THE 1960’S…A DECADE OF BIG CHANGES…PART 3 (A BIG CHANGE IN THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL LANDSCAPE)

This blog deals with the Catholic schools, for the most part, in the Milwaukee Archdiocese…schools in the Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan, Washington, Dodge, Ozaukee, Walworth, Waukesha and Fond du Lac counties. There are several charts to view to hopefully illustrate my research.

My story starts in the 1950’s by keying in on the Milwaukee Archdiocese. In 1957 the Milwaukee Archdiocese had 24 high schools, four colleges and 198 grade schools as they served over 100,000 students. Across America, about 85% of grade school and high school students in private schools attended Catholic schools. In Wisconsin the percentage was about 87% and in Milwaukee it was around 91%. Many of those Catholic schools would close or merge in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

If you look back on my blog about the 1949 Racine St. Catherine’s football team, you can count among their eight opponents seven schools in the Milwaukee Catholic

St. Catherine’s (Of course)

St. John’s Cathedral

Milwaukee Marquette

Milwaukee Messmer

Milwaukee Pius XI

Milwaukee Don Bosco

Milwaukee Notre Dame

Today, only St. Catherine’s, Marquette, Messmer and Pius still exist. Don Bosco merged with Pio Nono and became Thomas More (Now Saint Thomas More). St. John’s and Notre Dame closed.

As I’ve mentioned, beside the above Milwaukee Catholic Conference schools there were also:

Burlington St. Mary’s (Now Catholic Central.

St. John in Rubicon

Milwaukee St. Benedict Moor

Milwaukee Divine Savior

Milwaukee Holy Angles (Now merged with Divine Savior)

Milwaukee Divine Savior Convent

Milwaukee St. Joan Antida

Waukesha Memorial

Whitefish Bay Dominican

Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs

Fond du Lac St. Agnes

Milwaukee St. Joseph

Milwaukee Mercy Academy

Sorrowful Mother Convent

Kenosha St. Joseph

Sturtevant St. Bonaventure

In the 1950's and 1960’s Whitefish Bay Dominican, Kenosha St. Joseph and Waukesha Memorial would play football and join the Catholic Conference. St. Francis Pio Nono, a school that first played football in 1922 and then closed in 1941 reopened in 1965 and played Catholic Conference football until it merged with Milwaukee Don Bosco. Burlington St. Mary’s and Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs also had teams with Springs part of the then Fox River Valley Catholic Conference that included De Pere Pennings, Appleton Xavier, Green Bay Premontre, Menasha St. Mary, Oshkosh Lourdes, Little Chute St. John and Marinette Catholic. Burlington St. Mary’s played in the Southeastern Badger Conference, one that included Kettle Moraine, Waterford, Pewaukee, Salem Central and Arrowhead.

This is not meant to be a religious discussion, but a little Catholic history is needed to understand the changes. A feeling that Catholics needed to send their children had prevailed since the 1884 Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, a meeting between American Bishops. That meeting began the movement to open many Catholic schools to meet the needs of the families that attended the local church. In 1890 only about 69% of children that were school age attended classes, averaging only about 86 days per year in attendance but only about 3.5% graduated. Not every child in America were like the kids in TV series "Little House on the Prairie who seemed to always be attending school on a regular basis. Did you ever see an old Western movie where someone was asked to “make their mark” on a legal paper (Usually just an X). Or have you viewed the Tom Hanks movie “News of the World” in which Hanks travels around the southwest reading the latest newspaper stories to those who can’t read? Life was like that in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Catholic church saw a need to educate the population and they set about helping to do so. And they did it well.

Fast forward and in 1959 Pope St. John XXIII called for a gathering to modernize, to update the church. There were many changes that came out of Vatican II (1962-65), some the members liked and some that they did not. One of those changes was the direction of Catholic education. Questions were raised in and out of the church at this time as to the need for Catholic schools to compete with the public school system. With the reduction of men and women entering the Catholic religious life there was less and less support for maintaining the schools. There were also economic problems as well as populations moving out of the city of Milwaukee to the suburbs. Sustaining the schools became very difficult as well without new or updated facilities.

Check out below, Chart #1 of Milwaukee Area Catholic football playing schools and their enrollment:

The chart only includes schools that played football, but you can see the sharp decrease over the years in attendance. Francis Jordan closed in 1969, Don Bosco merged with Pio Nono in 1972 and became Thomas More (Now St. Thomas More) and St. John’s Cathedral closed in 1975. All three, Don Bosco, Cathedral and Francis Jordan needed new facilities. Pio Nono, having the space so Don Bosco, with a larger attendance, moved to the St. Francis school building. Notre Dame and Don Bosco were only a few blocks from each other and when Bosco moved four miles to the south Notre Dame gained a few students who didn’t want to travel that far. But, as mentioned previously, the finances were too much for that high school to continue.

