Possible new conference alignments

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The recent WHSAA football reclassification proposal — the one with the addition of six-man tied into several changes to the number of schools in each classification — has me thinking about how the conferences would be aligned in those new leagues.Of course, power ratings will not be used to determine playoff seeding after this season, so conference alignment will a little bit more important for football teams this time around than it was two years ago.

For more about the proposal, click here. It’s the second half of the story.

Of course, these are nothing but the musings of one man. And it’s no guarantee that this proposal will even pass (despite the fact that it probably will).

Class 4A: 10 teams

Class 4A will have to find a new split somehow. Right now, with 11 teams, the split is five in the North and six in the South. The team dropping down would most likely be Riverton, which leaves a 6-4 split. That means one of the South teams will have to go to the North.

My first guess is that the Cheyenne schools will be split, with one of the Cheyenne schools playing in the North and one in the South. This wouldn’t be unprecedented — I think a similar split existed in the early-to-mid 1990s. Barring that, Laramie could go North, but I think it’s more likely that one of the Cheyenne schools will go. I’ll say Central. I don’t know why.
My projected 4A North: Gillette, Sheridan, Kelly Walsh, Natrona County, Cheyenne Central.
My projected 4A South: Cheyenne East, Laramie, Rock Springs, Green River, Evanston.

Class 3A: 12 teams

Decades of tradition dictate that 3A will be split East-West. But right now, that means a 5-7 split, with five in the East and seven in the West. That means one of the West teams will have to go East. The most obvious candidates are Riverton and Lander — and as weird as it seems to split up two schools that are less than a half-hour apart, that’s the most likely solution. Based on current alignments, I’d say Lander might be the first choice, but don’t be so sure. Lander has fought moving to the East, and with Riverton dropping down, they might more easily assimilate into the East anyway. It would also help create some more balance — most of the bigger 3A schools are in the West, and if the biggest went East, that might help.
My projected 3A East: Douglas, Rawlins, Wheatland, Torrington, Buffalo, Riverton.
My projected 3A West: Jackson, Worland, Star Valley, Powell, Lander, Cody.

Class 2A: 16 teams

Class 2A won’t have enough teams to go to four divisions, and three divisions makes no sense logistically for deciding playoff qualifiers — especially without power ratings. So East-West it is, even if it’s really ugly, and even if the conference schedule will take up about every week of the season. (Note — 2A would actually be 15 teams, as Wyoming Indian will likely opt down).
My projected 2A East: Newcastle, Moorcroft, Big Horn, Tongue River, Glenrock, Burns, Wright.
My projected 2A West: Thermopolis, Lovell, Greybull, Big Piney, Kemmerer, Lyman, Pinedale, Mountain View.
(By the way, three divisions of five teams apiece could make a lot of sense…. and the only thing I think hanging it up is playoff logistics. How about this: Big Piney, Kemmerer, Lyman, Pinedale and Mountain View in the “West”, Thermopolis, Lovell, Greybull, Big Horn and Tongue River in the “North” and Newcastle, Moorcroft, Glenrock, Burns and Wright in the “East”? I think it works, but trying to get eight teams from three conferences is a pain in the butt without power ratings).

Class 1A, in two divisions: Everyone else

Class 1A-11 man figures to have about 17 teams, by my count. That’s enough for four conferences, with the top two from each advancing to the playoffs. Of course, this is ALL guesswork right now. I have no concrete figures on which schools would play 11-man and which would play six-man.
My projected 1A-11 Northeast: Sundance, Normative Services, Upton, Hulett.
My projected 1A-11 Southeast: Pine Bluffs, Lusk, Lingle, Southeast.
My projected 1A-11 Northwest: Rocky Mountain, Riverside, Burlington, Shoshoni.
My projected 1A-11 Southwest: Wind River, Dubois, Saratoga, Cokeville, Wyoming Indian (with WI likely opting down from 2A).

