The Rebound Part 2: After a historic losing streak, a new coach finally gets her shot By Brady Oltmans, as published by Casper Star - Tribune , March 26 , 20 18 The Green River boys basketball team gathered inside their school on a bitterly cold day in January 2016. They had planned to travel across the state for a game in Cheyenne. But after more than two hours of waiting, the players hadn’t even boarded the bus. Hopes for playing their scheduled game persisted until noon, when athletic director Anthony Beardsley informed Coach Laurie Ivie they couldn’t go. A Green River bus carrying the speech team broke down due to the weather over South Pass in Fremont County. Additional travel w as off the table. Ivie was clearly frustrated. For the second time in a month the team couldn’t compete in a basketball tournament due to the weather. But Ivie did not sit still. She called alumni in town on winter break and asked: Would they come scrimm age her team? If Green River couldn’t travel for games, Ivie would make the games travel to Green River. Ivie knew practices against grown men instead of their peers would improve her team. It was only her second season as the Wolves’ head coach. She chos e to take on the team’s historic losing streak, which had endured over parts of three seasons. She vowed to make a change. And she wasn’t ready to capitulate to Wyoming’s winter. “It was really hard on Laurie because she wanted to let those kids play so b ad,” Beardsley said. “And it was hard for me because I had to kind of slow her down a little bit. How many athletic directors have to slow down their coaches because they have such a desire to play?” A leap of faith Every summer, Ernie Dunn drove his daug hter and her teammates across the state to play in tournaments and camps. Ivie was the starting point guard on the Rock Springs team when it won the state championship in 1992. Ivie played with intensity during her high - school career and, having been rais ed by a coach, learned discipline during adolescence. The dream of following in her father’s footsteps occurred to her at 13 years old and never wavered. “She wasn’t built like a basketball player should be,” Dunn remembered. “She wasn’t 6 - 1 or 6 - 2, long and athletic, but she got the job done. She hit the outside shot, she was a very good passer and a very good teammate.” After graduating from the University of Wyoming, Ivie returned to Rock Springs and took a role as an assistant coach with hopes of runn ing a program of her own. But through five coaching changes in 16 years, she never got the opportunity. In 2015, however, rival Green River had an opening. But with the job would come the burden of the record losing streak. She applied anyways. In a matter of days, departing Green River athletic director Tom Wilson offered her the job. “Laurie was a great fit,” Wilson said. “She came from Rock Springs so we were able to watch her for a long time because we compete against Rock Springs. She coached at the sub - varsity level. She knows the game, she’s an incredible competitor.” She didn’t know if leading a team with a 57 - game losing streak and without much community support would be a good place to start her career as the head coach of a basketball prog ram. She asked her father for advice. “Do you really want to put yourself in this position?” he asked her. “Yeah, Dad, I think I do,” she responded. “I want to build something and make something good happen down there.” And with that, Ivie became the n ew Green River boys basketball coach — the only female head coach of a boys basketball team in Wyoming. With lofty goals, she jumped in to take over a program of her own. “You’re hiring a woman into a program that struggled,” Wilson said. “It was sort of a leap of faith, but not especially because we were very confident she would get the job done.” Clean slate In May 2015, a few days after being hired, Ivie convened a meeting with her first team. She told them about summer expectations: weight - lifting, ca mps, shootarounds and regular conditioning. She emphasized that commitment and work ethic had to begin that very moment. “We want to be the team that people hate to play,” Ivie said. “We’re scrappy, we’re go - getters, we want to have heavy defensive pressu re where teams have to work for every inch they get on the court.” Then, in a room of players uncertain of their new leader, Ivie delivered the more difficult news: She wanted to focus on the younger players of the team. Her long - term plan to build a succ essful team meant showcasing young players and benching seniors. The program couldn’t sink much lower. So Ivie wiped the slate clean. “We started fresh,” she said. “We had to scrape everything away and see who we were.” The younger players, like Devin L ove and Chance Hofer, were excited. Many had played together since fifth grade. “That helped a lot and helped us grow together and learn how each other plays together and develop together to get that winning