“We all die twice — once when our heart stops beating, and again when our name comes out of someone else’s mouth for the last time.”
The origins of that quote, which has many iterations, are murky, and it’s kind of ironic that we don’t know who said it first. Irony aside, though, the spirit of the quote has been at the forefront of my mind as I pursued finding information that led to the selection of the all-decade teams you’ve seen both this week and that first came out last summer.
Even with all the work I did, I still feel like I barely scratched the surface of all the amazing personal stories that make up the tapestry of history of high school football in Wyoming.
Please take the time to check out the bios of each player. Know that for every sentence you read here, I probably read 50 or 100 sentences to make it happen. I loved every minute of it.
As a reminder: Each team has rosters of 53 players with the following breakdowns:
- Offense: Two quarterbacks, five running backs, five wide receivers, three tight ends, nine offensive linemen.
- Defense: Seven defensive linemen, seven linebackers, eight defensive backs, two rovers.
- Special teams: One kicker, one punter, one return specialist.
- Wild cards: Two “athletes” who could show up anywhere on the field.
Also, I wanted to share the direct links to the visualizations I created. The photos and text from clicking people’s faces will be bigger if you go to these sites directly, and that might make it easier to peruse, especially on a desktop or laptop. It’ll make it easier to actually look at their faces:
2010s
2000s
1990s
1980s
1970s
1960s
1950s
1940s
1930s
1920s
The final count by school for the 530 spots available across the 10 decades of Wyoming high school football had players from 64 different high schools. The number of players per school is as follows:
- Natrona: 56
- Cheyenne Central: 47
- Sheridan: 43
- Laramie: 33
- Rock Springs: 21
- Campbell County: 19
- Rawlins: 16
- Lander, Worland: 15
- Cody, Torrington: 14
- Green River, Star Valley: 13
- Powell: 12
- Cheyenne East, Evanston, Riverton, Thermopolis: 11
- Buffalo: 10
- Lusk: 9
- Douglas, Kelly Walsh: 8
- Greybull, Lovell, Wheatland: 7
- Jackson, Kemmerer: 6
- Glenrock, Pinedale, Tongue River: 5
- Basin, Cokeville, Midwest, Mountain View, Pine Bluffs: 4
- Big Horn, Burns, Cowley, Moorcroft, Newcastle, Saratoga, Shoshoni, Southeast: 3
- Big Piney, Byron, Guernsey-Sunrise, Riverside, Wright, players who attended multiple high schools: 2
- Burlington, Cheyenne Seton/St. Mary’s, Deaver-Frannie, Dubois, Glendo, Hanna, Heart Mountain, Hulett, Lingle, Lyman, Manville, Rocky Mountain, Sundance, Ten Sleep, Thunder Basin, Upton: 1
For now, I’m done picking these kinds of teams. (Maybe see you in 2030?) However, as I noted the first time I did this, I really do hope that these lists inspire rather than quash conversation. Don’t think of these as the definitive choices; they’re just my opinion based on the information I could find. I say “find” specifically because, especially for the teams in the 1920s and 1930s but also heavily for the 1940s and 1950s, I could only rely on what was written and saved in newspaper accounts. The oldest player on these teams was born about 123 years ago. The only difference between the players on the 1920s team and the players on the 2010s team, though, is when they were born. Their faces give that away.
I’m almost certain that every player listed on both the 1920s and 1930s teams is dead, and that most of the players on the 1940s and 1950s teams have died, as well.
Well, their hearts have stopped beating.
Maybe this little tribute can be a way to help delay their second death, one we’ll all have in time.
–patrick