Editor’s note: This post was written by “Stat Rat” Jim Craig, formerly of Lusk and now of Cheyenne, who has provided significant help to the research on Wyoming sports history.
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The time span of 1929 through 1939—the aptly coined “Dirty Thirties”—was a decade of hardship for the entire United States as the country was rocked by The Great Depression, triggered by a collapse of the stock market in October of 1929. Unemployment during that time rose to a staggering high of 24.7% in 1933 and remained above 14% from 1931 to 1940. Those raised during that era—that Tom Brokaw labeled “The Greatest Generation”—experienced challenges that toughened their resolve, encouraged economy as well as thrift and fostered a “can-do” approach to facing serious issues of day-to-day living. My father, for one, graduated high school in 1928 and took six years to complete his civil engineering degree, attending for a year of schooling then working menial jobs for a semester to save up enough for another year of college, repeating that process until he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1934.
The Great Depression didn’t spare Wyoming, and school systems felt the economic crunch along with the rest of the country. Athletic seasons were suspended due to the economy; for example, Lusk’s 1932 football season was suspended. The Lusk citizenry volunteered to help with the situation by offering car pools and coaching help, but the true problem was lack of money to outfit the team and alas, the season was cancelled. A common occurrence I’ve found in my research were gatherings called “Hard Times” dances, proof that the state’s population shouldered the hardships with good humor and Cowboy State spirit.
Those listed on the chart below were some of the luckier citizens as their coaching records are proof of employment during a time when many had no jobs. However, coaching back then was quite the chore. To coach in the 1930s meant you were a coach for all sports—most likely the school’s only coach—meaning football, basketball and track seasons. A quick check in Patrick Schmiedt’s superb tome on all things Wyoming prep football, “A Century of Fridays,” shows that 20 of the 21 listed below coached football during that time—the exception being no football program in Pine Bluffs. Coaching was a young man’s endeavor, as the time invested in practice, home games, and road games (many coaches drove their own cars—filled with players—to and from opposing courts) would be time spent away from home for a family man. Yet, due likely to the scarcity of jobs during the 30s, more coaches taught/coached in Wyoming for all ten years of the 1930s than the combined total of the 1940s and 1950s decade-long coaching stints.
| Top 1930s Basketball Coaching Records by Wins | |||||||
| Coach | School(s) | Seasons | Wins | Win% | Q-Factor | Medal | Champ |
| *Okie Blanchard | Rock Springs; Natrona | 10 | 233 | 0.883 | 100% | 70% | 4 |
| John Powell | Cheyenne Central | 10 | 209 | 0.739 | 90% | 20% | 1 |
| Floyd Foreman | Laramie | 10 | 194 | 0.755 | 90% | 70% | 2 |
| Wendell Poulson | Byron; Lovell | 9 | 171 | 0.784 | 89% | 11% | 0 |
| Glen Rogers | Wheatland | 9 | 139 | 0.591 | 33% | 11% | 1 |
| Cliff Wilson | Kemmerer; St. Michael’s | 8 | 115 | 0.673 | 63% | 13% | 0 |
| Ken Noddings | Sundance; Powell | 10 | 114 | 0.545 | 50% | 10% | 0 |
| Lou Neely | Evanston | 7 | 103 | 0.678 | 43% | 14% | 0 |
| *Joe Bush | Thermopolis | 6 | 102 | 0.739 | 50% | 0% | 0 |
| Fred Chez | Sheridan | 7 | 98 | 0.628 | 71% | 0% | 0 |
| Alva Straw | Natrona | 6 | 91 | 0.626 | 83% | 0% | 0 |
| Henry Hartwell | Midwest | 10 | 87 | 0.408 | 0% | 0% | 0 |
| Eldon Boyd | Cokeville | 10 | 86 | 0.503 | 10% | 0% | 0 |
| John Engstrom | Rawlins | 8 | 81 | 0.563 | 63% | 0% | 0 |
| Wallace Rollins | Cowley | 5 | 78 | 0.743 | 80% | 20% | 0 |
| Victor Reaves | Campbell County | 4 | 72 | 0.679 | 75% | 0% | 0 |
| Melvin Larson | Pine Bluffs | 7 | 71 | 0.477 | 14% | 0% | 0 |
| Loyd Nelson | Upton | 8 | 68 | 0.469 | 0% | 0% | 0 |
| LaVerne Jung | Worland | 5 | 68 | 0.607 | 60% | 0% | 0 |
| James Jiacoletti | Manderson; Superior; Kemmerer | 8 | 63 | 0.46 | 0% | 0% | 0 |
| Walter Dowler | Univ. Prep; Basin; Rock Springs | 4 | 59 | 0.67 | 50% | 25% | 1 |
Q-Factor=percentage of times qualified for the state tourney
Medal=percentage of times finishing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd
*Wyoming Coaches Association Hall of Fame member
(Two notes about the chart’s data: 1. There was only one classification back then. What should total 10 state championships for the decade is actually nine. No state tourney was held in 1936 due to a scarlet fever epidemic. 2. The 29-30 State Tourney was open to all teams. Teams were sorted into Classes A, B, C, and D according to the male school enrollments. Champions in each division would play for the state title. Rather than count all 54 teams eligible, to count a team as a qualifier, I took the last four teams remaining in each division. Having played three or four days of double elimination would count as the qualifying portion of the tourney and winnowed the 54 down to 16—four in each class).
As he did in the 1940s and 1950s, Okie Blanchard dominated the decade, leading in wins, win percentage, Q-factor, and championships as well as tying with Laramie’s Floyd Foreman for medal finishes. Cheyenne’s coach John Powell, Big Horn Basin coach Wendell Poulson and the aforementioned Foreman notched up nifty numbers with winning percentages topping 75%.
Hall of Fame? This decade’s group is almost totally ignored by the Wyoming Coaches Hall of Fame, but it’s understandable, given that the group began bestowing that honor in the mid-1980s, almost a half century since most of the above paced the sidelines. That’s unfortunate as the numbers above show several deserving candidates. In a few months I’ll have the 1960s chart completed as my work on the 1967-68 season is almost completed and I’m only missing data from the 1968-69 campaign.