The Riverton Wolverines recently announced the hiring of Troy Anderson for their head football coaching position.

Anderson is in a unique position having served on staff under previous head coach Patrick Patterson, but he is presently serving overseas in Afghanistan with the Wyoming National Guard. Anderson is scheduled to return in June.

WyoPreps reached out to Coach Anderson shortly after Riverton made its announcement. He graciously responded from overseas.

We asked what prompted his interest in this position. Coach Anderson admitted he’s had a deep interest in coaching.

“That combined with my belief that there are few jobs as fulfilling, as to lead young men through shared experiences toward a common goal. This belief extends beyond football and to a large degree is the reason that I am in my current locale. In the nearly 5 years back in Fremont County, I have observed numerous instances of just how much support there is in this community. Also, I'm old enough to remember the 'glory days' of Riverton football and pride that football success can bring to such a deserving community. While I never anticipated the availability of this role, I do believe that when a desirable challenge is placed in front of you, you should step up and go for it. Now the goal is to do work, using football as the conduit to give back. In short, my interest in the job derives from a desire to be a more considerable positive contributor to our community.”

Thanks to his experience as an assistant with the Wolverines and two years coaching at the seventh-grade level, Anderson’s had an opportunity to coach players at each level but their incoming freshmen class.

“This is a significant asset coming into the role of head coach as it will greatly benefit and expedite my ability to reinforce and strengthen relationships with all of the players. The majority of players know me, know what am like, and on some level know my expectations. Hopefully, this will minimize that "feeling out period," where there are so many unknown factors in building trusting and understanding relationships. I suspect that this will be especially important this fall when taking into account all the uncertainties that are currently at play in our country. From a personnel evaluation standpoint, I also feel like my previous experience has given me a good idea of each players’ strengths, personalities, and how they might best fit into our various systems. Again hopefully this will mitigate any potential miscues from a player positioning outlook.”

The Wolverines went 4-6 and qualified for the Class 3A playoffs in 2019 but lost in the first round to Jackson.

WyoPreps asked Coach Anderson how he views the current state of Riverton’s program.

Anderson said, “Riverton has a solid legacy of success, however as I'm sure you are aware, sustained success has been challenging to achieve during the last couple of decades. In 2019, our coaches along with our group of seniors really accepted the challenge to improve, I think the record shows that was achieved. We have a group of incoming juniors and seniors that will be coming into their 2nd and 3rd years respectively of varsity game time, and there's no substitute for experience. So, I am upbeat about our prospects of projecting the improvement of 2019, into the 2020 season. Our approach will be to take care of our own backyard first. Additionally, I don't think that there's any question that in recent years the standard-bearers of the class have been the teams in the 3A West (Conference).”

To back up Coach Anderson’s point, the last nine Class 3A state champions have come out of the 3A West Conference. Riverton hasn’t appeared in a 3A title game since winning it all in 1999. Anderson will be looking to change that.

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