Category Archives: Site Updates

Using some slick web sleuthing, I knocked four games off the missing games list this week:

I found the result for Byron’s 18-6 victory over Manderson on Oct. 2, 1959, and also found the result for Byron’s 41-0 victory over Burlington on Oct. 6, 1949 (not Oct. 7 as previously thought).

The victory helps bump a couple of Byron streaks up a notch. The 1949 victory increases the winning streak the Eagles had from 1945-50 to what is now recognized at 27 games, tied with Buffalo’s recent streak for fifth-longest in state history (of course, the Eagle streak was reported to be in the 40-plus range; only 27 of those have been verified). Also, it bumps Byron’s unbeaten streak over that stretch to 27, again tied with Buffalo’s streak, this time tied for 10th all-time. The 1949 victory also increased Byron’s road winning streak in the stretch from 1945-52 to 18 games, now alone at third place in the state records, and bumped the unbeaten streak to 18 games, as well, tied for fourth-best all-time with another Byron streak from the late 1960s.

The 1959 victory increases Byron’s home winning streak in the span from 1953-61 to 31 games, increasing the state record Byron had, and of course increases the unbeaten home winning streak to 31, as well.

Also:

I found the date and corrected the location for Star Valley’s 54-0 loss to Salt Lake City East on Oct. 10, 1936 (the game was in Afton, not SLC)

I found the score and the date for Evanston’s 19-0 loss to Montpelier, Idaho, on Oct. 16, 1936 (I had the winner and the location, but not a specific score and not the date)

All of the updates have been made on all the relevant pages.

–patrick

I don’t know how to start this, or end this, or explain this, other than to apologize, ask for forgiveness and move on.

The only way I know how to start is to say I’m human. I make mistakes. Just look at the site updates category on this blog and you can see I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in dealing with games, dates, locations, players, coaches and a myriad of other pieces that come from 22,000-plus contests over more than a century. Several other mistakes may still exist on the site.

My most recent mistake, though, affected more people than I ever anticipated a mistake on this site could reach.

In short, I messed up. And I let a lot of people down.

The story goes something like this: Tonight, I received a call from my former colleague at the Casper Star-Tribune, Jack Nowlin, who was working on a follow-up to his solid work the past week with the Rawlins football team. His quick comment sent me lurching — he was counting, and he saw only 34 losses in a row for Greybull from 1978-82, not 35 as I have been listing on my streaks page and pimping on this blog.

So I counted, again. This time, I only came up with 34, too, just like Jack had.

The instant ramification is that now Rawlins alone has the state record for the longest losing streak, as the Outlaws broke their 35-game losing streak by beating Torrington last week.

The bigger fallout is that Jack — as well as a ton of other people, including you, the people reading this — was depending on me to put out the right information. Several other media outlets reported in the past few weeks about the streak and about Rawlins’ attempt to avoid breaking it. I wrote about it, too. A ton of other people read those stories and assumed those guys — and, through association, myself — had their information right.

Those other folks did. I didn’t.

To that end, I failed. And I’m sorry.

Sorry to reporters like Jack who were depending on me; sorry to editors who based their coverage decisions on the info I had posted on my site; sorry to the readers I misled; sorry to the players and coaches in Rawlins who thought they were only tied, not alone, with the longest losing streak in state history; sorry to the Greybull teams for needlessly adding to your misery and not allowing you that moment of relief when you knew you were no longer alone at the top; sorry to everyone, absolutely everyone, who was misled. You have a right to be upset with me, just as I am upset with myself.

Even though my mistake was unintentional, that does not justify the mistake, or the ramifications that arose from it. My only promise is to do my best to never allow it to happen again.

–patrick

A quick update: In preparing last week’s picks post, I corrected Big Horn’s record in 1939; the Rams were 0-4 that season. The update is reflected on all the relevant pages.

–patrick