LARAMIE – A generation before Caitlin Clark helped get the national spotlight shining on women's basketball, Joe Legerski's Cowgirls captured the attention of the Equality State.
 
On March 31, 2007, a crowd of 15,462 crammed into the Arena-Auditorium to watch Wyoming dismantle Wisconsin in the WNIT championship game.
 
When Legerski, a member of the 2024 Wyoming Intercollegiate Hall of Fame class, began building the program there were usually more than 15,000 empty seats for home games.
 
"When we first started literally there were maybe 100, 150 fans that would come to the game," Legerski said during his appearance on the One Wyoming Podcast. "As we move forward to the WNIT run, that's when I really look at women's basketball at Wyoming and the fan base really starting to see us."
 
UW's wild 89-79 triple-overtime victory over Kansas State in the semifinal round of the title run is one of the most memorable games, men's or women's, ever played in the Dome of Doom.
 
Hanna Zavecz and Jodi Bolerjack, two of the key building blocks Legerski recruited early in his tenure, led the Cowgirls to six wins in the WNIT and a 27-9 finish to the breakthrough season.
 
"One of the things I do remember about that (Kansas State) game is we had one of the Wyoming spring snowstorms hit," Legerski recalled. "I'm going to the game from my home and all of a sudden, I see a car parked that has ice just caked to the side of it and I see County 2 plates. I looked at the person that stopped and said, 'I thought the road was closed from Cheyenne to Laramie?' And he goes, 'It is, but not for Wyoming fans.'
 
"That said so much to me, and we had over 12,000 in the building that night."
 
The Cowgirls momentum from the WNIT continued with an 18-1 start to the 2007-08 season. UW was ranked as high as No. 15 in the Associated Press poll and made the program's first appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
 
Zavecz finished her career with 1,746 points, which ranks fourth on UW's all-time scoring list. Justyna Podziemska, Aubrey Vandiver, Jodi Bolerjack, Dominque Sisk and Rebecca Vanderjagt were other key members of the rotation.
 
"Those two years really put a stamp on Cowgirl basketball," Legerski said. "That's the group that got it all started and 16 years later we're going into the hall of fame because of them."
 
Legerski, a Rock Springs native, attended UW during the 1970s when Margi McDonald was constructing the fledgling program from the ground up in the years after Title IX became law.
 
"Margi was in charge of putting the program together and she talked about trying to get uniforms and you're going on a road trip and traveling in station wagons. Now they charter flights," Legerski said. "When you look back at it and think about how far we've come as a sport it's truly amazing what happened over the last 50 years.
 
"It's something I'm proud to be a part of. I never planned it that way, I thought I'd be a high school teacher and a high school coach."
 
After coaching at Rock Springs High School and one season as the Western Wyoming Community College head coach, he joined Chad Lavin's staff from 1987-91. The Cowgirls finished 24-8 and won the 1990 High Country Athletic Conference championship.
 
Legerski worked in the UW business office in the mornings, coached basketball in the afternoons and helped recruit at night. He also learned the motion offense, which led to an opportunity to be the top assistant at Utah under Elaine Elliott, who led the Utes to 15 conference championships and 15 NCAA Tournament appearances.
 
"Coach Lavin introduced me to the motion offense, and Elaine Elliott wanted to go to a motion-based system," said Legerski, who spent 12 seasons at Utah. "I ended up picking up how hard both coaches worked at scouting, at recruiting, at developing players to make things work."
 
On May 1, 2003, Legerski was hired as UW's head coach. During his 16 seasons the Cowgirls made nine postseason appearances and had 10 seasons with at least 20 wins.
 
When Legerski retired with 314 wins, UW Athletics Director Tom Burman replaced the three-time Mountain West coach of the year with his top assistant, Gerald Mattinson, who led the Cowgirls to a conference tournament championship, an NCAA Tournament and two WNIT appearances in his three seasons.
 
Mattison was replaced by another Legerski assistant, Heather Ezell, after retiring. Program staples Tomi Olson and Quinn Weidemann played for all three head coaches during the smooth transitions.
 
Ezell has 41 wins and two WNIT appearances entering her third season as head coach. Assistants Fallon Lewis and Natalie Baker played for Legerski.
 
"I smile, there's no doubt, when I watch the Cowgirls play now and there's a flare screen and somebody hits a 3," Legerski said of UW still running a version of the motion offense he learned from Lavin and mastered during his time on the bench.
 
Allyson Fertig was originally recruited by Legerski when she was a phenom at Douglas High School. He retired before the all-Mountain West center stepped on campus after winning 25 games in his final season.
 
Legerski's legacy lives on as the talented 2024-25 Cowgirls try to cut down their own nets.
 
"Players like Allyson Fertig, boy, they don't come around very often and when they do it's pretty special. Specifically, she is from Wyoming, so people relate to that and maybe walk with a little more pride about what they're able to accomplish," said Legerski, who established a strong tradition of signing the state's top high school players and developing them into stars. "When you look back at it you had players that were very talented and that's where it all starts. I never lost sight of the fact that you need talented players around you. I was able to do that with my coaches, we were able to put talented players on the floor and the Wyoming fan base showed up. I could see them doing that again."
 
(Editor's note: This is the fifth in a seven-part series profiling the 2024 UW Intercollegiate Hall of Fame class. Tickets to the induction banquet, which begins at 6 p.m. on Sept. 6 in the Gateway Center, are now on sale and can be purchased here: https://one.bidpal.net/wyohalloffame2024/welcome)
 
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.