Chart #2…Catholic Conference 1966 standings...

NOTE: The 1966 season for St. John’s Cathedral (7-0-1 overall) was their best since 1937 (4-1-1).

Many of the Catholic high schools at this time were boys or girls only and while some merged with other similar schools, many also closed. These were mainly neighborhood schools and as church attendance waned, so did sending students to the Catholic schools. This paralleled a growth of public schools as I mentioned in other blogs about Milwaukee high schools. Milwaukee public schools had a large growth spurt in the 1960’s and 1970’s to accommodate new students.

By 1970 the conference had changed with Francis Jordan and Notre Dame dropping football as they tried to cut costs or closed. Cathedral had a poor record of winning only eight games in the eight years between 1967-74. After the 1970 season they attempted to withdraw from the Catholic Conference to play an independent schedule but that was disallowed by the conference. In 1928 the state Catholic schools formed the WCIAA, the Wisconsin Catholic Interscholastic Athletic Association, to control school sports like the WIAA for the public schools. The WCIAA was re-formatted in 1968 into the WISAA, the Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association to include all parochial, non-Catholic schools like Milwaukee Lutheran, Wisconsin Lutheran. Milwaukee University School, Wayland Academy, Brookfield Academy, Winnebago Lutheran, Fox Valley Lutheran, Racine Lutheran, Watertown Prep and Delafield St. John’s Military Academy, to name a few.

If you look below at the next chart, #3 (1970 Catholic Conference final standings), and compare the list of schools to chart #1 you will see that Francis Jordan closed in 1968. For some reason the Archdiocese did not post any student numbers for St. John’s Cathedral in the 1974 attendance reporting.

Chart #4, 1974 conference standings, has three items of note: First, notice the conference name change from the Catholic to the Metro. 1973 was the final year of the Catholic Conference. Second, this was Cathedral’s final season and finally, as the conference name changed there was an addition of a non-Catholic school to the group…that being Milwaukee Lutheran.

While I have concentrated on Milwaukee area Catholic schools, take a look at a chart that I updated from a year 2000 story by Cliff Christl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with current WIAA information. Cliff’s story concerned the shutting down of the WISAA and those schools joining the public schools to grow a larger WIAA.

Chart #5, from the Cliff Christl story covered not only Milwaukee area schools but statewide as you can see.

Note the collapse of some of the outer-Milwaukee area schools in attendance. Because of these numbers some schools have had to co-op or revert to 8-player football.

But numbers don’t always mean success. Take Pius XI for example. The school had a huge student population for many years and a few good teams. In the 44-years of the Catholic football conference the Popes only won the conference title six times. They were seldom in the mix for the conference title. In the end, since the private schools joining the WIAA. Except for 2006, 2013 and the 2020 season that had no championships due to the COVID pandemic there has been at least one private school and often three or four schools in the state finals each year. While many championships have been in the lower divisions, larger schools like Milwaukee Marquette, Fox Valley Lutheran, Green Bay Notre Dame and Wisconsin Lutheran have come out on top. In the middle to lower divisions Catholic Memorial has been a regular to the finals and of course Burlington Central Catholic, Eau Claire Regis and the perennial performer, Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs have proven that having huge numbers in the school doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful.

Now sometimes having the right number of players is needed to compete to cover for injuries but as mentioned in a previous blog, a school like Wausau Newman can fair very well in 8-player football.

It can't be denied that while private school's lost attendance they lost talented athletes. So, in the end, where did all the students go as schools shut down and consolidated? They of course moved out of the area and some small high schools like Hartland Arrowhead, Muskego and Kettle Moraine ballooned in attendance over the years. Like schools in the Milwaukee Public system the suburbs had to exp and their facilities to handle the growth. But as school populations dropped drastically in some Milwaukee Public Schools (Like Washington, a school that once had 2,400 students but now has only about 600 attending) the schools have had to contend with a lack of interest in the sport, competition with soccer and the challenges of students/players to meet academic standards. Also, some families left for alternative Christian churches and their schools or burgeoning private charters. Uniquely, with the popularity of School Choice in Wisconsin, Catholic schools may have been shielded from further loss in numbers as many non-Catholic families have opted for a private education for their children, regardless of the religious nature of the school.

