Chadron State College Athletics

The boot-tough Wickard was one of the mainstays of Chadron State’s undefeated football team of 1958, starring on both offense and defense and also doing the punting if that became necessary.
Wickard is a native of Minatare, where the football teams he played on lost just three games his final three years of high school.  He initially enrolled at Scottsbluff Junior College. Soon afterwards, he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, but spent most of his two-year hitch in Alaska. After his discharge, he returned to the junior college and was an all-conference end on the football team in 1956, his second year there.
In 1958 when Wickard was a senior, Coach Bill Baker switched the Eagles to the single-wing. Wickard was the quarterback, but had a different assignment than today’s quarterbacks. He called the signals, but did more blocking than ballhandling or passing. The snap from center usually went to the tailback, who often followed the quarterback and guards through the hole.
At the end of the 8-0 season, Wickard was first-team all-conference at linebacker and second-team quarterback (Tom Osborne of Hastings College was first-team). Wickard completed 25 of 42 passes for 575 yards. He also averaged 42.8 yards a punt and still shares the school record for longest punt, 80 yards. His 93-yard jaunt with an interception is the second longest in CSC history.
Wickard spent most of his career as an educator at Bayard. He was the superintendent for 11 years and the elementary principal for 16 years before retiring in 1990. He was inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame in 2000 along with Bayard native LaVerne McKelvey, a CSC great in the 1920s.
Perhaps Wickard’s greatest tribute came from the late Tom Blundell, an All-American end on the 1958 CSC team and a career officer in the Navy. He said:
“Lonny was absolutely the best leader and toughest guy I ever met. I saw a lot of great leaders from seamen to admirals while I was in the Navy. But I never met one as good as Lonny.”
All four of Lonny and Dee’s children attended CSC. Their daughter, Laurie, was the Eagles’ first female All-American and also is in Hall of Fame.