Rival Cheyenne Basketball Teams Donate 12 Truckloads Of Food To Local Shelter

CHEYENNE — They’re bitter rivals on the basketball court, but on Saturday a group of local high school student-athletes were all on the same team — Team Thanksgiving.

The coaches and players of Cheyenne East, South and Central high schools have a healthy rivalry throughout the basketball season. The coaches encourage that, but on Saturday they decided to do something just a bit different.

They brought all the players together for a common cause, with members of each team working together at four grocery store locations to make what turned out to be a slam dunk Thanksgiving for some neighbors in need.

Collectively, they worked together to collect 12 truckloads of Thanksgiving foods, including 29 turkeys, all in a single day. The food their efforts brought in was all donated to the Comea House and Resource Center, which helps the homeless in southeast Wyoming. 

“There was so much food at the shelter, there was nowhere to store it all,” East High coach Sly Johnson told Cowboy State Daily. “It was just everywhere there, so I think their plan is to donate some out to churches and other facilities that help the homeless.”

Johnson said he just loved the whole idea of it, because it gave his players a chance to see their opponents outside the basketball court. 

“In a rivalry, we still want to compete, but when we’re outside the lines, it’s OK to come together as one,” Johnson said. “We’re still Cheyenne.”

South High coach Brandon Wolfe, who graduated from East High School, agreed.

“A lot of times in sports, you see the other team as your opponents, and you can’t see past that in some of those competitive environments,” he said. “So this was a great opportunity for the kids to kind of see the other students as just kids.

“We may wear different colors and have different names on our jerseys, but it’s still one community. We’re all student athletes, and we all live in the same community.”

Social Media Ads Edge To High School Rivalries

The idea was put together by Central High School coach Randy Filbin, who said he’s seen instances where rivalries have been getting out of hand. Not necessarily in Cheyenne, and not necessarily the players themselves. But friends and family around those players.

“During the volleyball season in Casper, things had gotten so intense between the girls volleyball team with Kelly Walsh (High School) in Natrona (County), that they actually didn’t allow student sections,” Filbin told Cowboy State Daily. “If you were under the age of 18, you had to come to the game accompanied by an adult.”

Filbin said cyberbullying and threats had taken things way past the stage of friendly rivalry.

“I told my seniors, I said, ‘How bad would it be if this is one of the first years you guys get to play in the Central East or Central South rivalry game, and we can’t have our student sections there?’” Filbin said. “Because the student sections are what make it.

“We, for the most part, have great students and great support throughout our schools, but there’s a few apples here and there that can take a really good thing and make it negative.”

Filbin said he still wants the teams to have a healthy rivalry on the court. 

“But with social media and things over the last few years, things have started to get to a point where it can get pretty ugly,” he said. “So, I thought if we can start showing some unity amongst ourselves and get our basketball kids brought into that unity it might help with that.”

There could still be some people who take things too far, Filbin acknowledged, but he feels showing a united front between the players about maintaining a healthy rivalry that recognizes we all live in the same community is a great start. 

“That and people just understanding that while we love the rivalry and we love to compete with each other in those games, at the end of the day, we’re all one community,” he said. “We all live in this community, and we can work together when we’re off the court.”

Tsunami Of Food Will Benefit Many

The bounty the students collected for Comea included anything and everything a person could want for a Thanksgiving feast.

Canned vegetables, stuffing mix, and pies. Instant potatoes, real potatoes, cranberries and apples. There were even less traditional items like spaghetti sauce and cans of chili.

“You name it I got it,” said Comea kitchen manager Josh Knowles. “Some of it wasn’t even for Thanksgiving. We had an overabundance of canned chili, which there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not what you think of for Thanksgiving.”

Knowles described the amount of food that came in on Saturday as a “tsunami” and said it had overwhelmed him, as well as, temporarily, his space.

“It was a lot. The city of Cheyenne surprised us,” he said. “I would say we got around 4,000, 5,000 pounds of food between the three high schools’ basketball teams, and we had Ken Garff of Toyota helping us out this year as well.”

Knowles has already reached out to other charitable efforts to share the bounty and ensure nothing he was given goes to waste. 

“My freezer is only so big,” Knowles said. “And we’re all part of the same team, working to make this community a better place.”

Hunger isn’t something, though, that’s confined to the holidays. Knowles added. There are people who need help throughout the year. 

“We’ve had a steady number,” he said. “And the biggest thing to me is the age fluctuation. In the last five months, I’m seeing a lot more younger residents, which kind of breaks my soul. There’s a lot of them here who are a lot younger than me.”

Comea will still hold a food drive of its own from November 25 through December 18, seeking, in particular, peanut butter and jelly pouches, electrolyte beverages, protein pouches, fruit cups, snack bags and granola bars.

These are all foods with shelf life that don’t require cooking and can be handed out to people in grab bags, Knowles said. 

“A lot of the people we help have jobs,” he said. “So, we give them bag lunches every day. And that stuff is really easy to put inside their bag lunches as they’re trying to integrate themselves back into the working class.”

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.