The joys of winter did not include my aching back as a I shoveled the last of the 98 inches (or was it 980 inches?) the other weekend. Serves me right for crabbing in previous winters about how ugly things were with no snow and only dormant trees and dead grass to look at.
But it did include winners of all stripes and definitions, who transcended the snow and the cold, and who graced the too-long season with their warmth and light.
Winners writ large
Germantown boys basketball and its co-op hockey team
The former, behind hard-charging coach Steve Showalter and a devil-may-care "press and run" attack, built on last season's North Shore Conference championship with another league title and a first-ever WIAA State Tournament berth. More importantly, it brought the program onto an equal footing in terms of fan interest and excitement with the successful football program, whose Hall of Fame Coach Phil Datka is one of the biggest fans of what the hoops team is doing. And as a final touch, junior center Ben Averkamp earned Community Newspapers "Player of the Year" honors. A first for a Warhawk athlete in any sport.
The hockey team, which takes into its ranks players from six schools (including Menomonee Falls) also had a program-best season, upsetting top-sectional seed Hartland Arrowhead in the WIAA sectional semifinals before falling to state power University School in the finals. Kids dressed up in "Turnabout Dance" finery came to the sectional final dressed to the nines to cheer on the Al Haga-coached Ice Bears, which received little respect in state polls or power rankings but which won hearts and minds even though their home games were played in West Bend.
Winners in a broader sense
There was hardly any better basketball played than what was done in the "not-for-the-faint-of-heart" Woodland Conference North boys race in February. Pewaukee, New Berlin Eisenhower and West and Brown Deer all fought hammer and tongs for league supremecy and by the time the dust had settled after a wild final week, they all wound up sharing the title. Grace notes on this achievement included Brown Deer coach Mike Novak waiting for a TV interview moments after his team beat New Berlin West on the last night of the regular season to create the four-way tie only to have his Mom call to congratulate him on his cell phone. She had been watching the game on cable access from her home in the Green Bay area.
Further enhancing the league's credentials was the breathtaking WIAA Division 2 sectional final at the Al McGuire Center on March 1, when Eisenhower's Jim Root hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to defeat a hard-charging Brown Deer squad and take a major step towards their first-ever WIAA state championship. That was just the second of three astounding sectional final games at "The Al" over the course of the day as earlier Tosa East edged Milwaukee King and later Germantown would advance by outlasting Milwaukee Vincent.
All three games were decided on the very last play with coaches and kids either jumping for joy or clasping their heads in dismay. No doubt, wherever his particular version of heaven happens to be, a broadly grinning McGuire bellied up to the bar and bought the house a round in celebration of such a marvelous display of excellence and effort.
A winner period
Germantown state champion wrestler Jesse Thielke and his family. Thielke was widely known in wrestling circles as the owner of many national titles and almost unbeatable technique and ability when he arrived at the Warhawks' door as a freshmen this winter. Such was his reputation that in his interview for the job some months earlier, first-year Germantown headman Chris Weiss was asked how he would deal with a team that included someone of potential Olympic-caliber on one end and then everyone else on the other.
The answer and the results no doubt validated the hiring.
What made Thielke a real winner, however, was not the relatively easy way in which he cruised to 46 straight wins and the 112-pound state championship, but how genuinely grateful he was for all the sacrifices his family made to get him there. He was home-schooled for a year after eighth grade a time in which he and his family traveled the countryside refining his technique in several major national tournaments.
His father Jeff said at the time: "His dreams are his dreams, not ours. We've just given him the props."
It'll be interesting to see how he uses those props to refine and augment those dreams in the future.
Winners in terms of spirit and effort
Menomonee Falls girls basketball coach Craig Amundson and his entire team
Their dreams of a Greater Metro Conference title and a potential state tournament berth went to ash when two-time All-Suburban selection Janelle Gabrielsen finally had to give in to a chronically painful ankle condition and have season-ending surgery a third of the way through the winter. Gabrielsen, an all-state girls volleyball player who led the Indians to the state tournament in the fall, has a Division I scholarship in the sport to Wisconsin and had the surgery in part so she could be ready for the Badgers' pre-season summer workouts.
