LARAMIE – Robert S. "Bob" Hammond's heroes were always Cowboys.
 
The longtime leader of the Laramie Boomerang sports department and a Wyoming Athletics Hall of Fame inductee credited Larry Birleffi, the iconic "Voice of the Cowboys," with instilling that brown-and-gold passion during his youth.
 
In 2008, Hammond opened the obituary penned for Birleffi this way:
 
The University of Wyoming Athletics Department lost one of its best friends and biggest supporters this past weekend when longtime broadcaster and journalist Larry Birleffi died in Cheyenne.
 
This past December, UW lost another dear friend and homegrown journalism legend when Hammond died. He was 80.
 
Hammond was born on March 14, 1945, and spent parts of six decades at the Boomerang, building a half-century career as an award-winning columnist, reporter and sports editor.
 
The Laramie native starred in football under John Deti Sr. and was also a basketball standout for the Plainsmen before starting his career at the Boomerang in 1964 while working his way to a UW degree in 1974.
 
Birleffi and Kevin McKinney, UW's venerable former director of sports information and senior associate athletics director, might be the only two people to witness more Cowboy football and basketball games over the decades than Hammond.
 
"When I first met Bob, he was a Linotype operator in the back room, the back shop at the Boomerang," McKinney said. "He was just the kindest soul. He didn't have a mean bone in his body. He would write columns galore and they were never negative. He was just a gentle giant."
 
At the time of his induction into the UW Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006, Hammond had been named the Wyoming Sportswriter of the Year 14 times and won 31 individual Pacemaker Awards from the Wyoming Press Association for column writing, feature sports writing and news sports writing.
 
Richard Anderson, a sportswriter and assistant sports editor at the Boomerang during two stints from 1986-1999 and 2001-2007, said he has recurring dreams about working for Hammond and alongside David Watson, a former Boomerang sportswriter who is currently the newspaper's managing editor.
 
"They are always positive," Anderson said. "I also think about what Bob meant to the University of Wyoming, Laramie and the state of Wyoming. He won so many writing awards and state sportswriter of the year awards, no one else will ever catch him in the latter category. It's no wonder he was an easy choice for the University of Wyoming Sports Hall of Fame and the Wyoming State Sports Hall of Fame."
 
When Anderson was the sports editor at the Northern Wyoming Daily News in Worland, he helped Hammond get box scores of the 1986 State American Legion baseball tournament won by the Laramie Rangers.
 
"When the tournament was over Bob told me there was an opening as a sportswriter at the Boomerang and (asked) if I was interested in the job. I basically just told him, 'I'll be there in two weeks.' And I was," said Anderson, who went on to mentor reporters as the sports editor of the Rapid City Journal and retired in 2021 after nearly 40 years in journalism. "As much as I liked my job in Worland, working at a bigger paper and getting the chance to cover some college Division I sports was a no-brainer.
 
"Bob was the perfect boss for me to grow as a young sportswriter."
 
Steve Luhm, another notable branch on Hammond's journalism tree, got his start as a sportswriter at the Boomerang in 1976 before a decorated four-decade career at the Salt Lake Tribune.
 
"He taught me by the way he approached his job, that you didn't have to be a jerk to do it," Luhm said. "You didn't have to be confrontational if you treated people well, and you wrote fair and factual stories. That's what you were there for, not to confront people, although I'm sure he did over the years when he needed to."
 
Hammond was an old-school newspaperman. He took as much pride in making sure every box score from the high school state tournaments made the Boomerang print edition as a front-page column on a high-profile Cowboy football game.
 
"Bob was a pro's pro," said Robert Gagliardi, the former Wyoming Eagle-Tribune sports editor who had a friendly competition with Hammond for years on the UW beat. "But he also cared deeply about his community, and not just the UW community, but the Laramie High community and Laramie in general. He just loved everything about Wyoming and about Laramie and his community, and that showed. .Another thing I noticed, he didn't mind doing the grunt work, the agate, the box scores. Obviously, he liked to write his columns or write game (stories), and he could write. Word count didn't mean a whole lot to Bob. ...

