High school football is springing ahead
Area teams hit practice fields for alternate season
Monday marked the first day of spring football in Wisconsin. Maybe Mother Nature liked the idea.
At a time of year that can still be pretty cold, Milwaukee had a high of 59 degrees, 19 higher than normal. unseasonable warmth caused some prep football players and coaches to take the field in shorts and T-shirts, signs of spring juxtaposed with piles of snow that still lined the edges of some fields.
While spring football is part of the regular prep sports calendar in some states, it is a one-shot deal in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association made the accommodation for football, as well as all other fall sports, for schools that may not have been ready to compete at the regular time due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The alternate season lasts seven weeks, beginning March 24 and ending May 8. Unlike the fall, which had a two-game playoff, there will be no culminating event for football. The WIAA didn’t want to extend the alterThe
nate season any longer given the first practice of the regular high school football season is Aug. 3.
So with all those formalities out of the way, here is a look at Day 1.
Fresh start for West Allis
Optimism goes with the territory when you're a new coach, but West Allis Central's Steve Suhm and West Allis Hale's Scott Flood both had reason to be encouraged in their first of practices as head coach.
Central welcomed a freshman class of 20-plus players; Hale had so many players sign up that the 89 helmets it had in stock weren't enough.
Central went winless in 2019 and Hale was 1-8 and finished eighth in the Greater Metro. For the alternate spring season Hale will play in the Woodland Grey Division with Cudahy, Greendale, Greenfield, South Milwaukee and Whitnall. Central will play in the Woodland Red with Brown Deer, Milwaukee Lutheran, Pius XI, Racine Case, Racine Horlick, Racine Park and Shorewood/ Messmer.
And no, they're not scheduled to play unless they get matched up in a crossover game during the final two weeks of the season.
Flood, a 2000 Hale graduate, spent the past two seasons at Wisconsin Dells. Before that he spent two years as the head coach at Milwaukee Bradley Tech. Like Hale, both positions were rebuilding jobs
“I tell the kids every day we're a leadership development course that happens to play football," Flood said. "That's our focus, building on the mental skills of the game and focusing on mental and physical toughness."
Suhm launched the Junior Bulldogs program four years ago and sees the benefits in the size of Central's freshman and sophomore classes. Those are the largest classes on the team.
“One of the biggest things for the high school program has been that Junior Bulldog program because four years ago there was no youth football program,” Suhm said. “The freshmen we did have this year, the 20-some tally, just about all of them but three had played at least one season in the Junior Bulldog program. That's a big difference in having 10-15 freshmen and none of them ever strapped on a helmet before or maybe they have but haven't played for the Bulldogs.”
Back together at Messwood
The start of the season for Shorewood/Messmer didn't just mark the players' return to the field, it was their return to each other.
As the only co-op in the area, the Greyhounds had that added dynamic to the first day of practice.
When you also consider Messmer hasn't had in-person learning this year and that Shorewood has it on a limited scale, the practice/equipment handout was like a reunion.
Thirty-seven players were on hand with at least another 20 registered.
“I'm glad both schools found a way to make this happen for the kids,” Greyhounds coach Tony Davis said. “That's my biggest thing. They found a way to get it going for the kids. It's just awesome to see the boys together.”
As was the case at some schools, the first day for Shorewood/Messmer didn't involve football but rather the handing out of equipment, testing in the 40-yard dash and conditioning.
Unable to gather in the traditional sense, the Greyhounds coaches spent their 15 contact days going more indepth on the Xs and Os of the game, some of the ins and outs of breaking down film.
“We discussed more football because we had the time./ … That's a positive right there,” Davis said.
No numbers problem at Greendale
Having to wait seven months after the usual start of the season and the lack of any playoff games didn't have a negative effect on the turnout at Greendale. Head coach Rob Stoltz said that, outside of a few underclassmen who wanted to focus on getting a head start in their recruitment for their standard spring sports, there wasn't any drop-off in the number of athletes that came out for the first day of practice.
"We're about in the low-80s," Stoltz said. "They've been really antsy. We have a very strong contingent of people who have just been living the life of Greendale Panther football for an extended period of time."
If last fall had been normal, Greendale would have had high aspirations of making a deep run in the postseason thanks to a talented senior class. Now those goals won't be realized.
"I feel bad for our seniors because we have a very talented and very hardworking class," Stoltz said. "I think this was going to be a very special year on the state level. This had all the makings of one of our very special years."
Instead, the Panthers were out on the turf on Day 1 focusing on the positives of finally having a season.
"It really doesn't matter what the outcome is at the end," Stoltz said. "It's not like if at the end of the year, if we don't win state then it's a disappointment. It's still about the experience and the camaraderie and the idea that you're working for something bigger than yourselves."
MPS remains on hold
Milwaukee Public Schools athletics remain postponed indefinitely. That shouldn't come as a surprise considering the district's high school students have not returned to class. The Milwaukee Health Department also has not given the go-ahead for games to be played inside city limits.
Without MPS' 14 teams, southeast Wisconsin has 14 teams playing this spring, the 13 in the Woodland Red and Grey and East Troy (Rock Valley).