School: Wind River
Nickname: Cougars
Colors: purple and black
Stadium: LeRoy Sinner Field
State championship: 1997
Times worth remembering: Wind River’s success has always come in spurts. Only three seasons in school history have the Cougars produced a season with fewer than three losses — 1992, 1997 and 2008. However, the 1997-98 seasons offered something no other two-year span has given the Cougars: seasons with back-to-back playoff victories. Wind River went 10-0 and won the 1A-Division II championship in 1997, then went 5-4 and reached the semifinals in 1998.
Times worth forgetting: Conversely, Wind River is almost always competitive. Since their first season in 1969, the Cougars have had only one winless season (1987). However, the early 1980s were tough for Wind River, as the Cougars could only muster two victories in 1980 and just one win in 1981. Then, after a 4-3 campaign in 1982, the Cougars went 1-7 in 1983.
Best team: The 1997 team stands alone as Wind River’s best. That squad notched a pair of feats the Cougars haven’t accomplished either before or since — an undefeated season and a state championship. The Cougars were at their best on defense; they had five shutout victories, including all three playoff games, and gave up an average of just 6 points per game. Seven players — all seniors — were first-team all-state selections, including repeaters Micah Vroman and Jacob Wempen.
Biggest win: Wind River had long waited for this moment. Since opening in 1969, the Cougars hadn’t won a state football championship, but the 1997 team changed that. In front of their home fans in Pavillion, the Cougars notched an 18-0 victory over Upton to secure the 1A-Division II championship — the school’s first and only football championship.
Heartbreaker: The 1992 team was nearly the one to win Wind River’s first championship. The Cougars reached the 1A title game that season with an 8-1 record, the lone loss coming courtesy of Rocky Mountain. The team Wind River met in the championship? Rocky Mountain. For the second time that season, the Grizzlies beat the Cougars, as Rocky’s Kenny May scored the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter of the 10-7 victory.
School: Cheyenne Central
Nickname: Indians
Colors: red and black
Stadium: Riske Field
State championships: 1977, 1979, 1983, 1988, 1989 and 2005
Times worth remembering: For six years, from 1976-81, the Indians compiled a record of 51-5, and finished as undefeated state champions in both 1977 and 1979. Unfortunately for Central, three of those five losses came in one-loss seasons, and all three losses kept the Indians from competing in the state championship game.
Times worth forgetting: The 1990s weren’t kind to Central. For seven straight years that decade, from 1991-97, the Indians didn’t have a winning season. The team bottomed out in 1994 with an 0-7 season.
Best team: It’s a toss-up between the 1979 and 1989 seasons. The 1979 squad went 10-0 and won eight of its games by at least 28 points, including a 51-12 demolishing of Riverton in the Class AA championship. The 1989 team also went 10-0 on the way to the state championship, winning its two playoff games by a combined 62-0.
Biggest win: The 2005 Central team was an extremely average regular-season team. The Indians went 4-4 in the regular season and seemed destined for an early exit in the playoffs. But the Indians had other plans. They edged out Laramie in the first round of the playoffs, then beat favored Natrona in overtime in the semis. And then, in the championship game against crosstown rival Cheyenne East — a team that beat Central 31-7 in the regular season — the Indians completed their destiny with a 27-14 victory in front of close to 10,000 Capital City fans.
Heartbreaker: In 1990, the Indians were cruising toward their third consecutive state championship and cementing their status as a dynasty. But Sheridan was on its way to a dynasty of its own — and its first victim was Central in the 1990 Class 4A title game. Even though Central beat Sheridan 28-20 earlier in the year in Sheridan, the Broncs reversed the trend and beat the Indians 35-30 in the championship in Cheyenne. Sheridan went on to win four consecutive state championships and five in six years; Central needed until 2005 to win another title.
School: Mountain View
Nickname: Buffalos
Colors: purple and black
Stadium: Clarence Lammers Stadium
State championships: 1984, 1995 and 1997
Times worth remembering: Few teams were as consistent as the Buffalos from 1995-2002. In those eight years, Mountain View played in six state championship games and won a pair, going undefeated in both 1995 and 1997. In those eight seasons combined, the Buffalos went 62-17. The Buffalos ran off a similar streak in 1962-67, going 40-4-1 with three undefeated seasons — but won no state championships, mythical or otherwise.
