When the Class 1A six-man and 3A championship games are played Friday in Laramie, the teams will revive a state tradition dating back to just after World War I — a tradition started by that very war.
Friday is Nov. 11. Through 1954, Nov. 11 was known across the country as Armistice Day, the day the Great War ended on the Western Front in Europe in 1918.
In Wyoming, the day quickly became synonymous with high school football. Armistice Day football games were a Wyoming tradition from the state’s first full season in 1921. Coincidentally, Nov. 11 in 1921 came on a football Friday, and eight games were played on that date — including the first meetings between Natrona and Sheridan and between Cody and Powell.
The tradition of Nov. 11 games continued every year forward from 1921, no matter what day of the week Nov. 11 was, with one exception: In years where Nov. 11 was a Sunday, teams scheduled games for Nov. 10 or Nov. 12.
Armistice Day became the default date for rivalry games across the state. Rock Springs and Green River, Worland and Thermopolis, Laramie and Cheyenne Central, Cody and Powell, Riverton and Lander, Greybull and Basin and others consistently scheduled their annual showdowns for Nov. 11.
The tradition grew year by year, with between 10 and 17 games played per year statewide on or around Armistice Day, up to as many as 20 on Armistice Day in 1941.
However, after World War II, the tradition faded fast. Only 10 Armistice Day games were played in 1947, and by 1948, that number was down to five. In the seven seasons between 1951 and 1957, only 10 total non-playoff Armistice Day games were played.
In part, the fall was precipitated by the addition of playoffs for Class A and Class B schools, which mandated that teams end their seasons earlier so playoffs could be played into the second and third weeks of November.
The last true Nov. 11 regular-season games came in 1963, when Torrington beat Rawlins, and 1964, when Torrington lost to Gering, Neb.
Like the football tradition tied to it, Armistice Day itself didn’t survive long past World War II; it was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.
Between 1964 and 2005, only one game — the 1978 Class AA championship game — was played on Nov. 11. Since 2005, though, eight championship games (Class 5A in 2005, all classes in 2006 and 2A and 3A in 2011) have been staged on Nov. 11. Two more are scheduled for Friday: the 3A title game between Star Valley and Powell and the 1A six-man title game between Kaycee and Farson.
Oh, by the way? In case you forgot? Friday, Nov. 11, 2016, is Veterans Day. And those title games will be played in a venue called, appropriately, War Memorial Stadium.
I’m thankful to see the old tradition revived, even if it’s only coincidence.
Playing on that day allows us to keep our little game in a greater perspective. We can be thankful we’re fighting for a trophy and not our lives.
Even though the Armistice Day tradition has all but ended, we’d do well to keep that perspective going, no matter what day the games are played.
–patrick
Well done, Patrick, an idea I wish I had come up with in all my decades of writing sports and Veteran’s Day stories.