Soon I will cover Milwaukee Don Bosco’s rise in the 1960’s with a bit more about their coach Jim Haluska.

THE 1960’S…A DECADE OF BIG CHANGES…PART 2

THE TOP GAME:

So many games to choose from for the top game of the 1960’s. My first choice after going over a list of several great match ups including the season ending game between 1968 Madison East and Madison LaFollette and the 1966 Elmwood vs. St. Croix Central event that I mentioned in my book. That game started in September, but the end was replayed in November. Two good choices but as I said in Part 1 of this blog, the 1965 season ending battle between Oshkosh and Green Bay East is the one.

Both Oshkosh and East were undefeated, 8-0-0. Oshkosh was ranked #1 in both polls and East was #3 in the UPI and #5 in the AP. The pressure was on Oshkosh to maintain their top spot. East had nothing to lose, so to speak. East’s coach, Al Mancheski, thought that they had an advantage. The Oshkosh Indians, under coach Hal Schumerth, had a pretty easy time in their eight wins setting a conference record for the most points scored in a season. This season the Fox Valley River Conference expanded to 10-teams son they didn’t play any outside competitors. Their last close game was in 1964 when they fell behind 6-0 against Madison East but the Indians were able to come back and win 21-12.

In 1965 the Red Devils of Green Bay East had some tighter games. Oshkosh was scoring at a 33.0 points per game rate and their defense was very tight, only giving up 4.1 per per game. East was a much lower scoring team averaging 22.5 points each game but allowed only 5.5 points per contest. Going into the game Oshkosh had a 19-game winning streak plus they were the 1964 state champion, so they were heavily favored.

The game opened with a few unfortunate incidents. Just moments into the first quarter halfback Jim Schroeder fumbled and this led to East scoring first. East could only gain three yards in three plays but then their punter, Jim Wright, was roughed and his team regained the ball on the Indians 28-yard line Schroeder, the 221-pounder, was called for the infraction. On second and eight from the 26, Red Devil quarterback Larry Ebert tossed the ball to halfback Karl Kolodzik who carried it to the one. From there Ebert crossed over on the two plays later for the score which was followed by a John Barnhart extra point kick. East led 7-0 and for the first time in 18-games Oshkosh trailed.

Seemingly unshaken Oshkosh took the following kickoff and drove for a score of their own. Schroeder, shaking off two would be tacklers ran 26 yards to their own on- yard line. He crossed over for the score on the next play and quarterback Bruce Erickson kicked the extra point and the game score was now even, 7-7. During one of the early series, standout East defender Keith De Keyser was kicked in the head and suffered a concussion, and he left the field for a nearby hospital.

On the first series of the second period George Dahl of Oshkosh picked off an Ebert pass and returned it 54-yards to East’s 36-yard line but offsetting penalties negated the play. Whenever the Indians tried to drive the Red Devils were able to hold and so the half ended still tied.

Two third quarter drives ended for Oshkosh on Easts six and 10-yard lines. Since Easts offense was stymied, they utilized the quick kick both times on third down and this pushed Oshkosh back. The first kick went 40 yards and the next went 54. The 6,000+ game attendees at Green Bay’s City Stadium were very conscience that the game could go either way.

A fourth quarter drive by the Red Devils took up so much time that when the ball changed hands the Indians only had three minutes and five seconds to push the ball over the goal line. The Indians started a drive but was held back and was forced to punt with forty-two seconds and George Dahls kick ended on Easts 16-yard line. East wasn’t done yet. With 37 seconds left Indian linebacker Vern Ratchman dumped Ebert for a five-yard loss and almost wrestled the ball away from Easts quarterback. On the final play, as time ran out, Ebert tried one more pass, but Bruce Erickson batted it down. The game was over. A 7-7 tie despite Oshkosh out gaining East 247 yards, all on the ground, to Easts 176 yards. Officially, the visitors were penalized four times for 40 yards and lost two fumbles. East played an errorless game with no fumbles or penalties. While East lost Keith De Keyser early and had three other players have to leave because of injuries, those three were able to return. The game was a true battle of undefeated teams. Oshkosh would stay #1 in the polls, barely beating out Milwaukee Boy’s Tec-0-0h in the AP. Green Bay East would be voted to the #3 spot in the AP poll. Two days later the UPI final poll was issued, and Oshkosh was still #1, followed by East in a close second spot and Tech was third.

Following the game, the secondary story in the Green Bay Press Gazette read: “East Beat Us: Schumerth; Tie as Good as A Win: Al” (Referring to coach Al Mancheski). This is the battle of the decade.

