Forever West: Football and Energy Extraction

Although the Wyoming Cowboys (American) football team are perhaps not one of Division I’s finest teams, I had to go to at least a couple of games to experience it – the Cowboys’ sports traditions, the tailgating, the songs and the cannon (I’ll explain). A few weeks ago, I went to the Nebraska game – probably the biggest game of the season, partly because Lincoln, NE, is a mere 8 hours away, so many of their diehard fans came to town to watch. On the way to the stadium, I met guy named Chance (no relation to Lucky from Steamboat Springs), who is from Nebraska, but now lives in Wyoming and works in Colorado. His thoughts on people from the West Coast particularly interested me. While I was living there, I got used to people saying how they thought those from the East Coast were generally ruder, busier and much less relaxed than those on the West Coast. This guy, from the Rocky Mountain West, said the same thing about those from the West Coast. He said he thought that people in California had no manners and were too focused on getting things done quickly, while those in the Mountain West were much more polite and chilled-out. It’s interesting to see how people think of those from other regions (without even bringing the South into this) and how Californians are thought of by one group (themselves, admittedly) as laidback and by another as uptight and rude.

I met up with some friends at the tailgate and since one of them is the nephew of a state legislator, we got into the President’s Tailgate tent (the president of the university. Alas, Obama is only very rarely found out this way) and after talking to State Representative Byrd for a short while, got to meet and shake the hands of the governors of both Wyoming and Nebraska. The stadium was packed, which means, with an attendance of 32,617, there were more people there than live in Laramie. In fact, on that day, the stadium by itself would be the third biggest city in the state.

Guys in cowboy hats at a Cowboys game

Every time a point is scored by the Cowboys, a cannon is fired – a sound that can be heard across town. I’m not entirely sure where this tradition came from, but some have pointed-out the highly militarized nature of the football games, which take place in War Memorial Stadium and ROTC cadets seem to be quite heavily involved. It is also interesting to note that the football field is called Jonah Field, after the huge natural gas field in southwestern Wyoming – apparently one of the biggest in the US. Energy extraction is so important to the state’s economy and it is not at all unusual to see adverts celebrating Wyoming’s high national rankings for supplying energy to the rest of the country. Its impact is also apparent in state politics, and much of the University of Wyoming’s funding comes from the energy industries. Earlier this year, members of the coal industry were insulted when the university decided to permanently install ‘Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around’, an artistic comment on the damage that coal mining is doing to the climate and its connection to the region’s pine beetle infestation. Industry representatives saw the university as being ungrateful by having such artwork on campus, but I’m glad to see that even though UW does rely on funds from these industries, it is not entirely uncritical of them. (EDIT: the installation has been removed as of July 2012. It seems that the University was not prepared to keep this "insult" to the coal and gas industry around for very long, especially when it will be facing an 8% budget cut from the state in the 2014 fiscal year.)

Back to football – the University of Wyoming has two mascots, one of which is Cowboy Joe. He is not, perhaps surprisingly, a cowboy. He’s not even a man. Joe is a pony. Our ‘human’ mascot is Pistol Pete, complete with creepy over-sized head.. There’s also Cowboy Ken, or Barrel Man – a dedicated fan who comes to every game wearing not much more than a barrel. Although we lost to Nebraska, it was a good game and certainly an interesting insight into how they do things in the West.

Cowboy Joe

Cowboy Ken and Pistol Pete

Last weekend was homecoming, so the university decorated parts of campus in brown and gold and held a homecoming parade the morning of the game, which was against University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Many alumni came to town and although I got a sunglasses sunburn (I guess I’m still not entirely accustomed to living at high altitude, where it is much easier to get burnt!), it was a good game and we beat UNLV 41-14.