Class 1A-six-man figures to have about seven or eight teams in its first season. My guess is an East-West split.
My projected 1A-6 East: Guernsey, Midwest, Kaycee, Rock River.
My projected 1A-6 West: Fort Washakie, Meeteetse, Ten Sleep, Hanna.
Contingency: If either Snake River or Farson get their ducks in a row in time, either school would go into the West. If they both happen to put teams together in time, they’d both move to the West, and Hanna would likely move to the East so there would be five teams in each division. Of course, a lot of this is still guesswork. There are so many things left to consider — chief among them is whether or not this proposal even passes the WHSAA board of directors.When and if it does, then the next question is where and how the enrollment numbers stack up (I used the most recent ADM numbers to compile these conferences). Green River, Riverton and Star Valley are all very close together…. and that could end up being sticky if the numbers don’t fall exactly as planned with Green River tenth, Riverton 11th and Star Valley 12th. And the entire structure of 1A is extremely dependent on schools with start-up programs, which is always questionable until the first kickoff of the first game.

Then there is the question of the WHSAA board itself. They often see angles the rest of us don’t — often for the better.

But I like to muse on this stuff. So here it is.

–patrick

Unrecogized champions deserve more than what they’ve been getting

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I’ve been on vacation for the past couple weeks, and I’ve been using some of my free time at the Natrona County Public Library, chipping away at the research for this project.

The further back I go, the tougher it is to find results and schedules in one place. Rudimentary research has been completed for eight seasons now (1943-50) but a significant amount of legwork remains on each of those seasons.

When I first started this project, I was amazed Wyoming did not have a playoff system in place for most of the 1940s. As I have read the day-to-day accounts of life in the 1940s, though, I’m less and less surprised.

Gas and travel rationing severely cut down where teams were able to go and who they played. District play was loosely organized at best, and often incomplete — schools usually did not play all the other schools in their respective districts during the season, which meant qualifying for a playoff was all but impossible. Also, there was no real push to organize state playoffs during World War II, be it by the Wyoming High School Activities Association or by any specific schools, coaches, players, parents or media. Debating a champion, apparently, was much more fun than settling the issue on the field.

The end of each season was littered with postseason challenges, usually issued through the newspapers. In 1947, for example, Northwest district champion Lovell challenged Big Five champ Rawlins to a “state championship game” in Casper. Rawlins declined, so instead, Lovell challenged second-place Big Five team Natrona. NC won that game, but Rawlins maintained its hold on the mythical state championship.

You’ll notice that my state championship team listings do not include the years 1941-47. In part, that’s because there were no state playoffs. However, the period between 1962 and 1974 was also littered with mythical champions. So why do I list the mythical champs between 1962 and 1974 and not the ones between 1941 and 1947?

I don’t know.

I think that might change soon. But the prospect of picking state champions from 60-plus years ago is full of problems.

The first problem is that there was no statewide media or coaches poll back in the 1940s. The statewide AP and UPI polls were used to determine the unofficial champs in the period from 1962-74, but no such mechanism existed in the 1940s. Instead, newspapers declared their own unofficial state champions. From what I’ve seen so far, the papers often came to a consensus, but without knowing which reporters saw which teams, it’s hard to give those selections a lot of credibility.

That said, here are the teams I’d pick as the unofficial state champions of the years I’ve researched:

1947: Rawlins. Big Five champions; refused all postseason game offers.

1946: Sheridan. Big Five champions beat Cody 20-19 in the first “Turkey Bowl,” the unofficial state championship game, played on Thanksgiving day in Casper. By the way, I think it was this particular game that really galvanized the effort for a state championship playoff system in later years….

1945: Cheyenne Central. Went 9-0, with victories over Torrington, Rawlins, Natrona, Laramie and five out-of-state foes.

1944: Cheyenne Central. Went 8-1, with the only loss to Alliance, Neb. Beat in-state foes Rock Springs, Torrington, Natrona, Rawlins and Laramie.

1943: Cheyenne Central. Went 7-0-1 (but may have played one more game). First undefeated season in school history. Topped Rock Springs, Rawlins, Natrona and Laramie in in-state play. (A case could also be made for the team from the Heart Mountain Japanese internment camp, which went undefeated and un-scored upon. However, the Eagles were not allowed to fully participate in district play, and Powell — the team that eventually won the Northwest district — refused to schedule Heart Mountain. Powell beat Worland 19-13 in the district championship game on Thanksgiving.)

The years 1942 and 1941 are still waiting for my eyes.

