School: Rocky Mountain
Nickname: Grizzlies
Colors: brown and yellow
Stadium: Grizzly Stadium
State championships: 1992, 1995, 1997 and 1998
Times worth remembering: After a series of struggles, the Grizzlies finally came into their own in 1992 and started one of the state’s great dynasties. In the eight seasons from 1992-99, the Grizzlies were a combined 71-6, including 38-1 from 1995-98, and won four state titles.
Times worth forgetting: The combination of three storied programs — Byron, Cowley and Deaver-Frannie — didn’t get off to the best of starts. The first three years of Rocky Mountain High School, from 1983-85, the Grizzlies went 3-5, 0-7 and 1-7.
Best team: There’s plenty to choose from when it comes to Rocky Mountain, but the 1998 team stands out from the rest. That season, Rocky won every game by at least 18 points (the 34-16 midseason victory over Burlington was the Grizzlies’ closest game) and scored at least 32 points in every game. The average score? 47-14. Rocky had eight first-team all-state selections and a pair of CST Super 25 first-team picks.
Biggest win: Although Byron, Cowley and Deaver-Frannie had distinguished records on their own, it took 10 years for Rocky Mountain to fuse the talent from the three communities into one cohesive unit. That’s partly why the 10-7 victory over Wind River in the 1992 championship — the first for Rocky and the 12th for the three communities — was so important. Kenny May scored the winning touchdown for the Grizzlies in the fourth quarter, letting loose a celebration years in the making.
Heartbreaker: As noted, the Grizzlies went 38-1 from 1995-98. And it’s the one loss that’s still somewhat haunting. The 34-20 loss to Moorcroft in the 1A-DI semifinals in 1996 was the end of an 18-game winning streak, and after the loss the Grizzlies went on to win 28 in a row. Moorcroft was no fluke — the Wolves were undefeated in ’96 and won the state title — but, for Rocky, losing was. And if the Grizzlies could have found a way to win that Saturday in Byron, who knows how long that winning streak could have gone?