THE TOP COACH

This was another tough choice…I guess they all are when trying to pick The Best.” Many all-time greats a terrific decade of success. In the end it boiled down to two men. First, the one and only Win Brockmeyer of Wausau who was the top choice for the 1940’s and in competition for #1 in the 1950’s. Here he is again, the last decade that he coached (He retired in 1970). The Lumberjacks only earned one top spot in the press polls during the 1960’s and that was when they went undefeated (9-0-0) in 1963. Overall, Brockmeyer and his Wausau teams went 70-14-2. They won at least six games each season, never lost more than two games any year and won or shared a number of Big Rivers Conference titles. They seemed to always be in the top 10 of the polls. Yet, he only won one title.

Harold “Hal” Schumerth…1968

Just as the 1940’s were Wausau’s biggest decade, the 1950’s were Kenosha’s from the beginning to the end, the 1960’s belonged to Oshkosh and coach Harold J. “Hal” Schumerth. While Wausau often played a 9-game schedule, the main tradition in the 1960’s was to play eight, so Schumerth’s record was 62-15-3 during the decade. But you have to look at the overall record as his Indians won three state titles (1964, 1966 and 1968) and five conference titles. He did this while placing second twice and regrouping from losing four times in 1966 and then losing five in 1967.

Hal came to Oshkosh in 1943, after coaching at Algoma from 1939-1942, and he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, his teams prior to the 1960’s were 57-67-11 and usually finished in the middle of the Fox River Valley Conference. Schumerth was a coach who believed in the ball-control, power run game and his teams reflected that as they seldom threw more than 40 times a season unlike his opponents who utilized the pass more often.

If there is an additional honorable mention to the Coach of the Decade besides Brockmeyer, it would be Milwaukee Boy’s Tech leader, Jim Richardson who directed the teams to six city championships, one AP state press poll title and one second place standing.

THE TOP PLAYERS

In some cases, as has happened in the past editions of the great decades, it has been hard to pick only a few players for each position. Such was the case for the quarterback spot. Jerry Tagge (1969) of Green Bay West was voted to the second team of the 1993 Milwaukee Journal All-Time Team. He was a high school All-American just as were Dick Hanson (1960) of Eau Claire Memorial and Greg Bolig (1965) also of EC Memorial. And then there was the do-it-all Auburndale star, Mickey Vandehey who was an honorable mention All-American. So, I put all three on the list. It was also hard to nail down only three spots for the running back position as all four players named are some of the all-time bests in Wisconsin high school football for the 1960’s. And so, it went on. Decisions, decisions. Like Bob Seeger in his song “Against the Wind”, it was “What to leave in and what to leave out” or where to put a two-way star.

Hindsight is almost always 20-20. Rhinelander’s Mile Webster (1969) only made second-team All-State as a defensive lineman despite being a four-year All-Conference center on offense and on defense as a lineman. He would earn the NFL Hall of Fame for his play with the Pittsburgh Steelers as one of the all-time great centers. Webster made my defensive first team as a lineman and honorable mention as an offensive lineman. Dave Casper (1969) only played one season for Chilton after moving there from Illinois. Known as a very good blocker and receiver on a team that didn’t often pass, Casper was a defensive star at the linebacker position and was a VERY good punter. Like Webster he earned honors on the AP second team All-State squad at the linebacker spot. He would star for Notre Dame and the Oakland Raiders of the NFL as a tight end. Casper is on my Honorable Mention list. But I picked players for what they did in high school. Another great was Bob Olson who earned All-State as a running back and as a linebacker. He is on my defensive team at linebacker and honorable mention as a running back.

A special mention goes to Honorable Mention player John Francis “Packy” Paquette of Superior Central who was a top player on both the 1965 and 1966 teams. Paquette mad the honorable mention listings in the All-State postings for 1965 and In 1966 he was named as the fourth running back on the UPI All-State team. This was unprecedented and the only time a fourth running back (After the addition of the quarterback spot on the teams) has been named to the first team or any other All-State team that I am aware of. “Packy” was the top running back in the state until a mid-season broken ankle left him on the sidelines. A multi-sport star who so impressed the voters that they named him to their team as a member of the first team. Paquette stared in basketball, baseball and especially track. His tragic death in a car crash on a November weekend in 1968 ruined what appeared to be a fine college career at the University of Minnesota. An award to the “Most Outstanding Male Athlete” at Superior High School is given annually. Even 52-years after his death a yearly special track meet called the “Packy Paquette Invite” is held at the University of Wisconsin-Superior track complex in his honor.

