The amazing high school football connections to Wyoming’s 1943 NCAA basketball champions

The 1943 NCAA champion Wyoming Cowboy basketball team had 15 members. Of those 15, six became head high school football coaches in Wyoming — an amazing ratio considering the total number of former UW basketball players to end up as head football coaches in the state.

The members of the 1943 national champs who went on to be head football coaches in the state were:

• Vernon Jensen, of Lyman, was the head football coach at Lyman from 1948-51, going 10-9.
• Antone “Tony” Katana, of Rock Springs, was the head football coach at Superior from 1948-53, going 26-24.
• Earl “Shadow” Ray, of Casper, was the head football coach at Midwest in 1944, going 4-4.
• Kenny Sailors, of Laramie via Hillsdale, was the head football coach at University Prep in 1942, going 0-1.
• Jim Weir, of Green River, was the head football coach at Green River from 1947-52, going 38-18-3.
• Donald Waite, of Scottsbluff, Neb., was the head football coach at Huntley in 1967, going 1-9.

Katana and Weir faced each other nine times while the coaches at their respective schools from 1948-51; Weir’s Wolves went 7-2 against Katana’s Dragons, with the biggest win a conference championship tiebreaker game in 1950 that helped propel Green River to the Class A title that year.

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Not all of the 15 members of the 1943 team lettered for the Cowboys that season. In all, though, 18 more Cowboy basketball lettermen beyond those on the 1943 team ended up as head football coaches in the state. However, it’s been a while since a Cowboy basketball player ended up as a head football coach; the last to do so was Ralph Winland, who lettered for the Cowboy basketball team 48 years ago, in 1968. Reverse chronologically by last letter date, they were:

• Ralph Winland (lettered 1968, coach Cowley 1976, North Big Horn 1977-78)
• Mike Harris (lettered 1961, coach Riverton 1974)
• Nick Eliopulos (lettered 1952-54-55, coach Basin 1956)
• Morris Samuelson (lettered 1950-51-52, coach Evanston 1956-57)
• Robert Porter (lettered 1945-46, coach Shoshoni 1947-49)
• Warren Capellen (lettered 1945, coach Pinedale 1950-54 and Kemmerer 1955-58)
• Bill Strannigan (lettered 1941-42, coach University Prep 1941)
• Jack Smith (lettered 1940-41, coach Reliance 1946-54)
• George Dorrington (lettered 1938-39-40, coach Hanna 1950-52, Gillette 1953-60)
• Lew Young (lettered 1936-38-39, coach Lingle 1942, Gillette 1944-46)
• Willard West (lettered 1932-33-34-35, coach Green River 1935-37, Thermopolis 1938-40 and 1945)
• Joe Schwartz (lettered 1930-31-32-33, coach Rawlins 1942-43, Natrona 1944-46, Rawlins 1949-52)
• Jim Jiacoletti (lettered 1928-29-30, coach Superior 1932-36, Kemmerer 1937-42)
• Robert Outsen (lettered 1926-27-28-29, coach Shoshoni 1932-33)
• Oscar Erickson (lettered 1924-25-26-27, coach Sheridan 1929-31)
• Don Harkins (lettered 1926-27, coach University Prep 1929)
• Fred Layman (lettered 1918-19-20-21, coach Natrona 1925)
• Andrew Willis (lettered 1915-16-17, coach Cowley 1921-23 and 1925, Lovell 1927-28)

The number of former Cowboy football lettermen who ended up as head football coaches in the state is much higher; that will be detailed in a future post.

–patrick