The Fastest Man in Wyoming

How Roy ‘The Cowley Comet’ Strom turned one unforgettable season into Wyoming track legend

There are moments in Wyoming sports history that deserve to be remembered long after the finish line has disappeared.

For one remarkable spring in 1971, a young man from tiny Cowley accomplished something almost unimaginable. Roy Strom won five individual state championships, anchored a state championship relay team and then traveled to the Wyoming Meet of Champions, where he won two more events and finished second in two others.

More than a half century later, the nickname “The Cowley Comet” still brings a smile to coaches and track historians who remember one of the greatest single seasons ever produced by a Wyoming high school athlete.

“I tell people I was the fastest man in the state of Wyoming in 1971,” Strom said with a laugh during a recent interview. “Nobody can take that away from me.”

It is hard to argue with him.

A season for the ages

Competing for Cowley High School in Class B, Strom captured state titles in the 100-yard dash, the 220-yard dash, the 180-yard low hurdles, the long jump and the triple jump. He then anchored Cowley’s victorious 880-yard relay team, giving him six state championship gold medals.

Perhaps even more remarkable was what those victories meant for his team.

Cowley won the Class B state championship with just 44 points, edging Upton’s 41. Strom personally scored 30 points, enough that he would have finished second in the team standings all by himself.

“There were only six of us on the team,” Strom recalled. “Me, Tony Frost, Kim Wilson, Rick Gilmore, my brother Don and Frank Hinckley.”

Kim Wilson added valuable points with runner-up finishes, and the relay team sealed the championship, but Strom’s dominance remains one of the most impressive individual performances in Wyoming state meet history.

It almost happened twice

Ironically, 1971 might not even have been his best opportunity.

The year before, as a junior, Strom had already won the state long jump. During that competition he pulled a hamstring.

“I qualified first in all my other events,” he said. “But the next morning I could hardly walk.”

He was forced to withdraw from the rest of the meet.

Looking back, Strom believes he likely would have won several more state championships that year as well.

“We probably would have won State two years in a row.”

Instead, everything came together during his senior season.

Winning the state meet earned Strom an invitation to the Wyoming Meet of Champions, where the best athletes from every classification competed against one another.

There, he won the 100 meters and the long jump while placing second in both hurdle events. He finished as the meet’s highest point scorer.

His success earned another invitation, this time to a national high school meet in Bowling Green, Ohio.

“I finished sixth in the nation in the long jump,” he said.

Although competing in the national meet didn’t go quite as well, competing against the country’s best remains one of the highlights of his athletic career.

Training without a track

What makes Strom’s accomplishments even more remarkable is that Cowley didn’t even have a proper track.

“We didn’t have a track,” he said. “The first couple years we just ran around the rodeo grounds.”

His father eventually built a long jump runway and pit, but most of the team’s preparation was remarkably simple by today’s standards.

Strom jokes that one unexpected training partner may have made him even faster.

“I lived four blocks from Main Street,” he laughed. “There was a big mean dog at the end of the fourth block. Every time I walked home, I’d start sprinting before I got to that house because I thought that dog was going to catch me.”

Then he grinned.

“That’s how I became fast.”

The Cowley Comet

The nickname that followed him for the rest of his life didn’t come from Cowley.

It came from Buffalo coach Mike Moon.

“He started calling me the Cowley Comet,” Strom said. “The other coaches thought it fit pretty well, and it just stuck.”

More than 50 years later, friends and former coaching colleagues still call him “Comet.”

Football almost changed everything.

After graduation, Strom accepted a football scholarship to the University of Wyoming.

Unfortunately, a serious knee injury ended those dreams almost before they began.

He later competed briefly in track at both the University of Wyoming and Utah State before returning home to attend Northwest Community College.

Although his collegiate athletic career never matched his high school success, another chapter was just beginning.

Passing it on

At age 32, encouraged by his mother, Strom returned to the University of Wyoming to earn his teaching degree.

His coaching career eventually brought him to Lovell High School, where he taught history and physical education and spent years coaching track and football

Hundreds of athletes came through his program.

Ironically, the man once known as the fastest sprinter in Wyoming found some of his greatest satisfaction coaching young athletes.

Former athletes still remember his enthusiasm, sense of humor and ability to encourage every competitor, regardless of ability.

Still moving

Today Strom lives near Portland, Oregon, close to three of his children. Although he now deals with a few health issues and has replaced both a knee and a hip, he still rides his bicycle regularly.

“Last month I rode about 130 miles,” he said matter-of-factly.

The competitive spirit that carried him around Wyoming tracks more than five decades ago is still there.

History often remembers championships.

Sometimes it remembers records.

But every so often it remembers a season so extraordinary that it becomes part of local legend.

In the spring of 1971, a young man from Cowley, training on rodeo grounds instead of a modern track, became the fastest runner in Wyoming.

And as Roy Strom likes to remind people with a smile:

“I was the fastest man in the state of Wyoming in 1971. Nobody can take that away from me.”