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The University of Wyoming football team hosted the Arizona Wildcats in the first game of the 1969 season. It was college football’s centennial year, and 20,000 fans packed Memorial Stadium in Laramie on Sept. 20 of that year. In the second quarter, split end Ron Hill, a transfer from Northeast Junior College in Sterling, Colo., caught a pass from quarterback Ed Synakowski for the Cowboys’ first score of the season.

Less than a month later, Hill and the other 13 Black varsity players were purged from the team when they came to Coach Lloyd Eaton’s office on the Friday morning before the Brigham Young University game. The Mormon Church, which owns BY

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