Funding granted for Tiger Football

The outcome may not have been what many fans of the Encampment Tigers were hoping for on November 12 as Encampment fell 65-24 to the Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Rattlers in War Memorial Stadium.

Despite the outcome—and a loss to the only team they had fallen to in the regular season—the Tigers had already made school history before the 1A Six-Man Championship had even begun. As they walked onto Jonah Field in their red and white uniforms, it was the first time in school history a football team from Encampment had done so.

That isn’t where their story began, however.

Just three years before—almost to the day—a group of Encampment students stood before the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) Board of Trustees and asked to begin a six-man football program of their own. The freshmen who were in attendance at that meeting were seniors walking onto the field on a cold, windy Friday afternoon.

For 30 years, the same schools who were rivals on the hardwood in the winter spent their falls playing together on the gridiron. All told, in fact, Encampment has had just four varsity seasons according to data collected by www.wyoming-football.com. In 1956 and 1957, the Tigers played B six-man football. Then, from 1958 to 1987, Encampment didn’t have a program. From 1988 to 1990, the Tigers played 1A Nine-Man football and were coached by Don Beach for the first two years and by the late Burt Willford in 1990.

The late Willford would coach the Saratoga Panthers from 1992 to 2002. Fourteen years later, Kegan Willford—son of Burt Willford—would coach the combined Saratoga/Encampment team for two years in 2016 and 2017. Despite three decades of a program between the two schools, numbers were dwindling by 2017 and going into the 2018 season, this time with Logan Wright coaching for Saratoga, the Panthers went from an 11-Man to a Six-Man program for two years.

When a group of Encampment students appeared before the CCSD2 Board of Trustees on November 13, 2018 one of the biggest questions was if the smaller school would have enough students to field a team. According to Koye Gilbert, who was then a freshman, not only were there 18 high school students interested in playing but 11 junior high students were interested as well. After much discussion, and consideration of delaying action until December 2018, the school was granted a six-man football program.

There were a few considerations, however. For one, due to the 2019 season having already been set, the Encampment Tigers would be playing a junior varsity schedule. This meant, for those students who would be seniors, the Tigers would play all season without any chance of making into the play-offs. Some board members asked if this would be a disappointment for those students who would be seniors. Those who played for Saratoga had just spent their junior year playing a similar schedule.

“I’ll be a senior next year and I really think it will just be a benefit to have the varsity schedule for the following year,” said Reid Schroeder. “It’s definitely a move to the future out of just one year.”

The second consideration, this one raised by CCSD2 Superintendent Jim Copeland, was the precedent set by granting the school a football program. Further, it would have precedent on “future requests of private funding of activities” according to Boardmember Joe Gaspari.

Ultimately, the CCSD2 Board of Trustees approved the program but without any district funding except for travel and officials. By this time, the program was $6,000 short of a $22,000 goal which went towards new gear for the football team and rehabilitation and maintenance of the field. 

The motion was made with the language, “to grant a six-man football program being fully funded by outside donations of money and/or time including all facilities and field improvements required with the exception of referee costs born by the district, keeping in mind that the committee does not believe the district funding of new activities such as football is feasible at this time due to funding constraints. We do not support the addition of any activity on any campus that requires Carbon County School District No. 2 additional funding, however, in the case of the school and the community offering to fund the new activity with donations recommend a trial period be allowed of two years.”

The trial period of two years not only allowed Encampment to begin the program in 2019, but play a varsity schedule in 2020. Kegan Willford volunteered his time as head coach of the program and was joined by Duane Gilbert as assistant coach.. At the end of that season, which saw the Tigers make it to the semi-final round of the play-offs before falling to the Farson-Eden Pronghorns by a single point, Duane Gilbert appeared before the Board of Trustees again to ask for a continuance of the program. While the program was allowed to continue, it was again without any additional funding from the district.

Following their successful second varsity year, that has changed. Consideration of funding Encampment’s six-man football program appeared on the agenda for the November 15 meeting of the CCSD2 Board of Trustees with a recommended action of approving funding for the program.  The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to fund the program.

Said Kegan Willford, “Even though we didn’t come out on top in this championship game, I still reminded the team of the great season we had and that it was still a great accomplishment of playing for a championship in only the third year of our program.”