Final game for Tonkin Stadium

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Tonkin Field. Photo courtesy Ernie Over.

Tonkin Stadium. Photo courtesy Ernie Over.

Tonkin Stadium, the home of the Riverton Wolverines, will end its run as the school’s home field on Friday night when Riverton hosts Cody.

The field is unique due to its placement, dug into the side of a hill. The stadium’s location allows for one of the most unique and intimate settings for high school football in the state.

Riverton will begin playing home games at the new Wolverine Stadium after the Cody game.

Do you have a story or memory to share about Tonkin Stadium? What events helped make Tonkin the unique place it is today? Share some of your thoughts below and let’s help send the stadium out on a high note on Friday.

Tonkin Field. Photo courtesy Ernie Over.

Tonkin Stadium. Photo courtesy Ernie Over.

–patrick

Stadium checklist (yours and mine)

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A conversation I had back in October with Wyoming Tribune-Eagle sportswriter Jeremiah Johnke — a guy who I always appreciate seeing in the press box next to me — sparked a mental tally in my head that I am finally putting down “on paper.”

Jeremiah and I were running off the mental checklist of Wyoming football stadiums we had seen and of stadiums where we had actually seen a game played. Jeremiah’s list was quite extensive. But so was mine. I think we tied….

Eventually, I actually sat down and started tallying.

My list of stadiums that I’ve been to is quite a bit more extensive than my list of stadiums where I’ve actually seen (or participated in) a game. As my wife can attest to, whenever I drive within a few miles of a stadium I haven’t seen, I have to go drive around and check it out. The seen/participated list means the most to me; I have very distinct memories of each one of those stadiums because of what I watched (or did) there.

Anyway, here’s my list. What’s yours? I’m really curious to see where other fans in the state have been… and feel free to share your stories about your travels around the state!

(Before you get around to posting your list, a couple ground rules: First, if you need some help with a school checklist, click here, and if you want some more info on the particular stadiums, click here. Second, “been to” means, at minimum, you drove to the field and stopped your vehicle. Driving past it, even at 15 mph, doesn’t count. Third, “watching” a game means being there the ENTIRE time. You can’t count it if you were only there for a few minutes, or if you drove past it one day and they were playing a game there.)

Stadiums I have been to: Big Horn, Big Piney, Buffalo, Burns, Cheyenne Central, Cheyenne East, Cheyenne South, Cody, Cokeville, Douglas, Dubois, Farson, Gillette, Glenrock, Green River, Greybull, Guernsey, Hanna, Hulett, Kaycee, Kelly Walsh, Kemmerer, Lander, Laramie, Lingle, Lusk, Meeteetse, Midwest, Moorcroft, Mountain View, Natrona, Normative Services, Pine Bluffs, Pinedale, Powell, Rawlins, Riverside, Riverton, Rocky Mountain (the old field in Byron), Sheridan, Shoshoni, Southeast, Star Valley, Sundance, Ten Sleep, Thermopolis, Torrington, Upton, Wheatland, Wind River, Worland, Wright, Wyoming Indian. (53 stadiums)

Stadiums where I have watched/played in a game: Big Horn, Buffalo, Burns, Cheyenne Central, Cheyenne East, Douglas, Dubois, Gillette, Glenrock, Hanna, Hulett, Kaycee, Kelly Walsh, Laramie, Meeteetse, Midwest, Moorcroft, Natrona, Pine Bluffs, Rocky Mountain (the old field in Byron), Sheridan, Sundance, Ten Sleep, Torrington, Upton, Wyoming Indian. (26 stadiums)

And for clarity’s sake, here are the stadiums I haven’t been to: Burlington, Evanston, Jackson, Lovell, Lyman, Newcastle, Rock Springs, Rocky Mountain (the new field in Cowley), Saratoga, Snake River, Tongue River. (11 stadiums; I’ve driven past most of these but never took the time to actually stop and look.)

Your turn…

–patrick

Rocky Mountain opens new stadium in Cowley

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The Basin Republican Rustler reported today’s game between Burlington and Rocky Mountain will be the Grizzlies’ first home game at their new stadium in Cowley. If somebody gets a chance to upload some pictures of the stadium/game to the Wyoming-football.com Flickr group, that would be awesome…. or you can just e-mail them to me at pschmiedt@yahoo.com. A curious fan (me) says thanks!