The 1960’s brought a lot of changes to the game. One other change that I found out after the post in PART 1 was in 1961 the WIAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSA) mandated that all football players wear mouth guards.

There would be more as the next decade unfolded.

A 32-YEAR DROUGHT FINALLY ENDS…AND A BIT MORE HISTORY

It was on a cold Thursday afternoon and there was some snow on the ground from the night before when the temperature dipped to 11-degrees. There were big fluffy clouds in the sky over Carson Park in Eau Claire on that Armistice Day, November 11, 1943. This was the day of the annual rivalry game between Eau Claire Memorial and Chippewa Falls. This was “THE GAME” for the area. How big did the yearly game mean to the two communities? As an example, a few years earlier, to honor the October 1846 meeting between the Sioux and the Chippewa Indians when they met at the present-day city of Eau Claire, this athletic event was also a meeting of importance. Those Indian tribes that gathered was a meeting of two great nations to grant peace between the two tribes. The meeting allow agreement for shared hunting rights in the area that had been granted by the U.S. government for the selling of their land east of the Mississippi River to the United States. The new land that the natives were given is now Minnesota. But the Indians found that hunting in Wisconsin was better, and the Sioux wanted some help in being allowed to gather food here. And so, peace was accorded between the two tribes.

To ensure “peace” between the two Wisconsin communities of Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls the local Kiwanis Clubs from each city, in 1941, decided to meet and like the native Americans in 1846, smoke a “peace pipe” in a sign of mutual respect for each other’s teams. The football battles between the two cities public high schools was often a heated affair. The Kiwanis members even dressed with Indian type feathered head dresses when they met. When they first met jointly in 1941 to smoke the peace pipe the two groups also created a bronze plaque with the date and scores of the games and it would be awarded each tear to the winning team.

Going into the 1943 game the Cardinals had a 3-3 record while Memorial had a 4-3 posting thus far. According to the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram newspaper the series between the two started in 1900. Well, that’s a stretch…a big one. Both schools started playing football about the 1900 season but never played each other until 1905, a surprise 0-0 tie. Why a surprise? Well, Eau Claire had started the decade as a powerhouse, right out of the gate, going 5-1-0 and earning the mythical state title in 1901 followed by 7-2-2 in 1902, an 8-0-0 year in 1903 and another state title. Next was a third title in 1904, going 6-0-0. 1905 started great for Eau Claire with a 63-0 win over Mondovi but then the season fell apart due to injuries and ended 1-1-2 including the tie to Chippewa Falls.

Chippewa Falls started a bit slower but they were soon building a powerhouse of their own. 1906 saw Chippewa Falls forfeit to Eau Claire and in 1907 Eau Claire shutout Falls 11-0 and then the two didn’t play again the next three years. Chippewa Falls tried all three seasons to get games with Memorial but the Old Abe’s didn’t want to have any part of the now mighty Cardinals. Falls had also become a known statewide power, as Eau Claire had been the years before, as they won the 1909 mythical state title with a 6-0-1 record. After going 8-0-0 in 1908 they were not only undefeated and untied but also unscored upon. The shutouts continued in 1909 with the first five consecutive shutout wins before they allowed five points in game six against an Alumni team. They shut out Marinette the next week to end with a two-season record of 14-0-1, 13 consecutive shutouts and a total of 14 blanking’s of their opponents in 15 games.

Between 1911 and 1918 the two played six times with Chippewa Falls winning five of the games. Over the years covering 1905-1943 Eau Claire had a 18-13-4 advantage as they played annually from 1919-1943. The Old Abes had win streaks of five and six games against the Cardinals.

When the two played in that November 11, 1943, game it was a battle before over 3,000 fans on a cold day as the temperature never rose above 31 but that was late in the day. All the previous games between 1919-1943 had been played on Armistice Day and this game would sadly be the last time they played that late in the season. The Old Abes won the first down and yardage battles but after scoring a touchdown and the extra point in the first quarter the Cardinals shut out Eau Claire the rest of the way while they pushed across two scores of their own and ended up winning 12-7.

Chippewa Falls Hearld-Telegram...Nov. 12, 1943

That win by Falls was their last against Eau Claire for 32 years.

