LARAMIE – Sundance Wicks received two full-circle phone calls spanning a quarter century.
He will never forget hearing Larry Shyatt’s voice on the other end of the line after picking up the landline at his childhood home – 426 Force Road in Gillette – when he was a star player at Campbell County High School.
“I was shaking because it was Larry Shyatt at the University of Wyoming offering the scholarship to be a Cowboy,” Wicks recalled during a press conference with local media on Tuesday.
Shyatt left UW for Clemson after the 1997-98 season. He would return for a second stint with the Pokes, which included winning the 2015 Mountain West Tournament and appearing in the NCAA Tournament.
Wearing the brown and gold did not materialize for Wicks after Steve McClain took over as head coach and won a couple conference titles and made an NCAA Tournament run with Cheyenne’s Marcus Bailey helping Josh Davis lead the way.
“The path is the path,” Wicks continued.
After a stellar playing career at Northern State, Wicks became the youngest assistant in the Big 12 at Colorado (2006-07) before following Ricardo Patton to Northern Illinois (2007-11).
Wicks took a “basketball sabbatical” when the Huskies staff was fired. He even lived out of his car while starting a training academy in Arizona before getting back into coaching again on the same staff as his brother, Luke, at San Francisco (2015-16).
When Rex Walters and his assistants with the Dons received pink slips, Wicks returned to Northern State as the associate head coach from 2016-18.
“That’s where I met my wife, Courteney, and I think she’s the secret sauce here,” Wicks said. “Things started going really well when I met Courteney, probably because you’ve got to find someone who’s a lot better in life than you are. She helps me out in a lot of ways.”
Wicks took his first head coaching job at Missouri Western (2018-20) and was on Jeff Linder’s staff at UW (2020-23) before leaving for the challenge of rebulding Green Bay from the rubble.
The remarkable one-year turnaround – the Phoenix improved from three to 18 wins – made Wicks the easy choice to become the 23rd head coach in UW’s storied history when Linder decided to leave to be the lead assistant at Texas Tech.
This time Wicks was in a Home Depot collecting boxes for the move back from Green Bay to Laramie when Shyatt called his cellphone.
“I went on my journey and 25 years later that dream became a reality,” Wicks said. “He called and he said, ‘How freaking cool is this? … This is such a cool, poetic story for you to be able to go back and have this moment.’
“It was kind of a full circle for me to get that call from Larry Shyatt 25 years ago and to get that call from Larry Shyatt 25 years later. So, here we are, honoring the brown and gold like we never left.”
A lot has changed since Wicks left. There isn’t a single player left on the roster from UW’s 2022 NCAA Tournament team or even the 2023 team Wicks coached at the Mountain West Tournament before his departure for Green Bay.
Wicks squeezed his informal introductory press conference in nine days after getting hired by athletics director Tom Burman. He has been a little busy putting the Pokes back together and a recruit even called during his Zoom with the media.
Two assistants, Nic Reynolds and Pat Monaghan, have followed Wicks from Green Bay. He retained Nick Whitmore, Shaun Vandiver and Tim O’Flannigan from UW’s 2023-24 staff.
Together Wicks and Co. have re-recruited the key returning players and are in the process of filling out the team with prospects making late visits.
“The one thing that we will do better than anybody else in this country, and I can put my stamp on that, is we will care, we will connect, and we will compete at a high freaking level,” Wicks said. “That you can put a freaking Wyoming damn stamp on. That’s what we’ll sell our guys.
“If you are going to come here you better care about your teammates, you better connect at a high level to this community and this campus and you better be damn sure you’re competitive because the Wyoming way is competitive, man.”
Wicks is planning to travel around the state this summer to engage the fan base. He will also recruit the next generation of “Cowboy crazies” from the student body in the fall to make sure the Dome of Doom gives his team the same home-court advantage Mountain West contenders enjoy.
“They’re rough and rowdy out there at football, I know that,” Wicks said of the student section at War Memorial Stadium, where the Cowboys went 7-0 as the program set a new single-season attendance record in 2023. “We’re just going to have to create that same brand inside the Double-A and bring the Boom back to the Doom.”
If you are interested in learning more about NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) or would like to support our student-athletes, please visit 1wyo.org. 1WYO was created out of Wyoming’s culture of neighbor helping neighbor. The mission is to promote and strengthen local charitable organizations and develop Wyoming student athletes.