In part, what drives me to continue this research is to acknowledge the efforts of the boys who played in these six “lost” years, the six years from 1941-47 where no champions are listed. Their efforts have gone unrecognized for too long. Their only misfortune was being born, and conversely playing high school football, at the wrong time in Wyoming’s history. Those players, and those teams, deserve to have their names listed as state champions — even if it’s only unofficially.

–patrick

Inspiration — a little ditty on the hidden surprises of my research

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I don’t do this Web site for the results themselves.

Those are a nice byproduct, sure. But compiling the results that make up the bulk of this Web site is little more than data entry.

Yawn.

Instead, I do this for the surprising times when I find the history that everyone else seems to have forgotten about.

Take, for example, this week. On Saturday, I had a little bit of free time before work, so I went up to the second floor of the Natrona County Public Library (which is where the microfilm is, and which is normally where you’ll find me when I have free time and my wife doesn’t).

I was trying to finish up research on 1946 — an interesting year that will be worth a blog post in and of itself when the time comes. But while doing so, I came across an interesting pair of columns written by the Casper Tribune-Herald’s then-sports editor, John Hendrickson.

Read for yourself:

Casper Tribune-Herald, Nov. 13, 1946 — Sideliners by John Hendrickson

“A Worland newspaper pointed out last week that Worland high school played Thermopolis high school for the first time in 1921 . . . Thermop won the first game 33 to 19 while Worland took the second game (played that Armistice Day) 109 to 7 . . . A fellow named Meadows for Worland scored 12 touchdowns and 11 field goals for a total of 83 points, in that one game . . . down it goes in our record books as the best scoring exhibition in state football history . . . I doubt if there has been any better performance.”

Casper Tribune-Herald, Nov. 18, 1946 (five days later) — Sideliners by John Hendrickson

“Last week we pointed out that Worland defeated Thermopolis 109 to 7 in 1921 and believed the score to be a record for Wyoming high schools. We have been informed, however, by “One of the Old Timers” — and we still can’t figure out why people don’t want to sign their names to letters we get — that in the same year Cheyenne defeated Douglas 127 to 7.

“Our informant says “The first play of the game saw a Douglas player pick up a fumble and race the length of the field for a touchdown. The extra point was good and Douglas led 7 to 0. From that time on it was all Cheyenne.

“”I believe that this was Douglas’ first football team. Prior to 1920 there were but four high schools with football teams — Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper and Sheridan. Laramie and Cheyenne played the Colorado schools for the most part and in preceding years had frequently played the University of Wyoming and from time to time had been victors over the university.

“”After the Cheyenne and Douglas game one of the Douglas players asked a Cheyenne player what he wore on his shoulders. When told that they were shoulder pads, the Douglas boy remarked that he would have to get himself a pair. The Douglas team had played the entire game without them.”

“Thanks “Old Timer” for the interesting facts!”

Pretty cool, eh? 🙂

These two articles inspired me in a pair of ways. First, the obvious: scoring records. Albeit the information is second-hand, I at least have a place to start.

Second, the not-so-obvious: Despite my self-proclaimed expertise on Wyoming football, one thing I’ve never been able to pin down for certain is the origin of the sport at Wyoming’s high-school level.

In part, that’s on purpose, because I’ve worked from the present backward in every step of this research. In part, it’s because no one else has tried to pin down Wyoming’s high school football origins, either.

But this whole “1920” date is incredibly encouraging. That’s “only” 31 more years of reverse research — and that I can do.

This Web site is a project I will never “finish,” and I’ve accepted that fact. But I can get darn near close to done — and certainly closer than anyone ever has before me. Right now, I have 57 years of completed research (1951-2007) and another five years of incomplete research (1946-50). But…. at my current pace, I WILL be able to finish the majority of work from 1920-1950 in the next five years.

Of course, that means I have to hope that “One of the Old Timers” is telling the truth, and that John Hendrickson wasn’t the victim of some cruel joke back in 1946….

Anyway… My point is that this project WILL be “finished,” and likely sooner than I even think.

–patrick

So just how big will six-man football become?

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In case you haven’t heard, the Wyoming High School Activities Association gave preliminary approval to resurrecting six-man football in the state this week.

As you can see, I’m pretty jazzed about it. I think it’s going to be huge.

