Laramie, Wyo • The man who considers himself the most famous person in Wyoming, who exclusively answers to “Cowboy Ken” and who hasn’t worn a T-Shirt to a football game in 45 years, got his start when he was just 13 years old.
Wyoming’s famed barrel man — known for only wearing a barrel around his waist to cover up during games — got his initial piece of plastic in 1979. He idolized the Denver Broncos’ barrel man, Tim McKernan. So for Halloween, his parents painted him a tub in Wyoming’s deep brown and mustard gold and gave it to their son.
The thing is, Cowboy Ken just never took it off.
There’s been different designs through the years — he now sports a white background with a gold Cowboy logo — but he’s worn a barrel to every Wyoming home football game since.
Pacing up and down the stands, Ken watched Wyoming ascend to the top of the WAC and then slowly start its fade from college football prominence. He’s braved the elements as he saw Wyoming’s one-time peers — teams like Utah — hit it big while the Cowboys were still left out.
But on Saturday, Ken reached a new low.
As BYU — Wyoming’s longtime rival of 102 years — exited War Memorial Stadium for the final time after a 34-14 win, Ken didn’t know how to process it. Logically, he’s known Wyoming’s identity as a program has been plucked away at over the last few decades. Those Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl appearances are closer to 50 years ago than 10.
But Ken always thought, even if Wyoming wasn’t dancing in the Power Four, it would have its tradition to cling to. It would have its rivalry games. But when BYU exited stage left… What is left for a school like Wyoming?
“I’m really sad. I’m sad because we are not going to have this no more,” Ken said. “It keeps getting ripped away. … Eventually we ain’t going to have no team left.”
Ken thought back to some of its favorite BYU memories. In 1988, he was in the stands when a young BYU quarterback named Ty Detmer made his debut in Laramie and the Cowboys’ bested him 24-14. Detmer threw three interceptions in the third quarter, looking confused as he came in for the concussed Sean Covey.
Ken was in the stands a year before, too, when Wyoming went up to Provo and knocked off LaVell Edwards’ juggernaut. In those days, Wyoming and BYU were equals. The Cowboys handed Edwards his only conference loss.
“Ty Detmer, that was one of the best games,” he said. “We beat them and that was the best game I’ve ever been to.”
As a kid from Cheyenne, Wyoming, football took on an outsized role in his life. It wasn’t just the barrel — although that certainly helped — but he saw himself in the program. It was part of who he was.
He’d travel down to Laramie every weekend and stride up and down the bleachers talking to people. He’d rile up a crowd he felt like was his own.
At one point, he went to Wyoming’s athletic director, he said, and asked if he could be Wyoming’s official barrel man. “They said ‘sure,’” Ken said.
But now, even though he’s still at nearly every game, it is starting to feel different, as if his own identity is being chipped away. Even his walking space is shrinking now — since Wyoming renovated the stands, he doesn’t have free range of the entire bleachers from one end zone to the other. He only has about 20 yards to work with.
And maybe that is a fitting image for Wyoming now, too. The once proud program is seeing its place in the game get smaller and smaller.
As BYU finished off its final win in Wyoming, Ken speculated on what needs to happen for his own program. He said maybe Wyoming can make a last-ditch effort to get into the Pac-12 like four other Mountain West schools did last week.
“We are going to have to step up and go to the Pac-12, too. Because we ain’t going to have no team,” Ken said.
It’s been the reality for a long time, but BYU’s exit on Saturday just made it hit harder.
Until then, all Cowboy Ken can do is keep showing up in a barrel.
