UW fires Heath Schroyer, the Search is on for a new mens BB head coach

Heath Schroyer scrunches his nose at a call dur­ing the Wyo vs. BYU game. (John McK­night /LFP)

Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 7 was a dark day for Wyoming Cow­boys head bas­ket­ball coach Heath Schroyer.  Lis­ten to the Tele­phone con­fer­ence where Ath­letic Direc­tor Tom Bur­man explains the Uni­ver­si­ties Posi­tion going for­ward. Lis­ten Here. … Con­tinue Reading

UW Mar­tial Artist Wins Bronze Medal at Inter­na­tional Karate Tournament

Ben Froide­vaux (on right side of podium) at the 2010 Basel Open Karate Mas­ters Inter­na­tional Karate Tournament.(Courtesy)

Decem­ber 14, 2010 — Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Karate Club instruc­tor and Out­reach Tech­nol­ogy Ser­vices tech­ni­cian Ben Froide­vaux won a bronze medal at the recent 2010 Basel Open Karate Mas­ters Inter­na­tional Karate Tour­na­ment held on Decem­ber 11–12 in Frenk­endorf, Switzer­land just out­side of Basel.  There were over 560 com­peti­tors from 15 coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing at the tour­na­ment, includ­ing National team mem­bers from France, Ger­many, Italy, Den­mark, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lux­em­bourg, Rus­sia, Turk­menistan and Switzer­land.  Now train­ing with élite mem­bers of the Swiss National Karate Team, Froide­vaux (a fifth degree black belt orig­i­nally from Neucha­tel, Switzer­land) rep­re­sented his native coun­try in the Veteran’s Divi­sion (ages 40–50) in both Kata (forms) and Kumite (spar­ring).  Froide­vaux was awarded a bronze medal (3^rd place) for Kumite and also placed 4^th in Kata.

“It’s very inter­est­ing and edu­ca­tional to expe­ri­ence the dif­fer­ences of mar­tial arts com­pe­ti­tion in Europe and the USA”, says Froide­vaux (a 3-time State Games of Amer­ica National karate cham­pion) who also holds mul­ti­ple regional and Wyoming state titles in karate and fenc­ing.  “Like in the USA, the Euro­pean tour­na­ment orga­niz­ers and ref­er­ees are strict, with well-enforced rules for the safety of the par­tic­i­pants, which lim­its the num­bers of injuries that can hap­pen”, accord­ing to Froide­vaux.  “Although the karate styles are sim­i­lar to those in the USA, the choice of Katas in com­pe­ti­tion is stan­dard­ized and the level of dif­fi­culty and per­for­mance is very high, which makes for great spir­ited com­pe­ti­tion, inter­na­tional cama­raderie, and an enthu­si­as­tic fan-based atmos­phere of friendly rivalry much like that at a good foot­ball or bas­ket­ball game.”

20,014 in atten­dance to see Cow­boys take on #10 Utah

(Jeremy Stegall/LFP)

On Sat­ur­day after­noon the Wyoming Cow­boys 2–5 (0−3 MWC) faced off against the #10 Utah Utes 6–0 (3−0 MWC) for the final time as con­fer­ence foes. Utah came into the game with an insane vic­tory over Iowa State last week, 68–27. The Utes are 6–0 for the third time in seven years. The Pokes are com­ing off of pos­si­bly the hard­est first half of a sea­son in the entire nation. The only team with a sim­i­larly dif­fi­cult road to start is the Ore­gon State Beavers.

The Cow­boys won the toss to begin the game but decided to defer to the sec­ond half. Utah marched the length of the field with rel­a­tive ease. The Cow­boys did stop one drive with an inter­cep­tion in the end zone by senior cor­ner­back Mar­cell Gip­son. The inter­cep­tion was the first of Gipson’s career. The Cow­boys showed some life in the first half but either shot them­selves in the foot with a silly mis­take or they took more risks than were nec­es­sary. Risky calls on offense are a sta­ple of Coach Christensen’s, like it or not. The shin­ing moment for the Cow­boys in the half was a blocked PAT by senior Chris Prosin­ski, who also climbed to 7^th on the Cow­boys all-time tack­les list.