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
He will never forget hearing Larry Shyatt’s voice on the other end of the line after picking up the landline at his childhood home – 426 Force Road in Gillette – when he was a star player at Campbell County High School.
“I was shaking because it was Larry Shyatt at the University of Wyoming offering the scholarship to be a Cowboy,” Wicks recalled during a press conference with local media on Tuesday.
Shyatt left UW for Clemson after the 1997-98 season. He would return for a second stint with the Pokes, which included winning the 2015 Mountain West Tournament and appearing in the NCAA Tournament.
Wearing the brown and gold did not materialize for Wicks after Steve McClain took over as head coach and won a couple conference titles and made an NCAA Tournament run with Cheyenne’s Marcus Bailey helping Josh Davis lead the way.
“The path is the path,” Wicks continued.
After a stellar playing career at Northern State, Wicks became the youngest assistant in the Big 12 at Colorado (2006-07) before following Ricardo Patton to Northern Illinois (2007-11).
Wicks took a “basketball sabbatical” when the Huskies staff was fired. He even lived out of his car while starting a training academy in Arizona before getting back into coaching again on the same staff as his brother, Luke, at San Francisco (2015-16).
When Rex Walters and his assistants with the Dons received pink slips, Wicks returned to Northern State as the associate head coach from 2016-18.
“That’s where I met my wife, Courteney, and I think she’s the secret sauce here,” Wicks said. “Things started going really well when I met Courteney, probably because you’ve got to find someone who’s a lot better in life than you are. She helps me out in a lot of ways.”
Wicks took his first head coaching job at Missouri Western (2018-20) and was on Jeff Linder’s staff at UW (2020-23) before leaving for the challenge of rebulding Green Bay from the rubble.
The remarkable one-year turnaround – the Phoenix improved from three to 18 wins – made Wicks the easy choice to become the 23rd head coach in UW’s storied history when Linder decided to leave to be the lead assistant at Texas Tech.
This time Wicks was in a Home Depot collecting boxes for the move back from Green Bay to Laramie when Shyatt called his cellphone.
“I went on my journey and 25 years later that dream became a reality,” Wicks said. “He called and he said, ‘How freaking cool is this? … This is such a cool, poetic story for you to be able to go back and have this moment.’
“It was kind of a full circle for me to get that call from Larry Shyatt 25 years ago and to get that call from Larry Shyatt 25 years later. So, here we are, honoring the brown and gold like we never left.”
A lot has changed since Wicks left. There isn’t a single player left on the roster from UW’s 2022 NCAA Tournament team or even the 2023 team Wicks coached at the Mountain West Tournament before his departure for Green Bay.
Wicks squeezed his informal introductory press conference in nine days after getting hired by athletics director Tom Burman. He has been a little busy putting the Pokes back together and a recruit even called during his Zoom with the media.
Two assistants, Nic Reynolds and Pat Monaghan, have followed Wicks from Green Bay. He retained Nick Whitmore, Shaun Vandiver and Tim O’Flannigan from UW’s 2023-24 staff.
Together Wicks and Co. have re-recruited the key returning players and are in the process of filling out the team with prospects making late visits.
“The one thing that we will do better than anybody else in this country, and I can put my stamp on that, is we will care, we will connect, and we will compete at a high freaking level,” Wicks said. “That you can put a freaking Wyoming damn stamp on. That’s what we’ll sell our guys.
“If you are going to come here you better care about your teammates, you better connect at a high level to this community and this campus and you better be damn sure you’re competitive because the Wyoming way is competitive, man.”
Wicks is planning to travel around the state this summer to engage the fan base. He will also recruit the next generation of “Cowboy crazies” from the student body in the fall to make sure the Dome of Doom gives his team the same home-court advantage Mountain West contenders enjoy.
“They’re rough and rowdy out there at football, I know that,” Wicks said of the student section at War Memorial Stadium, where the Cowboys went 7-0 as the program set a new single-season attendance record in 2023. “We’re just going to have to create that same brand inside the Double-A and bring the Boom back to the Doom.”
If you are interested in learning more about NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) or would like to support our student-athletes, please visit 1wyo.org. 1WYO was created out of Wyoming’s culture of neighbor helping neighbor. The mission is to promote and strengthen local charitable organizations and develop Wyoming student athletes.
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