"I think he had a true sense of pride after every game, whether it was a good game, bad game, he just had a sense of pride of getting the job done."
 
As an impressionable kid in the 1950s, Hammond was a huge fan of the Cowboys – especially flamboyant quarterback/placekicker Joe Mastrogiovanni and wiry guard Joe Capua. His parents allowed Bob and his brother, Dave, to stay up listening to Birleffi's radio play-by-play calls bring "Joe the Toe" and "Jumping Joe" to life.

In adulthood the Hammond boys often completed the football "trifecta" of attending a Laramie High School game under the Friday night lights, a UW game on Saturday at War Memorial Stadium and a Denver Broncos game on Sunday. 
 
"There are very few people who loved the Cowboys and Cowgirls more than Bob Hammond did," Anderson said.
 
Hammond may have bled brown and gold, but the Boomerang covered the Pokes while adhering to journalism's core standards of accuracy, fairness, independence and truth.
 
"Bob truly stuck to the sports writing rule of not cheering on press row before, during and after games," Anderson said. "But that didn't mean he wasn't really into the games. On more than one occasion during a game, he would either tap me on the arm or shoulder or even hit his hand on the counter on press row, almost demanding an answer from me on 'what were they doing or what were they thinking?' when things went awry for the Cowboys.

"I kind of feel like Bob took losses harder as a Cowboys fan and sportswriter than he enjoyed the wins, which I suspect had a lot to do with his days as an athlete."
 
Over his years on the UW beat, Hammond covered 13 football coaches, 11 men's basketball coaches and seven athletics directors.
 
"He was always fair in his writing," said Diane Dodson, who recently retired after spending nearly 40 years working for UW athletics in various roles, including media relations. "If UW did something wrong, he called them out about it. He was very fair about his journalism, even though he loved UW so much.
 
"It killed him when we lost, but he was always fair in his reporting. It was always a very fair account of whatever had happened in the games, and that's just what I remember the most about Bob is how much he cared."
 
Luhm joined the Boomerang as an intern under Hammond, who would leave Laramie for the next four years in the late 1970s to work at the Tucson (Ariz.) Citizen before returning to his hometown for the rest of his career.
 
"He didn't look over your shoulder, he didn't take it upon himself to teach you everything there is to know, he just let me go," Luhm said. "He'd say, cover the Wyoming wrestling match, and I would do that. Or cover the women's volleyball, and I would do that. Or come with me to the Wyoming basketball game, and do a sidebar, or go cover Laramie High wrestling.
 
"I can't imagine a better internship because of his personality. He trusted me, and it was hands-off. He gave me a little advice here and there along the way, but he basically let me do it, and I learned more in those three and a half months under Bob, probably than I did in four years of journalism school, to be honest with you."
 
Hammond was a member of the original UW Athletics Hall of Fame selection committee, which also included Birleffi, McKinney and sports information pioneers Wiles Hallock and Bill Young.
 
"We had some real heavy hitters on that first committee," said Dodson, the Hall of Fame's executive administrative assistant since its inception in 1993. "The history was really strong on that committee, and Bob did tell the media viewpoint. He had seen so many people come and go through Wyoming athletics, and he always had an interesting perspective of what it looked like from the outside, from the media perspective. It was really interesting to have him on that committee, and he did a great job."
 
McKinney and Hammond were close friends and bonded over the thrill of UW victories and the agony of defeats.
 
"Bob was in my wedding. When he got really upset, he spoke in this high-pitched voice and right before the ceremony he said, 'Kevin, come in here,' in the high-pitched voice," McKinney recalled with a laugh. "We were getting dressed for the wedding and his shirt was like a medium and did not come close to fitting. We split it in the back and pinned it for the wedding.
 
"Best guy I've ever known."

Hammond is survived by his son, Keith, and two daughters, Heather and CeCe. 
 
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.
 
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