The Riverside football program will have a new head coach for the 2020 season.
Greg Mendenhall, the Rebels’ junior high head football coach the past two years, will be recommended to be the high school program’s head coach when the Big Horn County School District No. 4 board meets on July 14.
Mendenhall takes over for Sam Buck, who resigned after seven seasons as head coach to take a special education teaching position in Cody.
In an interview Monday with wyoming-football.com, Mendenhall said his coaching experience is mostly with six-man football; he was the head coach in Terry, Mont., for three years before coming to Riverside three years ago. He also spent four years as an assistant coach at Terry and also coached track.
He teaches science at Riverside Middle School.
Buck took over as Riverside’s head coach midway through the 2013 season. Buck’s teams finished a combined 26-33, qualifying for the playoffs in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In 2016, the Rebels moved to six-man, but were ineligible for the playoffs each of the past four seasons.
Riverside finished 5-3 last season. Only one senior graduated from that team.
In an interview last week with wyoming-football.com, Buck said he also resigned his position as Riverside’s head girls basketball coach. Buck held that position position from 2011-13 and again from 2017-20. He said he will not be coaching in Cody but would like to return to coaching eventually.
Four Class 3A programs — Green River, Powell, Riverton and Worland — and Class 1A six-man Midwest have also hired new head coaches since the end of last season. If you know of other head coaching changes statewide, please email me at pschmiedt@yahoo.com.
–patrick