Category Archives: Star-tribune

This was a post I orginally wrote back in March for my old TribTown blog, from back when I worked at the Casper Star-Tribune.

My grandfather died last night, and in his memory I want to repost it here:

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With five high school football programs starting from scratch this fall, I’m working on a story that will touch on all the schools, a “progress report” for the six-man schools waiting to join the fray come August.

So far, I’ve reached six of the 10 ADs in charge of the programs that will make up Wyoming’s new six-man division (watch for the story next week, part of a series of stories relating to Wyoming’s changing football landscape). All six, unanimously, are thrilled for the chance they have this fall.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently — how to start a football program from scratch. I already know someone who did so and someone else who tried.

My grandfather, Jacque, started the Huntley High School football program way back in 1951. Even though his high school in South Dakota was too small to field a team, he excelled on the gridiron in college, even making the all-conference team at Augustana in 1947 and playing for a while at Bowling Green.

When he came to Huntley, though, the Cardinals didn’t have a football team. So he drummed up support however he could, earned the school board’s approval and, in 1951, put the Cards on the field.

Grandpa must have seen something good in the boys in Huntley to go to all that effort…. and in his first two games, his players proved him right. The Cards thumped Albin 50-0 and Lingle 48-0 in their first two games. From there, Huntley beat Glenrock, Manville and Albin again to set up a date with Hanna for the right to play in the state’s Class B six-man state championship.

After staking a 20-0 lead, though, the Cards stumbled. Hanna came roaring back to win, 27-20, and earned the right to play in the state title game. (For what it’s worth, Hanna lost that title game 47-0 to Byron.)

The Huntley program survived until 1969; the school until 1980. Today, the Huntley boys play at Southeast — the three-time defending state champions. Even though he’s long since removed from Goshen County’s sports scene, I’d like to think Grandpa has a little something to do with the Cyclones’ run.

Flip forward to 1973, my dad’s first year in Rock River. Just like my grandpa, my dad never played high school football (he was a golfer), but in Rock River he wanted to try something different.

But the Longhorns weren’t quite ready to take on that task. With anywhere from 12-15 boys in the high school at any time — and with no growth spurts coming in the foreseeable future — any idealistic plans for Rock River football were crushed by reality.

Flip forward to 2009. Rock River will have football for the first time this fall. Kaycee and Fort Washakie, too, are building programs from nothing, while Farson and Snake River are resurrecting long-dormant programs as part of the state’s new six-man league.

This fall, only four Wyoming high schools — Arapaho Charter, Arvada-Clearmont, Chugwater and Glendo — will have no football whatsoever.

And for some reason, I keep having this dream. I’m moving… maybe to Clearmont or Platte County…. and I’m trying to start a football program…. like somebody before me has tried it…. like it’s my destiny….

Naahhh. 🙂

More than 16,000 football games have been played by Wyoming high school teams in the past 60 years.

Everyone has their favorite — the one that sticks out for either the stakes, the circumstances or the personal investment.

For pure drama, though, no Wyoming title game stacks up to the one Worland and Torrington played for the 1955 Class A title.

After Torrington rallied from a 14-0 deficit to force overtime, the two teams abided by the rules then in place — the ball was spotted on the 50-yard line and each team was given five plays, alternating. The team that had the ball on its opponents side of the 50 after those 10 plays was declared the winner.

Here’s the account of overtime from Ray Griffin’s story in the Casper Tribune-Herald:

Torrington’s first play: 3-yard run by Bobby Hankins (ball on Worland’s 47)

Worland’s first play: 2-yard run by Terry Smothermon (ball on Worland’s 49)

Torrington’s second play: 1-yard run by Hankins (ball on Worland’s 48)

Worland’s second play: 1-yard run by Smothermon (ball on Worland’s 49)

Torrington’s third play: incomplete pass (ball on Worland’s 49)

Worland’s third play: Offsides penalty on Worland, followed by a 1-yard loss by Cote (first name unavailable) on a reverse (ball on Worland’s 43)

Torrington’s fourth play: No gain on a run by Ron Wood (ball on Worland’s 43)

Worland’s fourth play: 6-yard run by Smothermon (ball on Worland’s 49)

Torrington’s fifth play: No gain on a run by Hankins (ball on Worland’s 49)

Worland’s fifth play: 3-yard run by Smothermon (ball on Torrington’s 48)

In the end, as Griffin put it, “The ball was perhaps five feet inside Torrington territory when the game ended.”

Frankly, the 1955 method was a pretty cruddy way to decide a championship. Alternating plays is the worst way to gain any type of offensive or defensive consistency and it’s tough to establish any kind of set-up for a trick play (although both teams tried in 1955, with Torrington running one of those tricky passing plays and Worland trying a reverse, neither of which worked).

However, you can’t argue the drama that hung over that final play, with one yard standing between two teams and a championship. No matter the system, you can’t argue that there wasn’t a more exciting way to end a game — and a season.

Just for perspective, the other four championship games to go into overtime were the 2002 Class 4A title game (Worland over Star Valley 17-14); the 1990 Class 2A title game (Thermopolis over Lovell 21-20); the 1983 Class 3A title game (Buffalo over Evanston 13-12); and the 1976 Class AA title game (Cody over Laramie 41-40 in triple overtime).

I wrote about this a while back on my old Sports Goulash blog at the Star-Tribune. I listed the 1955 Class A title game as the No. 1 game in Wyoming’s history. Here were the other four I posted at the time, although I think some of my list has changed:

So here they are, “The Top Five Games in Wyoming High School Football History, or At Least the Ones I Can Remember”:

5. Natrona County 7, Sheridan 0, 1996 Class 4A championship: Sheridan was the juggernaut, having won four of the previous five big-school titles. Despite beating Sheridan 16-0 earlier in the season, NC was still the underdog, still rising from the ashes of some rough years. The Mustangs won on a second-quarter pass play from Jacque Finn to Josh Daniels. It was Steve Harshman’s first championship with NC, and he still has the paper clipping on his bulletin board at NCHS.