Did Amundson should any resentment or regret over his star's decision? No. He understood that Gabrielsen had given much to the basketball team over the course of the last three seasons, and knew that volleyball was going to be her future bread and butter. As a result, the hoops season didn't turn out well in terms of wins and losses after her leave-taking, but there were gains on both ends as Gabrielsen stayed with the team the rest of the winter, working out with them and cheering them on from the bench. The latest word is that her rehab is going well and on schedule.
Nicolet wrestler DeAndre Wilson
A Seventh-Day Adventist in his beliefs, Wilson observes a strict sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night Sabbath. It effectively wiped out any tournament competition for the senior and limited him to just a handful of dual meets, but he too showed no resentment, taking part enthusuastically in the often grueling workouts just like everyone else. It was a carryover from what he had done in the football season, in which he was able to participate in only two games as a result of his religion. His coaches are in awe of how much effort he puts in for such little reward and for what a good example he sets. He is now out for track.
"He upheld the commitment even though he wasn't able to take part in the fun portion of it," Knight football coach Rob Rinka said.
Nicolet swimmer Steve Cebertowicz
The swift sprinter could have been upset and frustrated at the WIAA State Meet, losing out on titles in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyles by the smallest of margins to Lake Geneva Badger's Wes Lagerhausen. But he buried his resentment by recognizing the fact that Lagerhausen is the state's best overall swimmer and that the times he himself recorded earned All-American honors and will enhance his chances of a good Division I collegiate scholarship.
"I was just glad to make him (Laugerhausen) work for his state titles," Cebertowicz said.
Menomonee Falls gymnast Savannah Haririe and Homestead gymnastics coach Tamara Odenthal
Haririe, a four-year letterwinner for the Indians, had suffered a debilitating knee injury just weeks before the state-qualifying WIAA sectional meet and was not 100 percent when she competed in that event. But she willed herself to state berths in three events and impressed the heck out of the veteran coach Odenthal.
"I mean she should have a full-page article written on her," Odenthal said. "She could barely run down on the vault, but because she's so darn strong she still completed that Suke (a complicated maneuver). That's how badly she wanted it."
First-year Whitefish Bay girls basketball coaches Greg Capper and Dave Markson
The final record of 7-15 may not look like much on the surface but compared to the discouraging 1-20 mark of the previous season it was light-years ahead in terms of competitiveness and spirit-raising. They used the philosophy of their old coach, the late Jack Nagel, who led the Bay girls to the WIAA state finals in 1986, to inspire the youthful team.
"We were so proud from day one," Capper said. "..We'll hope to take another step forward next season."
Brookfield Central girls basketball coach Dan Wandrey
Though I have not covered Wandrey in a few years, I could only smile broadly as Wandrey's Lancers won their second Greater Metro Conference title in four years and moreover claimed the first Central state tournament berth in his 10-year tenure. He's rightfully earning all kinds of slaps on the back and hearty howls of congratulation but I was no more pleased for this fierce competitor whose well-fought battles with archrival East are the stuff of legend than when I saw the picture of him in the Journal-Sentinel the day following his team's state quarterfinal win over Marshfield.
He's kicking his leg up and punching his fist in the air over a pivotal three-point shot one of his players hit. His look of fierce joy and utter release was remarkable for how it reflected the satisfactions that high school sports can often bring as well as their duality. His Lancers didn't go on to win the state title (they lost in the semifinal round to Oshkosh West) but I can see Wandrey looking at that photo many years from now, recalling the drills that went into making that play a success and what it eventually led to.
A victory both literal (a made shot and a game triumph) and figurative (a lesson learned and then applied well).
In short, a winner.