But just how huge?

Well, it won’t start that way. Six-man will need a few years to truly develop in Wyoming. But my guess is that by 2013, Wyoming’s six-man league could include as many as a dozen teams, or more.

All teams classified as Class 1A have the option to choose between six-man and 11-man. So, with that in mind, here is a team-by-team breakdown of who will go to six-man and who will go to 11-man, based in part on a survey distributed by the WHSAA back in Feburary and in part by my humble, yet somewhat educated, opinion:

THE PIONEERS OF SIX-MAN

Meeteetse and Ten Sleep: Answered in favor of a six-man program. Duh. These guys have been the catalyst for this whole thing. Both programs were struggling simply to put a team together, much less win, in Wyoming. They both ditched Wyoming and 11-man and went to play six-man in Montana. Both have had some success up there, too. Both teams have made the playoffs, and Meeteetse made it as far as the state semifinals two years ago. Thank goodness, too, because if these guys had gone up to Montana and struggled, I don’t think six-man in Wyoming would have ever gotten off the ground.

Fort Washakie: Answered in favor of a six-man program. These guys are psyched. I honestly think Fort Washakie will be THE school to show all the others how to build a program quickly.

Guernsey: Answered in favor of a six-man program. Guernsey’s offense is already eerily similar to some six-man offenses. Coincidence? Also, the Vikings are stinging from swiftly declining enrollment and are in a perfect position to adopt six-man right away.

Hanna: Answered in favor of a six-man program. That kind of surprised me, because Hanna had always been in the “11-man or nothing” camp. But with Hanna’s enrollment dropping as fast as it is, six-man makes a lot of sense, and maybe the folks there finally wised up to that.

Midwest: Answered in favor of a six-man program. From what I understand, the Midwest community is starting to get excited for the change. After 16 consecutive years of missing the playoffs, change can’t hurt.

Kaycee: Answered in favor of a six-man program. Kaycee already has the approval of its school board to move forward. They have a field and they’ve also had a proven track record of sending players to Buffalo. (Personally, as a member of the Midwest High School Class of 2000, I’m still a little bitter that the Kaycee-Midwest co-op team never happened in football. Kaycee always had some great athletes and we really could have been a much better team with them on our side…. That said, six-man makes a ton of sense for Kaycee’s community. I’m glad to see the Kaycee administration take the bull by the horns and run with this.)

Rock River: Answered in favor of a six-man program. Of all the newbies, I’m most worried about the Longhorns. They have the support of their school board and they have the numbers (barely), but I’m not sure about how the community has and/or will react. If the reaction is anything less than 100 percent “Let’s do this!”, Rock River might miss the ’09 season.

THE JOHNNY-COME-LATELYS

Lingle: Answered in favor of an 11-man program. But I don’t think that’ll last, especially if nearby Guernsey finds some early success playing six-man and if Lingle continues to struggle with its numbers for boys in its school. Estimated six-man entry: 2011.

Dubois: Answered in favor of an 11-man program. But the Rams also noted that they could be hurting for numbers within the next few years. It won’t take long. Estimated six-man entry: 2011.

Snake River: No answer to survey, but has voiced tentative support of a six-man team. I’m not sure what the holdup is down there in Baggs. From what I hear, the folks working for the energy companies down there are really excited about this. The school population is as high as it’s ever been, including a core of athletic boys. Come on, Baggs! Unfortunately, I just don’t see a program developing soon enough to be a part of the inaugural class. There’s been too much feet-dragging. I hope Snake River proves me wrong. But…. Estimated six-man entry: 2011.

Farson: No answer to survey, but has voiced tentative support of a six-man team. I learned this week that Farson’s big problem is its field. When Farson gave up football in 1990, it cut the water line to the field. That’s proving to be a problem now, because the damage might be irreparable….. That, plus somewhat mediocre community and school district support (from what I’ve heard) could keep Farson from starting a program right away. Give it time. Farson is a six-man football hotbed waiting to happen. Estimated six-man entry: 2011.

Shoshoni: Answered in favor of an 11-man program. But Shoshoni, like Dubois, has also dropped hints about enrollment problems and hasn’t wholly rejected the idea of six-man. I think as soon as Dubois goes, Shoshoni won’t be far behind. Estimated six-man entry: 2013.

