Always unbeaten: 14 of Wyoming’s most unique high school football coaches

The 14 men who have pulled off the feat are not well known in the Equality State.

Even to fanatics of Wyoming high school football, the names are for the most part unfamiliar.

Wayne Jacka, Duard Davids, Alven Thorson, Harry McGee and 10 other coaches, though, did more in one football season in Wyoming than many coaches have ever been able to do.

Those 14 coaches, in their one season coaching in Wyoming, led their teams to undefeated seasons — and then left, ending their Wyoming football coaching careers forever unbeaten.

What some of these men did after leaving their coaching position has been lost to history. What others did is downright remarkable.

Of the 14 coaches who led their Wyoming school to an undefeated season, only to step down at the end of the year, Jack Johnson and Del Wight are two of the most decorated.

Wight, who led Worland to a 9-0 season in 1965, didn’t stay in the high school ranks for long. He was a defensive coordinator for several major college programs, including North Dakota from 1969-71, New Mexico from 1972-76, Washington State from 1982-85, Wyoming from 1986-90 and San Diego State in 1993. He also coached at Fresno State, Northern Iowa and Kansas. He was also a coach in the CFL with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Toronto Argonauts and the ill-fated Las Vegas Posse. To get there, though, after his 1965 stint in Worland, he moved to Pocatello, Idaho, and was the head coach at Pocatello High for awhile before heading into the college ranks.

Johnson, meanwhile, led Torrington to a perfect 9-0 season in 1969 but left for Montana soon afterward. In the Big Sky State, he became legendary. Leading Great Falls CM Russell High School, Johnson is Montana’s all-time winningest high school football coach and is one of the winningest active coaches in the nation with 341 career victories entering this season. He’s a member of the national high school coaches hall of fame and coached both CFL legend Dave Dickenson and NFL flameout Ryan Leaf in high school.

The 12 other men who coached their teams to perfect records in their one year as the head coach of a Wyoming football team — and their exploits either before or after their one year as head coach, when known — are posted below:

Earl Campbell, Kemmerer, 1924: 5-0 (No information available.)

Duard Davids, Byron 1967: 7-0-1 (As a student, Davids went to North Gem High in Idaho and then Utah State, graduating from USU in 1962. He is retired now and, from what I can tell, lives in Seattle.)

Royal Huckins, Torrington 1943: 5-0 (Huckins only coached Torrington’s last five games of the 1943 season, and the Trailblazers finished 6-1 that season. That year, he took over for Wes Evans, who was called to fight in World War II. Huckins played college football at Northern Colorado; what he did after coaching Torrington is unknown.)

Wayne Jacka, Sunrise 1931: 6-0 (According to 1940 Census records, Jacka lived in Cimmaron, Kan., that year. I think he’s from Kansas, although he may have also lived in Colorado for awhile, and it appears he died in the early 1980s.)

Jack Johnson, Torrington 1969: 9-0

Charles Marlowe, Laramie 1916: 3-0-3 (No information available.)

Harry McGee, Reliance 1945: 6-0 (McGee had been at Superior High as a commerce teacher prior to coming to Reliance. He may have also lived in Big Piney, although I’m not sure about that.)

Bob Pratt, Ten Sleep 1961: 5-0 (No information available.)

Leo Sherman, Sheridan 1911: 4-0 (No information available.)

Grant Smith, Cowley 1955: 4-0 (I think Smith may have been from Cowley.)

Alven Thorson, Glenrock 1940: 5-0 (Thorson died in 2009 at age 100. He had moved to Seattle in 1952 and taught at Ballard High School. He also apparently worked for a time with the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association. He received his M.A. in Education from UW in 1946. He also apparently lived in Billings for a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was originally from Milan, Minn.)

John Whatcott, Byron 1958: 9-0 (From what I can gather, Byron was the first stop for Whatcott after graduating from Utah State, where he was a star running back for the Aggies. He soon moved back to Utah — he was head coach at Logan High in 1963 — and eventually became an athletic director at Pine View High School in St. George. From what I can tell, he still lives around the St. George area.)

Del Wight, Worland 1965: 9-0

Harry Wiley, Manderson 1924: 4-0 (No information available.)

If you have any information you can share about these one-stop-in-Wyoming wonders and what they did either before or after their perfect season in Wyoming, I would love to hear it! Email me or post a comment below.

It’s also interesting to note that, since Johnson left for Montana in 1969, this one-season perfection and evacuation hasn’t happened again. And with the coaches of all the remaining undefeated teams in the state having at least one year of head coaching experience under their belts in Wyoming, it won’t happen this year….

–patrick