At the half the #10 Utah Utes were way up on the Wyoming Cow­boys 23–0. … Con­tinue Reading

Inter­view with Ron White

Nation­ally known come­dian, Ron White, per­formed in Laramie on Wednes­day. We had the chance to sit down and ask him a few ques­tions. See the inter­view video here. … Con­tinue Reading

Learn­ing from the Big Boys

(Matt Kimsey/LFP)

Wyoming Cow­boys 2–4 (0−2 MWC) come home to Laramie to face #11 Utah Utes 5–0 (2−0 MWC) in a dif­fi­cult Moun­tain West matchup. The Cow­boys will bat­tle another Top 25 team and should expect to be pushed around a bit.

This week­end the Cow­boys will face the fourth Top Tier oppo­nent of the 2010 sea­son. The Pokes have already played three Top 5 ranked teams. No other team in the nation has faced that many highly ranked teams in 2010. The only team that has a remotely sim­i­lar look­ing sched­ule is that of the Ore­gon State Beavers who also played TCU (#6), Boise State (#3), and took on Ari­zona (#9).

Do not fear Cow­boys fans. The final half of the sea­son is the most impor­tant for the Pokes. Wyoming fin­ishes with five Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence games, none of which are out of reach for the Pokes. Even if the Cow­boys only win four of their last five, they will fin­ish at 6–6 (4−4 MWC) and make them­selves bowl eli­gi­ble. I think that the Pokes could actu­ally win all five games and end up 7–5 (5−3 MWC). Some may scoff at the idea of Wyoming fin­ish­ing above .500 after the beat­ing they have received cour­tesy of the Top 25, but I think that the Pokes have the abil­ity to win those games. … Con­tinue Reading

A tale of two halves

On an amaz­ing autumn day the Wyoming Cow­boys 1–3 (0−1 MWC) took on the Air Force Fal­cons 3–1 (2−0 MWC) to begin their Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence sea­son. It was Mil­i­tary Day at Jonah Field and all mem­bers of the armed forces, those who are with us and those who no longer are, were hon­ored before the National Anthem. The Cow­boys faced the Fal­cons for the 49^th time. Air Force leads the series 26−20−3.

In the first quar­ter both teams worked the clock and moved the ball down the field. Both teams got within 10 yards of the end­zone but nei­ther team could put any points on the board. Wyoming’s Austyn Carta-Samuels threw in inter­cep­tion in the end­zone for the only turnover of the game. The Fal­cons then marched down the field with rel­a­tive ease, to end the first quarter.

To start the sec­ond quar­ter Air Force attempts a short field goal but misses wide right. The Cow­boys get the ball on their own 20-yard-line and take Air Force’s option down the field for an even­tual rush­ing touch­down by Alvester Alexan­der. The Fal­cons then did the same and scored a rush­ing touch­down of their own by Jared Tew. The Fal­cons then moved the ball down the field very quickly for a field goal attempt to end the half. Unfor­tu­nately for the Fal­cons, the snap was short and then muffed. No kick attempted. At half­time the game was tied at 7–7. … Con­tinue Reading

Maria the Korean Bride vis­its Laramie

On Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 10, 2010 Maria Yoon was mar­ried to Matt Mick­el­son, a Laramie native and part-time bar­tender at the Buck­horn Bar. With her mar­riage to Mick­el­son, Yoon will cel­e­brate her 48^th mar­riage in 48 dif­fer­ent states. Maria the Korean Bride, as she is known to her friends and sup­port­ers is on a mis­sion to raise aware­ness about love and mar­riage and what it means in today’s soci­ety. Maria has been trav­el­ing across the coun­try since 2001 tak­ing her multi-media per­for­mance on the road. Her per­for­mance is an art that she has designed to bring atten­tion to the social pres­sures she endured as a first gen­er­a­tion Korean-American unmar­ried woman.

For more infor­ma­tion about Maria the Korean Bride you can visit her web­site; www.mariathekoreanbride.com.

Fol­low this link for a higher res­o­lu­tion video.

Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Pro­fes­sor killed in head on Collision

Sept. 7, 2010 — Adrian Ban­t­jes, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor in the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Depart­ment of His­tory, was killed in a head-on auto­mo­bile crash at approx­i­mately 8:15 p.m. Fri­day about 11 miles south of Saratoga on Wyoming High­way 130.

“The tragic death of Pro­fes­sor Ban­t­jes is a tremen­dous loss for the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming. He was an excel­lent scholar and a val­ued mem­ber of the fac­ulty who was well-liked by stu­dents and col­leagues alike,” UW Pres­i­dent Tom Buchanan says. “He will be missed by all who knew him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his fam­ily at this dif­fi­cult time.”

