A statue commemorating University of Wyoming Cowboys Basketball legend Kenny Sailors was unveiled in Washington Park on Friday, following four years of a contentious dispute between the artist and some at the university.
A large crowd turned out to honor both Sailors’ memory and the artist behind the statue, Rudy Gunter of Green River.
“(Gunter) and I, over the past five years or so, have become friends,” said Bruce Pivic, the donor who funded the statue. “And his … love for his family, for Wyoming, Kenny and the Cowboys go deep. I admire him for that. And as a graduate of the University of Wyoming, I know his blood, too, runs brown and gold.”
Sailors led the Cowboys to the 1943 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship and was the only player in UW history to be selected as an All-American three times. But he is best known for pioneering the jumpshot, which he famously invented to beat his significantly taller brother when the two would practice near his family’s farm in Hillsdale.
UW launched a $30 million renovation of the Arena-Auditorium in January 2014. That month, the Athletics Department announced Gunter would be sculpting a statue of Kenny Sailors that would dominate the entryway of the revamped indoor arena.
But a campus public art committee must approve all projects across campus and had not yet selected an artist. When they eventually did, they chose Jay Warren, a sculptor from Rogue River, Oregon.
The Gunter family expressed frustration at the lack of communication about the process. In the end, two Sailors statues were made, but only one would be housed in the Arena-Auditorium.
Pivic, a member of the Cowboy Joe Club donor organization who originally presented the idea for a Sailors statue to Athletics Director Tom Burman, stepped in to pay Gunter for the effort and materials that went into his statue.
For a while, Gunter’s statue sat in storage in Green River, with no clear future.
It received a home in Laramie’s Washington Park this week, where it now looks over the basketball court.
He said many people who never knew about Sailors could now learn about the Wyoming-native who changed the sport of basketball.
“It’s really in a perfect place,” Pivic said.
In attendance at the dedication were Gunter and his family, who helped pull the veil off the statue.
Mayor Andi Summerville agreed the location could not be better.
“This is a true community effort and what we’re doing here today is helping to pass on the legacy and the legends that are part of this community and, frankly, part of this state,” she said.
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