4. Riverton 33, Lander 27, 1994 Class 3A championship: At the time, then-Riverton coach Don Julian (now at UW) called it “the greatest high school football game I’ve ever been associated with.” Corte McGuffey, who later starred at Northern Colorado and in the XFL, threw for 419 yards and led the Wolverines’ comeback victory in front of 4,000 fans at Tonkin Stadium. The winning TD by Kevin DeVries came with 1:15 to go.

3. Cokeville 14, Southeast 13, 2003 Class 1A championship: Give Southeast coach Mark Bullington credit. He went for the win. However, the Panthers’ Nathan Fiscus stopped Cyclones’ QB Alan Moore on a two-point conversion attempt with 2:14 remaining, and Cokeville won its third consecutive small-school championship.

2. Big Horn 45, Riverside 45, 3OT, tie, 1987: Ties were abolished after the 1974 season. Somehow, this 1987 season opener between the Rams and Rebels finished in a tie — the only deadlock in Wyoming before or since the rule change. All I remember about this one is that it ended in a tie because the officials thought three overtimes was the limit. I could be wrong, though. … Anyone?

Here are a couple comments from that list:

“I can remember one other important OT game played during the 1960 regular season when Tommy Wilkinson’s Greybull crew beat Lander in the same OT format but the game was disputed and Greybull and Lander had to play again at the conclusion of the season with Greybull winning 33-7. Greybull went on to beat Evanston and Gary McLean, 14-7 for the title.”

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“Just found this. Interesting that the 1976 Cody victory over Laramie doesn’t show up in your top 5 list. I was there, all of 11 years old. Game decided 41-40 in Cody in triple overtime. Laramie under John Deti, Sr., was heavily favored, but Cody, led by Rob Russell, Clark Fuller, Mike Mees and many others, fought back from being down 20-8 at halftime to force overtime. 41-40 triple overtime. David beats Goliath. John McDougall’s first state championship as coach. A great moment in a small town. I was proud to be there, standing alongside my dad, who in 1958, played on the Torrington team that traveled to Cody the day after a snowstorm and lost the state title by a touchdown. … The game was amazing. Laramie was bigger, stronger, faster. Cody’s only score of the first half was on a kickoff return for a touchdown by Rob Russell. The game was tied 28-28, I believe, at the end of regulation. The California playoff was the mode of settling the winner. I do remember that Laramie scored in the second overtime and missed the extra point (I think it was on a two-point try by their huge fullback). Cody scored and then had the opportunity to kick the extra point for the win. From the stands Russell’s kick looked good, but it was ruled no good. Laramie scored again, rather quickly, but again failed on the two-point try. Cody scored, and Russell’s kick was true and there was chaos. There must have been at least 5,000 fans in attendance rooting on the Broncs. The next year, Mike Mees, who went on to BYU and then later punted in the USFL for the Arizona Outlaws, and Clark Fuller passed their way to another improbable appearance in the state championship game against Cheyenne Central. That game was a shootout, and the Indians prevailed. It was an exciting time to be a youngster growing up in Cody. Many years later, Mees ended up coaching basketball in Worland.”

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“I can understand why their are no Guernsey games on the list, it must have been hard enough to choose as it was. But, if you had a top ten list at least three of Guernsey’s recent playoff games deserve a shot at that list. There’s already been mention of this past year’s state championship game in Cokeville. The game their two years before, however, saw Guernsey drive I think 97 yards, eating up almost all of the fourth quarter, to score the go ahead touchdown. To put together that kind of a drive on Cokeville defense, with no long plays on the drive either, and just pounding it down the field, was pretty impressive. Also, the week before that game Guernsey beat Burlington in the semis in overtime with a field goal. The game was back and forth throughout regulation and ended 21-21 (could’ve been more but each team had goal line stops). Burlington got the ball first in overtime but Guernsey stopped them. Thus, Guernsey scores and they win. On the first play they get the ball to the 2, then get stuffed twice and decide to kick a field goal. The only field goal ever attempted by the Vikings during Matt Calvert’s tenure turned out to make the season. Just thought I’d throw those out there.”

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“The best game I ever played in was Cokeville vs. Southeast in 1993 in a state semi-final game in Yoder. Both teams scored 14 points early in the first half. From there on it was a defensive struggle. The game went to overtime where Southeast had the ball first. They scored quickly and added the pat to go ahead 21-14. We answered with a touchdown to pull with in a point. We called time out and coach Todd Dayton came out onto the field and into our huddle. He took the field goal kicking tee and threw it to the sidelines, making sure the Southeast side knew we were planning on going the 2 pt conversion and the win. Coach Dayton called no play in the huddle…we were going to try and get Southeast to jump offside and move the ball closer to the goal line. If they did not jump, we were going to call time out and kick the pat and head to the second overtime. Southeast did in fact jump offside and on the next play our running back Ricky Himmerich scored on a dive to the right from a yard and a half out.”

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“The 1955 AA Championship game between Laramie and Cheyenne should rank up there. Laramie won 18-14 and the game ended in an on field riot.. This was the first year Laramie beat Cheyenne twice in the same season. The #1 game you have listed (Torrington)…the Torrington quarterback was John Korhonen and that team included several guys who went on to play at U of W. Actually, Torrington beat Laramie early in the season for Laramies only loss of the year.”

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So there it is, the starting point for debate. Toss out your suggestions for Wyoming’s best high school football game ever with a comment below.

–patrick