Celebrating 50 years of Wyoming high school girls basketball

Looking back, it’s clear that the young women who played high school basketball during the 1976 season did not see themselves as pioneers or history makers. They just wanted to play ball. They wanted a uniform, a gym floor and a chance to compete.

But history has a way of sneaking up on people, and today it’s obvious those women were breaking new ground and building a legacy that still shapes the game.

Ever since James Naismith nailed peach baskets to a wall in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891 and picked up a soccer ball, women have wanted to play basketball. The problem was never interest or ability. The problem was a long list of objections rooted in gender bias and some truly imaginative medical beliefs. While the game spread like wildfire among men, women were told, repeatedly and confidently, that basketball was simply not good for them.

Men’s basketball took off immediately. Within five years of its invention, colleges across the country were playing organized games. By 1904, the University of Wyoming had a men’s basketball team. Its first recorded game ended in victory when a group of UW students defeated the “Laramie Town Team” 17–5. Wyoming has fielded a men’s team every year since. Early games were community events. A 1907 matchup between UW and Fort Russell, Colorado, reported by the Laramie Boomerang, included not only basketball, but boxing between competitors and a dance afterward. Basketball, it turns out, was never meant to be boring.

The sport spread quickly to Wyoming high schools, as well. By 1906, hoops were being hung on barns, telephone poles and anything else sturdy enough to hold them. Schools of every size fielded boys teams. A Cheyenne Tribune article proudly reported Byron traveling to the “Hot Water Town” and “drubbing the Thermopolis boys” by a score of 28–8. Wyoming basketball had officially arrived.

Girls were playing, too. By 1908, competitive girls games were already being reported in newspapers. An October 30, 1908, Sheridan Post article described a doubleheader at Buffalo High School featuring both girls and boys games with a crowd of 400 fans in attendance. The Sheridan girls defeated the Buffalo girls 6-5. Naturally, there was a dance afterward. Early Wyoming girls basketball understood priorities.

As girls began to play more and attract attention, concern quickly followed. Those concerns ranged from the ridiculous to the embarrassing. Medical professionals and school officials warned that running and jumping might cause girls’ internal organs to shift, drop or otherwise malfunction. Particular anxiety was reserved for the uterus, which many seemed to believe was loosely attached and deeply resentful of athletic effort. Too much exertion, they warned, could lead to infertility, nervous disorders or lifelong weakness. Basketball, apparently, was a high-risk activity for wandering organs. Nobody wants to see an organ fall onto the court.

There were also worries about personality. Competition, it was said, could make girls aggressive, unfeminine or overly confident. Sweating was frowned upon. Physical contact was improper. Raising one’s heart rate too much was viewed with suspicion. Basketball, according to the experts, was a slippery slope.

To “protect” girls, the game itself was rewritten. Girls teams played six athletes instead of five, divided into three forwards and three guards, each confined to their own half of the court. Dribbling was limited or discouraged altogether. The result was a stilted, stop-and-stand version of basketball built around careful passing and minimal movement, bearing little resemblance to the fast, flowing game played by boys. Thankfully, no uteri were harmed in the process.

By 1918, Wyoming organized its first statewide, single-classification boys basketball tournament in Laramie. Girls were not given the same honor.

Girls, meanwhile, continued playing the modified six-player game through the 1920s, but as enthusiasm faded and opportunities grew scarce, competitive high school girls basketball in Wyoming slowly slipped away.

Still, the girls’ game continued. Sometimes modified, sometimes rough and tumble, it carried on in P.E. classes, backyards, church halls and occasionally even against the boys. Nothing terrible happened. The world kept turning. And in time, reality caught up.

In the early 1970s, Title IX and common sense began spreading across the country. Most states moved quickly to establish competitive girls basketball programs. Wyoming, after decades of hesitation, finally joined them. In 1976, the state officially sanctioned high school girls basketball and hosted its first Wyoming High School Girls State Basketball Tournament.

That tournament marked a turning point. Programs were brand new. Traditions were just beginning. Nobody yet knew which schools would set the standard or which players would become legends. What was clear, even then, was that the game was here to stay.

Fifty years later, the legacy of those 1976 players is everywhere: in packed gyms, in championship banners and in generations of Wyoming girls who no longer have to ask permission to play the game they love.

Next week, we’ll dive into the stories of our local girls basketball teams, exploring how they moved into fully approved competition and what those first sanctioned seasons were like, as remembered by the women who lived them 50 years ago.