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.
We stuffed our gear underneath, then grabbed our seats in the back of the bus. As the bus took a left turn at Kinnear, he pulled a plastic bread sack out of his bag.
“Elk jerky,” Dick said. “My grandma made it.”
That was all the invitation I needed, and for the next 60 miles or so, we ate the entire bag.
We were on the way to Basin that afternoon for a football game with the Bobcats. Neither one of us thought about anything to drink, since the jerky was so good.
By the time we got to Thermopolis we both knew the error of our ways. When the bus finally hit the Basin High School parking lot, Dick and I beelined for the nearest water fountain.
It’s one of my fondest memories of my buddy Dick Tidzump.
Dick passed to the other camp this week. He was 67 years old.
We met at football practice my sophomore year, Dick was a year behind me, the Wind River class of 1976.
Dick was an outstanding athlete, one of the best to ever come through Wind River.
His looks were deceptive. He was a big kid, 6-1 and about 225 pounds by his junior year. His favorite move on the basketball court when he played someone for the first time was to dribble slowly up the court, moving the ball from left to right.
If someone picked him up in a man-to-man defense, he would lazily approach the defender. Dick was a guard, and usually defended by a short, quick kid. Dick lulled the defender into taking a swipe at the ball and when they did, he exploded with a quick cross over step no one that big should have, usually ending the play with a finger roll at the rim.
It only worked the first time, but it set up his arching, long range set shot. Dick played before the 3-point shot was part of the game. He was one of those kids who were made for the trey. We always joked that his shot had ice on it since it went so high in the air.
Dick had a wicked sense of humor, and even more wicked left hook. He enjoyed a good fight, and in those days at Wind River, there were fights behind the gym many times at lunch.
One night we were in Thermopolis driving around in my 1962 Nova. Yes, we were looking for girls. As I drove towards the park on Main Street, near the old courthouse with the symbols many people confuse with the swastika just below the roof, Dick yelled, “Stop the car.”
I hit the brakes and he jumped out. There was a guy standing on the corner. They had words and Dick went to work on him. Quick work, the guy ran off after a few punches.
Dick hoped back into the car.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
Dick smiled with that infectious grin and said, “It’s tribal. Where are those girls’ you guys said you knew?”
That was it.
During my senior year and Dick’s junior season we had a football coach who believed that physical conditioning was the only thing you needed.
At the end of each practice, we had “piggyback” sprints. One guy carried the other one on his back for 40 yards, then they switched and ran back to the starting line.
Wally and Dan were the fastest guys on the team and won easily. Little freshmen and sophomores came next. You had to keep sprinting until everyone “won” a race. With 40 guys out, that meant up to 20 40-yard up-and-back dashes at the end of practice full of three-man-rolls, hills, sprints and constant punishment drills.
We figured out a method to cut that down to just four or five for us.
I was 50 pounds lighter than Dick, but I could carry him easily, just not at sprinter speed. We dogged the first few sprints and when we thought we had a chance we’d kick it into high gear. I’d start and finish my leg in the middle of the pack. When I jumped on Dick’s back, it was like he had no weight at all on him and he’d use that same quickness from the basketball court to sprint our way out of practice and into the locker room.
Dick was a cagey one. He always had an angle, a quick comment and that big smile.
I had graduated and was a freshman at UW when Dick’s most famous incident as an athlete occurred. The Cougars were playing in Basin and Dick was a human wrecking ball on the Bobcat backfield.
One of the officials came up and ejected him from the game for no apparent reason.
When head coach Bert Oakley approached the official, the ref said, “This kid is hitting too hard, he’s going to hurt somebody.”
Oakley was ejected a few seconds later. Imagine, “hitting too hard” was a penalty.
In later years Dick and I ran into each other all the time at Wind River football and basketball games, and in the stands at Shoshoni, Wyoming Indian and Dubois.
He was the ultimate fan for his kids and grandkids, he had a special place for his nephews and their families as well.
If you’ve ever watched a game at Pavillion, in the Purple Palace you’ll notice informal seating assignments. The visiting team sits on the left side of the scorers table facing the floor, the Pavillion area farmers and fans on the right.
Across the gym, the Native American fans sit on the side near the lobby. It’s not set in stone, but that’s how it is usually arranged when I arrive.
Dick always sat in the third row, near mid-court in the informal Native American section. I’d sit down for a quarter or two after shooting a few photographs and we’d laugh, comment on players and reminisce. This went on for years, decades in fact.
Dick’s mom and dad, Walter and Pauline were friends of my parents. Dad and Walter used to buy heifers from each other, and dad sold Walter a few bulls over the years. That’s the way it is in small communities like Pavillion.
A final note on the Tidzump clan. When Dick’s nephew Taylor played basketball at Wind River, he was a solid low post. I often joked with him that no matter how good he was, he’d never be the best Tidzump, that honor went to his uncle Dick.
After the Cougars beat Pine Bluffs in the 2017 semi-finals in overtime behind Taylor’s dominance in the paint, I told him, “Maybe there’s another Tidzump as good as your uncle Dick.”
Dick was one of a kind. A friendly giant, with just a little bit of an edge.
It’s hard to lose a friend of 50+ years, but that’s life.