Ban­t­jes’ wife, Mary Hen­ning, and daugh­ter Aida, 8, were injured in the crash and both were hos­pi­tal­ized. Hen­ning remained in the hos­pi­tal as of Tues­day morn­ing. Aida has been released from the hos­pi­tal. … Con­tinue Reading

Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming stu­dent killed on HWY 287

Sept. 6, 2010 – One Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming stu­dent was killed and three were injured Mon­day when the vehi­cle they were in went off High­way 287 in Col­orado shortly before 5:30 a.m.

Killed was Ruben Nar­cisse, 19, of Miami, Fla. Injured were Trey Fox, 19, of Glen­wood Springs, Colo.; C.J. Mor­gan, 18, of Aurora, Colo.; and J.J. Quin­lan, 19, of Everett, Wash.

The four were in a Toy­ota Tun­dra pickup trav­el­ing north approx­i­mately six miles south of the Wyoming state line when the dri­ver of the vehi­cle appar­ently fell asleep at the wheel, accord­ing to the Col­orado State Patrol. Col­orado State Patrol spokesman Sgt. John Hahn said there is no evi­dence that drugs or alco­hol were a fac­tor in the crash.

Nar­cisse and Mor­gan were taken to the Med­ical Cen­ter of the Rock­ies in Love­land, Colo. Mor­gan remains in the hos­pi­tal there in fair condition.

Quin­lan and Fox were taken to Ivin­son Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal, in Laramie, Wyo., where they were treated and released.

All stu­dents involved in the acci­dent are on the UW foot­ball team. … Con­tinue Reading

Ayers speaks at UW

The bat­tle is over and Meg Lanker reached her goal. On April 28^th, at 7 p.m. Dr. William Ayers spoke at the Small Sports Com­plex at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming. The pro­test­ers along the side­walk to the door were quiet with their signs as stu­dents, pro­fes­sors and com­mu­nity mem­bers alike filled the gym.

Due to pre­vi­ous threats of vio­lence when Dr. Ayers was sched­uled the first time, intense secu­rity mea­sures were put in place. Every­one enter­ing the com­plex was searched and bags were exam­ined before enter­ing the bleach­ers. Police offi­cers with bomb dogs stood next to the entrances and along the walls sev­eral other offi­cers stood at the ready, but the audi­ence was calm.

The con­tro­versy build­ing up to this appear­ance of Dr. Ayers elicited a crowd that exceeded by mul­ti­ple times the pos­si­ble atten­dees to the intended pre­sen­ta­tion on April 5^th. With the debate and law­suit about his appear­ance well in mind, the audi­ence was keen to hear what Dr. Ayers him­self had to say about the con­tro­versy regard­ing his pres­ence on cam­pus. Those atten­dees hop­ing to hear him berate the UW admin­is­tra­tion were out of luck. The civil­ity which with Dr. Ayers addressed the con­tro­versy set the tone for the evening.

…It is impor­tant to note that an invi­ta­tion is in no way an endorse­ment, Dr. Ayers said about the con­tro­versy and refer­ring the influx of crit­i­cisms Dr. Fran­cisco Rios had received when the out­rage and sub­se­quent can­cel­la­tion first hit cam­pus. Fol­low­ing the brief recog­ni­tion of the con­tro­versy, Dr. Ayers began his pre­sen­ta­tion on edu­ca­tion in the United States. His speech started by exam­in­ing the moment in which we live today. He brought the audi­ence through the changes that gave women the right to vote and abol­ished slav­ery. End­ing these injus­tices took an insur­rec­tion in think­ing and this is really the theme of what I want to talk about tonight– an insur­rec­tion in think­ing. That is, all of us, every one of us, all the time, is trapped in a cer­tain kind of com­mon sense, a cer­tain kind of moment, Dr. Ayers said.

The energy and inspi­ra­tion in his speech evoked in the audi­ence the dis­cus­sion that he had antic­i­pated the first time he was invited to UW. Despite the huge atten­dance, the dia­logue that fol­lowed his pre­sen­ta­tion cre­ated an envi­ron­ment of mutual teach­ing and learn­ing, even when two mem­bers of audi­ence ques­tioned him about his past actions as a mem­ber of the Weather Under­ground. While their com­ments and ques­tions were less than cor­dial at points, Dr. Ayers answered them with respect and calm.

The evening ended with a sense of appre­ci­a­tion for the process Lanker, Dr. Ayers and sev­eral other mem­bers of the Uni­ver­sity went through to ensure that free­dom of speech was kept alive at UW.