School: Gillette
Nickname: Camels
Colors: purple and gold
Stadium: Camel Stadium
State championships: 1998, 2000, 2006 and 2008
Times worth remembering: Gillette wouldn’t be the perennial power it is today without the ramp-up that occurred in the mid-to-late 1990s. From 1997-2000, the Camels went 34-5 and won a pair of state championships, establishing the groundwork for Gillette’s success in the 21st century.
Times worth forgetting: The jump from Class A to Class AA was especially hard on the Camels. After making the jump in 1971, Gillette lost 18 consecutive games, finally breaking the streak with a 7-0 win over Sturgis, S.D., to start the 1973 season. The Camels also beat Sheridan in 1973 to gain its first AA league win, but also got shut out in its final five games of that season, ending the three-year stretch from 1971-73 with a record of 2-24-1.
Best team: The Camels of 2000 were a rare mix of talent and timing. Gillette only had two “close” games in its 10-0 title run — a 13-9 win over Broomfield, Colo., and a 28-7 victory over Laramie in the championship game — and won its other eight games by at least 31 points. The Camels had six shutouts and outscored their foes by an average of 38-3. In fact, Gillette scored more than twice as many points in its first game (62) as its opponents did all season (30).
Biggest win: Ask the folks around Gillette, and they’ll tell you that none of the championships were as good as the first. The 14-7 win over Laramie in the 1998 4A title game — and the eventual winning touchdown catch by Josh Oster in the third quarter — was worth the wait. It was the Camels’ first official championship, but not its last; since then, Gillette has won three more state titles.
Heartbreaker: For as good as the 1998 title was, it could have happened a year earlier if not for a 10-7 loss to Sheridan in the 4A semifinals. The top-seeded Camels had beaten Sheridan 42-23 in the Energy Bowl earlier in the season, but never got their offense rolling in the playoff matchup. Still, Gillette had a chance to send the game to overtime, but Jesse Swan’s 38-yard field goal attempt with 29 seconds sailed just wide – by most estimates by less than a foot.