Arapaho Charter: No answer to survey. Arapaho actually has an enrollment that’s quite a bit bigger than six-man torch-carrier Fort Washakie. If Fort Washakie proves it can do it, I don’t think Arapaho will wait long to offer a program, as well. Estimated six-man entry: 2015.

THE 11-MAN STICKLERS

Burlington, Cokeville, Lusk, Pine Bluffs, Riverside, Rocky Mountain, Southeast: This group supports 11-man and they always have the numbers to do so. Unless there’s a nuclear attack or something, these guys will always play 11-man.

Encampment/Saratoga: Encampment answered no interest in football; Saratoga answered in favor of an 11-man program. These two schools have successfully co-opted this team and I see no reason for them to break that, nor for them to go to six-man. I think they’ll stay co-opted, and I think they’ll stay in 11-man. Why mess up a good thing?

Hulett, Sundance, Upton: Answered in favor of 11-man. These three schools, along with Moorcroft, will tend to stick together. I don’t see any one of them breaking away from their neighbors any time soon — even though Upton and Hulett have struggled with numbers lately (Upton ended the 2007 season with 11 players).

Normative Services: No answer to survey. Personally, I think NSI will stick with 11-man. One, NSI always has great numbers. Two, NSI is more about player participation and character development than wins and losses (as it should be). The chance to put five more players on the field will be too powerful to pass up. And more power to them, because NSI does some great work — about 99.9 percent of it away from the football field.

Wind River: Answered in favor of 11-man. Watching Wind River in all this could be interesting, especially if Fremont County rivals like Dubois, Shoshoni and Wyoming Indian all go to six-man and if Wind River’s school enrollment keeps dropping. I think Wind River will hold onto 11-man for as long as it can, and I think they’ll be able to do so for at least the next 10 years.

NO FOOTBALL TO SEE HERE

Arvada-Clearmont: Answered no interest in football. A-C had an extremely successful co-op with Normative Services in the early part of this decade. There are two big factors going against A-C, though: no field and a small population of boys in the school. Unless there is an influx of boys, I don’t think A-C can support a team year in and year out.

Chugwater and Glendo: Answered no interest in football. These schools are having trouble supporting basketball programs right now. I don’t see any way they’ll be able to sponsor football.

St. Stephens: No answer to survey. As long as St. Stephens remains a private school, it will never have sufficient funds to support a football program.

THE WILD CARD

Wyoming Indian: Didn’t get a chance to answer the survey, because, technically, the Chiefs would be a 2A school in the new realignment. But the Chiefs have opted down for the past several years, and I think they’ll do that again if their enrollment dictates that they play 2A ball. And… if you’re going to opt down, why not opt down all the way? Six-man it up! Of course, like previous seasons, the Chiefs won’t be eligible for the playoffs.

So there it is. Meeteetse, Ten Sleep, Fort Washakie, Guernsey, Hanna, Kaycee, Midwest and (maybe) Rock River in the inaugural season, joined by Lingle, Dubois, Snake River, Farson, Shoshoni and (maybe) Arapaho Charter by 2015. More than a dozen schools playing six-man within the next seven years.

It’s an exciting time to be associated with this state and with this sport.

–patrick

My youth, my passion and this Web site

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The preservation of Wyoming’s high school football history didn’t happen on a whim. I didn’t wake up one morning and decide this Web site would become a life-long project. But maybe I was born that way.

Some of my earliest memories are of autumn days at the Sundance Kids Day Care Center, which was just a stone’s throw from the school’s football field. Perhaps once or twice a week in September or October, there would be a football game going on down at that field. And when that happened, my feet always seemed to take me to the corner of our playground closest to the field. There, I’d struggle to get a better view of the field and answer the questions I couldn’t — Who was playing? Are those green uniforms? Is it Moorcroft? What’s the score? How much time is left? Who’s winning?

Of course, I also watched more than a fair share of games from those stands in Sundance, but it’s not those memories I keep. It’s the ones in that southeast corner of the playground at daycare.

