by one of those infamous storms that terrorize the towns on the I-80 corridor. Those storms, as we have learned from watching the weather along the “Sno Chi Minh” trail, have closed Interstate 80 frequently from September to June almost every year.
With no girls in the meet, the state track championships were far smaller than the event today. Meet officials simply moved the Class AA, A, B, and C finals to Torrington that year.
In the following years, the finals were in Lander, a town with much better weather than Casper.
The arrival of Title IX, along with the expansion of qualifying athletes from 12 to 16, swelled the ranks; the smaller towns just couldn’t handle all the athletes, coaches, and fans.
With the option of Casper or Cheyenne, there really wasn’t much choice. The weather in May is usually horrible in both towns, but at least you can get to Casper.
The 2021 state meet promised a “return to normalcy” after the insanity of COVID 19. It wasn’t.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were just a continuation of the long tradition of snow, rain, wind, cold, lightning, or a fetid combination of two or more of these conditions.
Thursday was fine, the meet started at 3 p.m. and ended at 7 p.m. that day. In retrospect, it would have been great to see 10 or 11 hours of competition on Thursday.
Friday, Casper lived up to its reputation.
I usually make the Quality Inn my office away from home at culminating events in the Oil City. Great location, excellent continental breakfast, and high-speed Internet, everything a sports reporter can hope for.
As I typed results and reviewed photographs from the Thursday meet, I turned on the channel that track coaches love to torture themselves with. There with the smiling national anchors was the little banner of bad news rolling under the Weather Channel 5 a.m. broadcast.
“Fog, chance of rain 40%, high of 52.” That didn’t seem that bad. As I worked on the results, I looked up again just after 6 a.m. “Fog, chance of rain 50%, high of 47, light rain.”
The continental breakfast opened at 6 a.m., so I strolled down for some coffee and a chance to walk outside to check the conditions.
The weather channel was almost accurate; it was foggy, light rain was falling, but it was only 35 degrees, and a strong wind of at least 25 mph was rolling in from the northwest.
“Perfect,” I thought, “Another day in the long history of lousy weather at the state finals in Casper.”
Lousy it was. I arrived at Harry Geldien Stadium around 8:45 a.m. As usual, Kelly Walsh High School was in session.
On a regular school day, there isn’t enough parking for students and staff at Kelly Walsh. Add in the thousands of fans attending a state track meet, and the situation is ludicrous. Trendy high schools like Kelly Walsh have dozens of “in-service” days scattered throughout the school year, but they can never seem to have one on the Thursday or Friday of state volleyball, basketball, or track. Odd how that happens year after year, isn’t it?
The WHSAA outdid itself with locked gates. There were more padlocks than Fort Knox, blocking dozens of entrances that had been used without incident for years. They even tried to block the parking lot connecting the many soccer fields east of the stadium. The gate off 12th Street was firmly locked, but this wasn’t my first rodeo; I knew there was a residential street you could take through some winding roads through a neighborhood that the WHSAA or Kelly Walsh would have no jurisdiction over.
Sure enough, the path was open, the lot was only half full, and it was within a half-mile hike of the stadium entrance. I had a few of my fellow travelers who knew the back way into the lot as well. Maybe 75 cars found spots in the 100 spaces available at the lot.
For the next 10 hours, it rained, the wind howled, the temperature jumped to a high of 42 degrees, and the sun never found its way through the clouds. It was miserable as a reporter. It was difficult trying to keep my camera dry, and in spite of three layers of clothes and a raincoat, it was brutally cold by 11 a.m.
But the kids, and the state meet is all about the best we produce in Wyoming. They were stoic, competitive, and aside from more blankets scattered around the stadium than the Pendleton factory in Oregon, they competed.
In addition to limiting access, the new facilities at Kelly Walsh don’t have spectator areas for almost all field events. Pole vault fans have to stand to watch the event. The discus audience has a small set of bleachers, set at an angle 50 yards from the competition, with rows of poles, fences, and nets separating the spectators from the athletes.
It is far from an ideal situation, but the WHSAA doesn’t lose a nickel of revenue this way; they just don’t draw as many fans as they once did.
By 7 p.m. Friday, the hike back to the parking lot seemed a lot longer.
I thought back to days gone by when lightning, a downpour, or a fast-moving snowstorm might postpone a few events. The last time I remember weather this consistently poor was on the Saturday of the 1982 meet.
The infield had five inches of standing water; it rained all week before the meet and continued all three days of competition. The high jumpers had to start on the grass in those days before hitting the smaller asphalt pad. The kids were sloshing their feet through the water before their final five steps. There weren’t any records set that season. My 6-5 high jumper, Bill Graves, used a longer approach. Billy had to start in water above his ankles on the grass, then take his final steps on the asphalt. He tied the eventual state champion at 5-11, but lost on misses.
I had a couple of 300-meter hurdlers and one 400-meter runner make the Saturday finals that year. Volunteers manned squeegees and brooms on each corner of the track. As the gun sounded, the guys in the curves worked furiously to push the water off the track just before the boys and girls made their corners; the straightaway was wet, but no standing water. As the kids approached the second or third curve, the volunteers briskly shoved the water to the infield only to see it flow back in once the kids were around the track.
I doubt they see these conditions in Arizona, California, or Texas ever, but it’s life as we know it in Wyoming. Another season has come to an end, coinciding with nature’s final grasp at one more day of winter.
It’s been a strange season with hot weather throughout the week, but meets routinely canceled as the weekend arrives due to misguided forecasts mostly that predicted rain or snow that never arrived.
Such is life on the 400-meter oval in the high desert.