–patrick

Big Horn’s field progress…

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Big Horn’s new football field is progressing fast… but not fast enough to get today’s game against Glenrock at “home.” Today’s game has been moved over to the Normative Services field and the kickoff will be at 3 p.m. (I realize I’m making this post at 2:51 p.m., which may not do much good to the folks already on the road. Sorry!)

You can check out the progress of the field through our friends at Sheridan Media, who reported that the field’s new synthetic surface is still being transported.

Next week’s Rams game against Thermopolis, for now, is still scheduled for Big Horn, but that’s obviously dependent on the field getting there and getting installed.

–patrick

Sorry, Westville… you weren’t first

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It’s with much regret to the citizens of Westville, Illinois, that I write this post. After all, they’re going to have to change their sign. Because it’s wrong.

Westville claims the nation’s first lighted high school football game. It came in 1928, on Sept. 21 of that year, in a game against Milford, according to the IHSA (scroll down about 1/3 of the way down the page). Westville even won the game, 26-6.

There’s just one little problem with that claim: It’s inaccurate. Midwest, Wyoming, hosted the first night football game in November 1925.

A full four years before the first professional night game, and three years before Westville, the Oilers hosted Casper High School (now Natrona) on Nov. 19, 1925. Casper won the game 20-0; Midwest won style and novelty points. About 400 people turned out to watch the game, played under floodlights installed by the Midwest Refining Co. at the location of Midwest’s current community softball field. The game was played in cold temperatures (after all, it WAS nighttime in late November) and with a football that had been painted white.

Now, nearly every high school in the state has lights. Only about a dozen schools in Wyoming are without them.

And, of course, the tradition of Friday night lights did not remain solely a Wyoming tradition. It is now Americana — a tradition for tens of thousands of communities across the country. (Never mind that Nov. 19, 1925, was a Thursday…)

Even though Mansfield University has everyone beat, Wyoming CAN claim the first high school football game under the lights.

–patrick

New Sporcle quiz: Wyoming HS football stadiums east to west

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So I put up another Wyoming high school football quiz on Sporcle…. The Wyoming high school football teams ranked east to west by the location of their stadium.

Click here to play it.

Or, check out the stadiums page to study up before you take the quiz. No cheating, though! Scout’s honor.

Once again, my two most nerdy sides emerge simultaneously. 🙂

–patrick

Six-man updates, plus some summer news

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I’ve added pages for Kaycee and Fort Washakie, even though those programs have yet to put an official game in. I also added details for Kaycee, Fort Washakie, Snake River and Farson to the fields page.

Personally, I’m glad to see that the WHSAA is giving six-man a chance. It’ll be interesting to see if it grows over the next couple years or if it slowly dwindles and dies like nine-man did about 15 years ago…

A couple news items to pass along:

Kaycee’s facilities are still under construction, but will be ready for the season opener (Buffalo Bulletin)…. Pinedale has preliminary funding for a new turf field (read the bottom of the story, Pinedale Roundup)…. and Evanston has already begun thinking about opening day (Uinta County Herald).

–patrick

Shedding some light on the field situation

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I’ve slowly been collecting football schedules for 2009 (REAL ones, with kickoff times and dates, not just the WHSAA listing) and it looks like at least two schools have added lights for next season.

According to the start times, at least, both Upton and Pinedale will have lights on their fields this fall.

I found this Youtube video of some of the dirt work on the Upton field, but that, plus the start times, is all the proof I can muster for Upton. One thing looks for certain — the new field will certainly be much more accessible to the school than the old field.

Meanwhile, aside from a May school budget item, I can’t find anything about Pinedale’s lights. Can anyone let me know what’s going on up there?

Also, according  to the start times, Wind River has its lighting situation rectified and will be taking to night games again this fall. Wind knocked down some of the poles last season, poles that were installed in 2006….

Anyway, can anyone out there fill me in on what’s new in Upton, Pinedale or Pavillion?

–patrick

Stadiums page madness!

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If you know me at all, you know I’m a bit of a geography nerd. It shouldn’t be too surprising, then, that I’ve fused geography and high school football into one awesome creation… the updated stadiums page.

Thanks to the help of Google Earth, all of the stadims now have their elevation, latitude and longitude listed beside the stadium’s name. Fields are also ranked by those attributes — from highest to lowest, from north to south and from west to east. Check it out.

–patrick