attitude,” Hofer said. But the older players and some members of the community were less than thrilled. All but one senior left the team. Members of the community complained about the changes to Beardsley, who had just been introduced as Green River’s new athletic director. As poor as the st andards for basketball had been, the players were used to them and most weren’t ready for that drastic of a change. “They were used to what was going on with the program when Laurie came in,” Beardsley said. “So when she came in and wanted to change the c ulture of the program and set high standards and create a culture of success, with her energy level and desire to achieve, that was hard on the kids, community, people and parents involved at the time.” KUGR radio broadcaster and former Sweetwater County School Board member Steve Core heard the vocal minority of Green River speak out. There were some who questioned her tactics. Core even remembered those accusing her of favoritism by steering her attention away from upperclassmen. “At one point she starte d four sophomores and a freshman and none of them had varsity experience at all,” Dunn said. The results also didn’t immediately change. Green River lost Ivie’s debut game as head coach. Talk of the current losing streak, which had just reached 58 games, bombarded the young team. Ivie was frustrated by the negativity, but undeterred. That streak started before she or any of her players were members of the team. “Half the kids weren’t even in high school when that streak had started and it was something t hat completely hovered over us,” Ivie said. “It’s all anybody wanted to talk about.” That talk abruptly ended two weeks later. No more excuses As Steve Core unpacked his equipment and plugged in his microphone, he knew that Dec. 17, 2015, might be the ni ght. Green River opened the Flaming Gorge Classic against Grace, Idaho. The game began tight before Green River took the advantage. When the final horn sounded, the Wolves stampeded over the entangled ‘GR’ decal at center court that had seen so many loss es before. The scoreboard read 50 - 45. “I haven’t said this in two - and - a - half years,” Core told the KUGR listeners, “But the Wolves have won a basketball game.” Outsiders only saw the program for the streak. Ivie saw the potential every day in every practice. It was her job to show that potential to her young team of mostly freshmen and sophomores. “We’re not worried about convincing anyone else,” Ivie said. “We just need to convince our kids that we are as good as they know themselves to be. We just have to believe in ourselves.” The Wolves lost the next day. But the crowds at basketball games began to grow. “Even though they hadn’t won a game in a couple of years,” Dunn said. “After the first game or two I think the people saw and appreciated how hard the kids played and kept coming back.” Ivie’s first season ended and Green River finished 3 - 19, the best record since 2013. Along with experience, what the Wolves needed most was practice. So Ivie made it happen. The team played 45 games over the su mmer and spent even more hours in the weight room. “It took a few games to get used to the pace and physicality because I was just a sophomore and I think that was the way most of our team felt,” Hofer said. “We had no experience coming in and I think, as time went on, everyone grew together.” The players and Ivie entered the 2015 season as strangers to each other. They began the second year together as a team. “We know what to expect from each other,” Ivie said. “We want to be the team that people hate to play.” The practice immediately paid off. The Wolves started the 2016 - 17 year with three straight wins in one weekend — more than they had won in the previous three years. Then came the travel issues that plagued two months of their season. It slowed the youths’ progress at the worst possible time, right before the conference season and a meeting with rival Rock Springs, who crushed Green River earlier in the season. Ivie meticulously studied hours of film to even the field against the much larger, mo re experienced rival. Green River came within four points with a minute left before Rock Springs held onto the win. Despite the loss, Ivie couldn’t help but be encouraged by the Wolves’ fortitude. That effort carried over to a win against Natrona County f or the first time since 2009. “That is the team I know that are you are,” Ivie told her players afterwards. “No more excuses.” Green River finished the 2016 - 2017 season 8 - 13. Ivie’s scrappy team was improving. They were learning to play together, to not back down. But more importantly, she taught them that they could win. “There were points in the last year where you lose game after game and the kids think that’s just the way it is,” Ivie said. “So the fact that they think ‘We should hav e won that game’ now is right.” But there was more work to do. Next season, Green River wanted to go to the state championship tournament.