Between first and second grade, my family moved to Yuma, Arizona, and my dad landed a job on the chain gang at Cibola High School. I was allowed to tag along as long as I observed two rules — stay out of the way of the chain gang and stay out of the way of the players. Looking back, I’m positive that time on the sidelines helped increase my love for football. And it wasn’t just the game. It was the band, the crowd, the smell of an Arizona evening, the chance that my feet might end up on the Friday night television highlights.

The weird part of it was that I didn’t spend my time playing in the “little kids’ game” north of the field like my friends did (you know, the same game that develops at every high school game, as younger brothers emulate their heroic older siblings by playing two-hand touch and 5-Mississippi. Maybe I didn’t play because I didn’t have an older brother to emulate…. but that’s another topic). Instead, I spent my time watching the game. Watching how a chain gang worked; how officials covered certain parts of the field; how the game ebbed and flowed with the actions of the players, the crowds or the band. It was not the playing I loved. It was the observing.

We moved back to Wyoming before my sixth-grade year, this time to Midwest. As a sixth-grader, I was eligible to play junior high football for the Midwest Pumpers — my first organized football. But the Pumpers were not a powerhouse. Actually, we were a pushover. We could barely put a team together. My first year, we had 11 players, and we played 11-man football.

Losing makes you an old soul before your time. In an 11-year-old’s mind, there is nothing as frustrating or disappointing as your team forfeiting a game because you twisted your ankle, and there was not a substitute on the bench to come in and replace you. You carry that with you for the rest of your life.

There is a flipside, though, and I learned it the next year. The Pumpers — now with a roster pushing 20 — faced East Junior High from Casper in the second-to-last game of the season. The game was 12-12 at the end of regulation, and in overtime I snagged the winning touchdown pass. The highest of highs is a moment like that, when all the sacrifice in the world is worth it for the one play where you get to be the hero. You carry that with you, too, for the rest of your life.

I continued playing football throughout high school, even earning all-conference as a senior. Of course, this was Midwest, and an extreme amount of athletic ability wasn’t necessary to be one of the 11 players on the field. The longer I played for the Oilers, though, the more I realized that I knew little to nothing about my school’s football history. No one else did, either (or, if they did, they certainly weren’t sharing with anyone else). It was sad.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Midwest is one of those places where, except for in a few isolated cases, the generations don’t carry through. There aren’t last names you associate with Midwest like you do with other communities in the state.

So I started looking up the history for myself (the result of that is here). And it was rich with fascinating stories.

The first lighted high school football game in the nation was played in Midwest in 1925. The school canceled football for two years in the early 1930s after a player named Benjamin Gallus died during a game against Casper. There was the game played in 1937 against Casper in which the winner was awarded a football signed by then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt (Midwest lost). There were great teams of the late-1940s and the state championships of 1979 and 1991.

That research struck a chord in me. Surely, if Midwest’s history is this rich, other schools must have similar stories in their past, similar triumph and tragedy, similar oddities and memorable moments. And if somebody ever had the time, it would be so much fun to learn about it all. The bug was permanently planted in my brain. …

Fast-forward to the final semester of my senior year in college. I only needed seven credits to graduate, but I had to take 12 to remain a full-time student and keep my scholarships. I knew this well in advance of my senior year, and that old bug I’d planted four years earlier finally had an outlet. Rather than take some useless course that would only hold my interest because of its necessity for me to graduate, I decided to do exactly what I thought somebody really needed to do — research Wyoming’s deep history of high school football. With the approval of my advisor, I set out on a plan to research Wyoming’s high school football history for 15 hours a week (for class credit!). I spent Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the basement of Coe Library, flipping through old microfilm and doing the work that eventually would become this Web site.

What a blast! In addition to all the raw data I compiled, all sorts of cool stories began to pop up, stories I had never heard growing up. Like how the state didn’t have championship games in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Or the fact that Glendo, Bow-Basin and St. Stephens all had thriving football programs at one time. Or how the “Big Six” once dominated Wyoming’s football landscape.

These stories, our history, have been all to easily sluffed aside for too long. Wyoming’s football history is incredibly rich and diverse, and nothing — no teams, no players, no games — deserve to be forgotten. And I guess that’s what motivates me now. Too much of our focus is put on the present and not nearly enough is on the past. Our history should earn our attention and respect — even if it’s something as simple as a football game.

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