With an official starting date of Feb. 22, 1894, Wyoming Cowboy football is less than four years younger than the state itself. The identity of the university, and especially of its athletic teams, are embedded into the identity of the state itself. From Cody to Evanston to Gillette, one thing that unites all Wyomingites is the fact that the only state university has some pretty darn good athletics programs. Cowboy fans travel, spend and sacrifice to support their teams. The pleasure and excitement the athletes provide through the university’s, and the state’s, support can raise the attitude of an entire state like few other things can. Wyoming’s football history, though, currently lacks the depth necessary for a full appreciation of how the game and the sport, and therefore the state itself, grew and developed.
For many Wyoming Cowboy football fans, their knowledge and understanding of the program’s history begins with new athletic director Red Jacoby’s hiring of Bowden Wyatt ahead of the 1947 football season. With Wyatt at the helm, a largely floundering program established itself as a regional and national power, with a Gator Bowl victory capping an undefeated 1950 season in which Wyoming finished 12th in the nation in the final Associated Press poll. Since then, the University of Wyoming football team has played in almost 20 bowl games, with the program providing the launching pad for nearly 100 players to reach the National Football League.
Even with all the success of the back half of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st, the time prior to the Cowboys’ emergence in the late 1940s and early 1950s is largely ignored. In part, the reason for that is because UW's football origin story is full of struggles for on-field success. Wyoming only had three seasons with a winning record in the 41-year span between 1908 and 1949. Consequently, of the 50 football players enshrined in the University of Wyoming Athletics Hall of Fame, only four (Johnny Winterholler, Kenneth Sturman, Milward Simpson and Lee Kizzire) come from the pre-World War II era.
However, numerous players and coaches who played for and coached Wyoming during that time were eventually important to the growth of sports, politics and civic life in the state, in the country and internationally. Their ranks include war heroes, politicians, educators, lawyers, coaches and more people who may not have had as much success on the field as they would have liked while a Cowboy but whose work before, during and after college distinguished them as winners nonetheless.
The pathway through this period – the through-line that connects these stories – will be an attempt to document every single point scored by a Wyoming Cowboy football player prior to World War II. A game-by-game examination of this time period, as well as an overview of the personalities of the players as college stars and leaders beyond their playing days, will help connect the roots of Cowboy football – often overlooked for its lack of success – to the people who love it today.
So, welcome. Welcome to the stories retold, the players reintroduced, the moments that help us love Cowboy football rediscovered by the fans whose love for the program knows no bounds. This is for you. Hopefully, this work will restore life and interest to a mostly overlooked era of Wyoming Cowboy football history through the stories of the people, moments and events that even the most devoted Wyoming fans may have never heard.
