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

Wyoming’s top high school football coaches — a timeline

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No matter our profession, we have people we chase — the people we respect because of their work in our shared field, the people whose successes we wish to emulate. That goes for high school football coaches as much as it does bankers, doctors or engineers.

When victories are used as the measuring stick of success, we know that we have the most successful football coach in state history currently working in Cokeville. We know the coach whose mark he had to beat in order to earn the title he now has.

But who did he have to overtake? And who did he have to overtake? And who did he have to overtake?

Here is a look at the coaches with the most victories in state history — and who they had to chase down in order to be known as such:

The current leader is Todd Dayton, the coach at Cokeville, who entered the 2011 season with 253 career victories. Dayton, who took over as the Panthers’ head coach in 1980, has averaged more than eight victories per season — a heck of a feat when you consider that, for a lot of Dayton’s career, the regular season in Wyoming was only seven or eight games.

The game he took over as Wyoming’s coaching victories leader: Cokeville defeated Mountain View 30-26 on Sept. 23, 2005, to give Dayton his 206th career victory.

Dayton had to overtake John E. Deti, who piled up 205 victories in 35 years as a head coach, 33 with Laramie. Deti also spent a year in both Meeteetse and Shoshoni. He retired in 1976 with a 205-94-8 career record. His tenure at Laramie included seven undefeated seasons (the Plainsmen have only had two other undefeated seasons in school history) and 14 state championships.

The game he took over as Wyoming’s coaching victories leader: Laramie defeated Sheridan 20-7 on Nov. 1, 1968, to give Deti his 150th career victory.

Deti had to overtake Okie Blanchard, who had 149 victories at five different schools. Blanchard, the first coach in the state to crack the 100-victory mark (and he obviously went well beyond that), spent 11 years at Cheyenne Central, eight years at Rock Springs, three years at Natrona and one year each at Glenrock and Cokeville. He was also head coach at the University of Wyoming for the 1941 season. He started his career with the Herders in 1925; he stepped away from coaching in 1952 with an all-time high school record of 149-55-7.

The game he took over as Wyoming’s coaching victories leader: Cheyenne Central defeated Alliance, Neb., 26-7 on Oct. 15, 1943, to give Blanchard his 95th career victory.

Blanchard had to overtake John Powell, the longtime coach at Cheyenne Central who notched 94 victories with the Indians before retiring in 1939. Powell led the Indian squad for 16 years, compiling a 94-50-7 record. His run with the red and black included one unofficial state championship, which came in 1929, and only two losing seasons.

The game he took over as Wyoming’s coaching victories leader: Cheyenne Central defeated Laramie 12-0 on Nov. 12, 1929, to give Powell his 41st career victory.

Powell had to overtake Wilbur “Web” Wright, who coached Sheridan for eight seasons and finished with 40 victories. Wright led the Broncs from 1919 to 1926, finishing with a record of 40-15-2; Wright’s run included three consecutive state championships from 1921-23 and undefeated seasons in 1921 (7-0) and 1923 (8-0).

The game he took over as Wyoming’s coaching victories leader: Sheridan defeated Buffalo 58-0 on Oct. 29, 1921, to give Wright his 12th career victory.

Wright had to overtake C.A. Jones, the first high school coach in Wyoming to win more than 10 games in his career. Jones finished his brief coaching career, which spanned three seasons (1912-14) with Cheyenne Central, with 11 victories; his overall record with the Indians was 11-8-2.

Coaching records prior to this time are spotty at best. I doubt anyone was even thinking about career records when Jones, Wright or Powell took the reins at their respective schools. They may not have even known at the time they were the most successful coaches in state history when they decided to step down.

We know differently now. We know that, even for a while, they were the coaches everyone was trying to chase down.

–patrick

How to stay in the loop

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No more excuses — you have no reason not to be plugged in for the 2011 high school football season here in the Equality State.

After all, wyoming-football.com is on Facebook.

And on Twitter.

And we have our own Flickr album where you can upload photos you take at games. (Maybe you noticed the new slide show feature on the front of this site’s home page, where your photos can be seen and shared.)

This site is a lot more fun if you’re as involved as you can be. So like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and add some photos to our group on Twitter. Oh, and comment on this blog!

–patrick

Season forfeits and seasons on JV

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With last week’s news that Tongue River is forfeiting its 2011 season, I started thinking about how common/rare of an occurrence such a dramatic step is in Wyoming high school football.

I did a brief scan of the site and found that, since 1962, seven seasons have been canceled completely, and another nine seasons have been reduced solely to junior varsity games.

