Wyoming, Rings and... Bieber?

Will C. Holden

"I'll buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring."

When those lyrics escape the mouth of Justin Bieber, followed shortly thereafter by, "baby, baby, baby," adolescent girls test the durability of their vocal cords. Their parents attempt to refrain from heaving up their lunches.

That kind of ring rhetoric seems a tad inappropriate when it comes before the hard work, dedication and patience - not to mention some sort of irrefutable proof - that the person using it has gone through puberty.

In other words, a ring isn't something you go out and get.

It's something you earn.

Maybe that explains the reaction many had when they heard that Wyoming men's basketball head coach, Larry Shyatt, fit his Cowboys basketball team for Mountain West title rings after going 14-2 over the course of a non-conference schedule that ranked 333 out of 345 in Division I in terms of difficulty.
 
Charles Barkley has been in the locker room at Augusta National. Does that mean he should get fitted for a green jacket?

Go ahead and lay it on him. Shyatt heard all the reasons his ring gesture was a mistake along with all the reasons his team’s sparkling record didn't mean anything. That's exactly why he started scanning Google for jewelers and asked his team, "How many of you have championship rings?"

"There's so much poison out there," Shyatt said. "I don't like when people give our team a message that isn't ours. Our story is 16 chapters long right now. The Conference schedule isn't a new season. It's the same season. Play 12 more games, win and we get rings.

"I just wanted us to stay on task. That was the message. It wasn't Knute Rockne."

He may have lost a good chunk of the young, hip demographic with the Rockne reference, but that's Shyatt. At 60 years old, he's not going to apologize – not for his history of gimmicks and certainly not for his sense of humor.

During his last head coaching stop at Clemson, he agreed to let fans throw pies at his face before a baseball game for charity. That was before the start of his first season.  By the end of his fifth and final season, "They were begging to throw pies in my face,” notes Shyatt. "No one had to ask."

Eight years, an assistant coaching gig at Florida and two National Championship rings later, Shyatt is once again the man asking the questions. So back to the one at hand: Just how many hands with ring finger tan lines rose when Shyatt asked his loaded question?

Two.

One belonged to Wyoming's current leading scorer, a hardened veteran of two championship teams who fought through a gruesome elbow injury that almost ended his career.

And he just so happens to look like Justin Bieber.

Okay, so maybe Luke Martinez isn't the spitting image of The Biebs. He's taller (Martinez: 6-foot-4, Bieber: 5-foot-5), darker (Martinez is Native American) and, well, Laramie coeds and half the sixth grade population at nearby Beitel Elementary could probably stage a heated debate as to whose hair flip stops more hearts.

For the record, Martinez was rocking the Bieber-cut as early as 2007, about a year before Bieber became a YouTube sensation.

"That hair was part of my swagger back then and it's my swag now," Martinez said. "But I'm living in the Bieber era, so I guess if I keep the hair I'll have to live with the consequences."

No similar explanation is needed for Martinez’s hardware. At Bismarck High School, he won a North Dakota State Championship. At Williston State Junior College, he was part of just the third group in the region's history to go 17-0 in conference play.

So what was on his mind when he was getting sized up for a reward his team hadn't yet earned?

"It got me thinking about my own rings," Martinez said. "I can’t really explain the feeling of winning one. I guess I'd say experiencing everything it takes to get a ring is a whole lot better than talking about the ring."

Cue the swoons from the Baby Boomer section. Count Shyatt among them.

"Luke gets it, and I think the rest of our guys do too," Shyatt said. "I've got my rings at home and I could throw them away for all I care. It's about what you did to get one. It takes winning a bunch of games, but it's about so much more than that. Our guys are mature enough to understand that."
Writer Will C. Holden brings you some of the unique storylines from across the Mountain West.