Times worth forgetting: Two abysmal stretches mark the Buffalos’ program. The first came with back-to-back winless seasons in 1972 (0-9) and 1973 (0-8) when the team was shut out 12 times in 17 games. The second came in a five-year stretch from 1977-80, when the team went 2-32; that includes back-to-back winless seasons in 1977 (0-7) and 1978 (0-6) in which the Buffs were shut out 11 times in 13 games and scored only 21 points total in the two seasons combined.
Best team: Of Mountain View’s six unbeaten teams, three stand out as outstanding — the 1962 team only gave up 12 points in a 6-0 season; the 1995 team outscored its foes 458-65, including 148-14 in the playoffs, on its way to a 10-0 record; and the 1997 squad allowed just 28 points all season and scored 327 on its way to a state title. Let’s just call it a draw; placed on the field against each other, they’d tie.
Biggest win: They say you always remember your first — and that’s certainly the case with Mountain View. The 41-14 2A title-game victory over Tongue River in 1984 helped not only the school, but the entire region. The Southwest had long been viewed as inferior by other regions (something demonstrated year in and year out by the statewide polls), but Mountain View’s ’84 title was the Southwest’s sixth B/2A championship in nine years. It was the end of the beginning for both the region and the school, and both went onto greater heights in the 1990s and 2000s.
Heartbreaker: The 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers may have coined the phrase, “Wait ‘til next year,” but Mountain View gave it a whole new twist. It all started in 1999 with the toughest defeat in school history, a 16-6 home loss to Bridger Valley rival Lyman, a team Mountain View beat in the regular season, in the 2A championship game. The loss began a string of “almost” — the Buffalos also lost championship games in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004. They have yet to win another state title.
Today begins the unveiling of my “super-secret project.” By now, I’ve pretty much committed myself to writing a book about Wyoming high school football history, and part of that book will be brief overviews of every program in the state — their highs and lows, their best games and heartbreaking losses.
I’ll post a new bio every Tuesday. Feel free to critique, agree, disagree, suggest other options or bring up your own favorite memories. I’d love to hear what your favorite memories are from your favorite teams!
Teams will be posted in more or less random order. That said, Dubois — for no real reason at all — kicks off this project… Enjoy.
School: Dubois
Nickname: Rams
Colors: blue and yellow
Stadium: Rams Stadium
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: The mid-to-late 1980s were a good time in Dubois. From 1984-90, the Rams only had one losing season and made their only appearance in a state championship game, 1990’s 35-20 loss to Lingle in the 1A-9 man championship.
Times worth forgetting: From 1975-83, the Rams had just one winning season, a 5-2 season in 1978. Four times in that span the Rams won just one game, and had winless seasons in both 1975 and 1980. The 1975 squad couldn’t finish its season, forfeiting its final two games.
Best team: The 1984 Dubois team had the most consistency, reeling off seven straight victories before a loss to Shoshoni in the season finale, a loss that kept the Rams out of the playoffs. Seven players from that squad made the all-state team — first-teamers Allen Politte and Kal Jepson were joined by five second-team selections. Only Mountain View had more all-staters in Class 2A that year.
Biggest win: There aren’t a lot of postseason successes for Dubois — in program history, the Rams have only won playoff games three times. Even so, 1990’s 20-6 semifinal victory over Midwest gave Dubois its only trip to a championship game.
Heartbreaker: Three games stand out in Dubois’ list of near-misses: a 20-0 loss to Shoshoni in the 1984 season finale, a 26-24 loss to Meeteetse toward the end of the 1988 season and a 23-21 loss to Hulett in the semifinals of the 1992 9-man playoffs. The losses in 1984 and 1988 kept the Rams from making the playoffs, but the 1992 loss probably cost Dubois a championship. The Rams won the West Conference title in 1992 and the loss to Hulett was an upset in every stretch of the imagination. Dubois was denied a chance to play Burlington — a team the Rams beat 21-14 earlier in the season — in the 9-man title game. Burlington subsequently beat Hulett 46-8 in the title game for its first state championship; Dubois is still searching for its first title-game win.