Tongue River’s season falls into the former category, as the Eagles will combine with Big Horn for this fall and take on the Rams’ junior varsity and freshman schedule.

Here is a quick look at the seasons since 1962 that have been lost due to low numbers. These lists do not include seasons where a full schedule of varsity teams was played under nine-man, eight-man or six-man formats and the teams were subsequently ineligible for the 11-man playoffs, or seasons in which programs were in their first year and did not field varsity teams.

Cancellations of entire seasons
Burlington 1989
Dubois 1986
Hanna 1986, 1993
Hulett 1982
Meeteetse 1982
Ten Sleep 1990
(47 times total, mostly during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s)

Forfeiture of varsity schedule/played sub-varsity schedule
Dubois 1998
Hulett 2010, 1981
Meeteetse 1995, 2002
Midwest 2002, 2008
Ten Sleep 2007, 2008 (Montana six-man)
(Farson forfeited the final half of its 1990 schedule; Normative Services forfeited the final half of its 2002 schedule.)

When entire seasons are forfeited prior to the start of the season, the games scheduled for that season are not counted in season records, either for the forfeiting team or the non-forfeiting team. When teams start but don’t finish a season, those forfeits are counted in season records. (This goes against the way the WHSAA has recently tallied entire season forfeits, but I find this system to be more consistent with how such problems have been handled in the past. It also allows for those schools playing sub-varsity schedules to have their seasons recognized more accurately.)

–patrick

Current series records

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Thumbing through some series records the other day prompted me to think about Wyoming’s longest-lasting rivalries.

Oddly enough, series rivalry records are the one thing I have avoided tallying since I started this research in 2004. It was a lot of work, and I wasn’t sure about the payoff. But this week inspired me to start.

The logical starting place was tallying series records for this year’s games. After all, most longstanding series will continue no matter the year. So I tallied up the series records for all of this year’s games, and found three series with more than 100 games played. Here are the 10 most played current rivalries in Wyoming:

10 most played existing series
1. Cheyenne Central-Laramie: 126 games (Central leads 62-58-6)
2. Lander-Riverton: 114 games (Riverton leads 58-49-7)
3. Cody-Powell: 110 games (Cody leads 59-47-4)
4. Natrona-Sheridan: 98 games (Natrona leads 51-41-6)
5. Cheyenne Central-Natrona: 97 games (series tied 47-47-3)
6. Big Piney-Pinedale: 96 games (Big Piney leads 54-42)
7. Torrington-Wheatland: 92 games (Torrington leads 73-18-1)
8. Greybull-Lovell: 83 games (Lovell leads 52-27-4)
9. Douglas-Torrington: 82 games (Torrington leads 54-26-2)
10t. Laramie-Natrona: 78 games (Natrona leads 43-34-1)
10t. Riverton-Worland: 78 games (Riverton leads 42-35-1)

There were 22 other current series in Wyoming that topped 60 meetings. Those series included:

Other series of note (at least 60 games)
Laramie-Rock Springs: 76 games (Laramie leads 45-31)
Big Piney-Lyman: 75 games (Big Piney leads 44-30-1)
Evanston-Rock Springs: 74 games (Rock Springs leads 43-26-5)
Sundance-Upton: 74 games (Upton leads 38-31-5)
Jackson-Star Valley: 73 games (Star Valley leads 59-14)
Laramie-Sheridan: 72 games (Laramie leads 43-29)
Lovell-Thermopolis: 72 games (Thermopolis leads 42-30)
Cody-Worland: 71 games (Cody leads 38-32-1)
Lyman-Mountain View: 71 games (Mountain View leads 42-29)
Big Piney-Mountain View: 70 games (Big Piney leads 38-32)
Powell-Riverton: 68 games (Powell leads 36-29-3)
Powell-Worland: 68 games (Worland leads 39-29)
Cody-Riverton: 67 games (Cody leads 33-32-2)
Green River-Star Valley: 67 games (Star Valley leads 32-30-5)
Lyman-Pinedale: 66 games (Pinedale leads 38-28)
Gillette-Sheridan: 65 games (Sheridan leads 38-26-1)
Natrona-Rock Springs: 65 games (Natrona leads 43-19-3)
Greybull-Thermopolis: 64 games (Thermopolis leads 41-19-4)
Mountain View-Pinedale: 63 games (Mountain View leads 36-25-2)
Cheyenne Central-Rock Springs: 62 games (Cheyenne Central leads 40-18-4)
Cheyenne Central-Sheridan: 62 games (Sheridan leads 34-27-1)
Moorcroft-Sundance: 61 games (Moorcroft leads 35-26)

Remember, though, that this list ONLY encompasses series that are continuing this year. It does not account for other longstanding rivalry games that will not be played this year, including Evanston-Star Valley, Green River-Rock Springs, Douglas-Wheatland, Thermopolis-Worland, Evanston-Green River and others.

Some day, I hope to have series records for all schools. However, the research I have already accomplished gives me a neat little side note to add to the blog this year. In addition to my weekly picks, you will see the series record for each game noted in parentheses. While the past games have little bearing on this year’s games, it is fun to look back and see just how well two schools have stacked up against each other in the past.

–patrick

The playoff brackets we missed: 1962

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From 1962 to 1967 in all classes, and from 1962 to 1974 in Classes A and B-C, postseason football was shut down in Wyoming. No playoffs, no state championship games, nothing. Only an unsatisfying mythical championship that, in the end, was just opinion. The next several days, wyoming-football.com is taking a look at the title games and playoff brackets we missed out on in the “dead era” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, we examine the year 1962.

Class AA: Laramie (9-0) vs. Sheridan (5-4-1). Sheridan did not have a great season, but won enough games to win the AA North title. However, one of the Broncs’ losses was a 24-0 loss to Laramie — a Plainsman team that was dominant, as Laramie teams tended to be in the 1960s.
Class A: Lusk (9-0) vs. Greybull (8-0) OR Star Valley (9-0). Greybull went unbeaten the hard way, beating five Class AA Big Horn Basin teams (Powell, Cody, Riverton, Worland, Lander), while Star Valley went unbeaten in the Southwest round-robin. Lusk was just as good in the East, with only one conference foe coming within 26 points of the Tigers.

–patrick

The playoff brackets we missed: 1963

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From 1962 to 1967 in all classes, and from 1962 to 1974 in Classes A and B-C, postseason football was shut down in Wyoming. No playoffs, no state championship games, nothing. Only an unsatisfying mythical championship that, in the end, was just opinion. The next several days, wyoming-football.com is taking a look at the title games and playoff brackets we missed out on in the “dead era” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, we examine the year 1963.

Class AA: Natrona (9-0) vs. Riverton (8-0-1) OR Lander (7-1-1). Natrona put a brief end to the Laramie dynasty in 1963 and piled up a solid undefeated season, including a 26-6 victory over Lander. Lander and Riverton both finished unbeaten in AA North play and tied each other 9-9 on the final day of the regular season, which would have forced the WHSAA to break out the tiebreaking guidelines.
Class A: Lusk (8-0-1) vs. Green River (10-0). Green River notched seven shutouts and allowed just seven points in each of its three other games — in case you’re counting, that’s only 21 points allowed all season. Lusk had a 13-13 tie with Douglas ruin its perfect season, but the Tigers were otherwise strong and won close conference games with Wheatland (13-7), Gillette (7-0) and Torrington (6-0).

–patrick

The playoff brackets we missed: 1964

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From 1962 to 1967 in all classes, and from 1962 to 1974 in Classes A and B-C, postseason football was shut down in Wyoming. No playoffs, no state championship games, nothing. Only an unsatisfying mythical championship that, in the end, was just opinion. The next several days, wyoming-football.com is taking a look at the title games and playoff brackets we missed out on in the “dead era” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, we examine the year 1964.

Class AA: Laramie (9-0) vs. Sheridan (6-3). This may have been one of the most monumental mismatches in state title game history, if it had actually happened. Laramie was a juggernaut; Sheridan won its two close games with conference rivals Worland (12-6) and Natrona (14-13) to eke out the North title. Oh, and Laramie just happened to beat Sheridan 59-0 on Oct. 23, 1964, in Laramie.
Class A: Gillette (9-0) vs. Evanston (9-0). Both squads were defensive-minded: Gillette shut out its first five opponents and gave up just 39 points all season, while Evanston shut out six of its foes and allowed only 20 total points in its nine games. The first one to score may have won.
Class B East: Upton (5-4) OR Tongue River (7-1) vs. Glenrock (7-1-1). The 1964 season was the last of the hodgepodge Northeast B conference schedule, which is good because neither Upton nor Tongue River lost to a B Northeast team and they didn’t play each other. Oddly enough, Glenrock’s one tie came courtesy of a third B Northeast team (Moorcroft); the Herders’ one loss came via St. Stephens.
Class B West: Pavillion (5-1-1) OR Byron (7-1) OR St. Stephens (6-2) vs. Mountain View (5-0-1). The Northwest was split into two divisions in 1964, one north and one south, but being in the same division did not guarantee that your team played every team in the division. Byron won the north, even with a 13-7 upset loss to Manderson. In the south, Pavillion’s lone tie and lone loss both came courtesy of the Lander JV and St. Stephens, which was transitioning to Class A, had two losses to Class A schools Lovell and Jackson. However, the schools did not play each other. Mountain View, meanwhile, didn’t have to worry about ties after winning the Southwest title even with a tie with Hanna on its record.
(Note: Class B in 1964 was the final year of disorganized conference play, which is also why it is the last year that there is no mythical champion for the classification. Once conferences became more formally organized around 11-man in 1965, as schools transitioned away from six-man and eight-man, state polls became possible. Hence some of the multiple options posted here. This is the final year that possible Class B pairings will be listed; the disorganized conferences that existed in 1963 and 1962 make piecing together a possible playoff slate all but impossible.)

–patrick

The playoff brackets we missed: 1965

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From 1962 to 1967 in all classes, and from 1962 to 1974 in Classes A and B-C, postseason football was shut down in Wyoming. No playoffs, no state championship games, nothing. Only an unsatisfying mythical championship that, in the end, was just opinion. The next several days, wyoming-football.com is taking a look at the title games and playoff brackets we missed out on in the “dead era” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, we examine the year 1965.

Class AA: Cheyenne Central (9-0-1) vs. Worland (9-0). Both the Indians and the Warriors posted solid seasons in 1965. Although the Indians were more statistically dominant, the Warriors showed a ton of moxie in winning some tight ballgames late in the season.
Class A: Lusk (7-2) vs. Star Valley (8-0-1). The East was a real mumble-jumble in 1965, and no real champion emerged. Even Lusk at 7-2 had conference losses to St. Mary’s and to Torrington. Star Valley left no such drama hanging out West, as a tie with Green River late in the year was the Braves’ only non-win.
Class B East: Midwest (7-1) vs. Glenrock (7-1). In another case of a regular-season meeting helping us project a possible playoff matchup, Glenrock beat Midwest 28-26 late in the season in Midwest. Glenrock, meanwhile, lost to Tongue River, but Tongue River lost 20-12 to Midwest — in Dayton, no less — to give the Oilers the Northeast title.
Class B West: Byron (6-1) vs. Mountain View (6-1). Both teams had losses the couldn’t explain — Byron 32-27 early to a decent but not great Deaver-Frannie squad and Mountain View 19-13 at home to a fair Saratoga squad — but both teams recovered in time to win their respective conferences.

–patrick

The playoff brackets we missed: 1966

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From 1962 to 1967 in all classes, and from 1962 to 1974 in Classes A and B-C, postseason football was shut down in Wyoming. No playoffs, no state championship games, nothing. Only an unsatisfying mythical championship that, in the end, was just opinion. The next several days, wyoming-football.com is taking a look at the title games and playoff brackets we missed out on in the “dead era” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, we examine the year 1966.

Class AA: Cheyenne Central (8-2) vs. Powell (8-1-1). With losses only to Denver Regis, Colo., and Scottsbluff, Neb., Central had won the AA South by winning most of its league games with ease — the exception a 14-9 squeaker over Rawlins. Powell had a similar run of domination, but had two outliers on the season schedule: a surprising early season 38-21 loss to Worland and a 6-6 tie with Riverton.
Class A: Wheatland (8-1) vs. Star Valley (8-0). The cardiac Bulldogs won each of their first four games by a combined 26 points and had only a 37-32 loss to Torrington mar the season tally. Star Valley, though, was unbeaten and grew only stronger as the season progressed.
Class B East: Tongue River (8-1) vs. Glenrock (8-1). These two teams actually met halfway through the 1966 season, with the Eagles pulling out a 6-0 victory in Glenrock — a victory that likely swung the mythical title to TR. A 26-25 loss to the Sheridan JV was the source of Tongue River’s only loss.
Class B West: Basin (7-1) OR Cowley (7-2) OR Byron (7-1) vs. Mountain View (10-0). The Northwest was a mess at the top in 1966, as Basin, Cowley and Byron all went 1-1 against each other, with Basin beating Byron 13-6 and losing to Cowley 13-12 and Byron beating Cowley 26-6. (Cowley also lost in a non-conference game to Midwest.) Mountain View, meanwhile, was a buzzsaw through the Southwest, as only one team came within 24 points of  the Buffalos.

–patrick