Eau Claire was one of the dominant teams in the Northwest during the 1960’s, winning a mythical state title in 1961 (As mentioned in the last blog on the 1960’s) and usually placing in the top 10 of the polls in other seasons. In 1962 Eau Claire North opened and the students were split between the two schools, but it seems, according to team records, that Memorial had the better overall football talent for the decade. While their days of domination in the Big Rivers, along with Wausau, seemed to diminish they beat Chippewa Falls usually quite handily. Chippewa Falls had some good teams after 1943 but couldn’t match the records of Eau Claire.

1974 was an interesting year for the two schools. Memorial and Chippewa Falls actually played twice during the season as the Big Rivers Conference scheduled them that way. On October 11 Eau Claire won 36-6 and later, on October 25 they won again, 25-6 to end their year. Eau Claire had now won 32 times in 31-years. This was the worst season in 25-years for Memorial as they ended with a 2-7 record with their only two wins on the year being over Falls. The October 25 game pushed Chippewa Falls down to a 1-7 overall record on the year with a 0-5 record in the Big Rivers Conference, but their season wasn’t over. For the first time in history, they were going to play Chippewa Falls McDonell, the local Catholic school in the season finale. While the Cardinals were the conference doormat of the Big Rivers, McDonell had problems of their own coming into the matchup. The Macks had a six-game losing streak while being shutout three consecutive games at the end of their conference season as they ended at the bottom of the CWCC standings. McDonell had a bit of incentive in the matchup with their public-school opponent. A special award for the game called the Joe Scheidler Memorial Trophy was created by his father, Clifford. Joe had graduated in 1972 after being a very good all-around athlete as he played football, basketball, tennis and baseball. Joe had helped many of the current players as he spent time as an unpaid coach while he attended college. He became ill in 1973 and passed away. Now his former school had incentive, playing to win in Joe’s memory, and they were ready for the Cardinals. McDonell topped Falls 24-8 as the Macks dominated the entire game. The Cardinals would end with a 1-8 record and McDonell would finish with a 2-7 season. Falls only win that season and that was against Eau Claire Regis, a 28-8 win that ended the Cardinals 20-game regular season losing streak. Now, I digress a bit.

The Chippewa Falls losing streak went back to 1971 when they beat Wausau East in the next to last game of that year. By the way, that win was the first win ever for the Cardinals in a game played in Wausau and only the second time they ever beat the Lumberjacks. That lone occurrence was in 1965 when the Cardinals beat Wausau 19-7 (Before the school split into two and became East and West in 1971. East kept the old nickname “Lumberjacks”). While Eau Claire had been one of the top teams in the Big Rivers, often Chippewa Falls was in contention for the title but never the conference champion. When Wausau was defeated early 1965, Falls was ranked #9 in the rankings and Wausau was #5. Eau Claire would beat Chippewa Falls several weeks later and end up tied with Wausau for the BRC title with 5-2 conference records and Chippewa would drop to third place, tied with Menomonie, with a 4-2 conference record. That season Chippewa won three straight games on the road in the conference, a first for them. After that they never, going into 1971, won more than two road conference games.

The 1975 season rolled around and the Old Abes and the Cardinals faced each other on October 10. The final score may only have been a 7-0 with Chippewa Falls winning but it really wasn’t that close as Eau Claire was outgained by a wide margin. The 32-year drought was over. Not only had Chippewa Falls lost 32-consecutive times but this was their first Big Rivers Conference win since 1971 (23 straight conference losses). It gave them a 2-5 conference record and dropped Eau Claire to 3-4. The event was also Homecoming for the Cardinals who were playing at the Fairgrounds as many remaining members of the 1943 team were in attendance. Quarterback Kim Koepl scored the lone touchdown on a one yard run with 5:23 left in the third quarter. Clay Vajgrt had made a 28-yard field goal in the first quarter but that was nullified due to a penalty. He kicked the extra point after Koepl’s run to push the score to 7-0 and that’s how it would end.

Kim Koepl cuts to avoid Memorial tackler Jim Bergh (44) .... courtesy of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram

To some, it was a surprise to see Koepl starting as he sat for most of the season with a head injury. Kim showed no signs of the head trauma that had bothered him most of the year. Wearing a special helmet, he was given the ok by a specialist to play. Koepl rushed for 48-yards and the lone touchdown, hit two of three passes for 32 yards more, recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass. He helped inspire his teammates to win the game fair and square and it was a deserving victory. Cardinals Coach Bill Sivertsen was also very responsible for the win. The season certainly hadn’t been going as he hoped but Silvertsen motivated his troops, and they played as he said, “any team can beat any other”. He didn’t believe in the jinx. He felt that his team could beat any other on any given night if they pulled together. That night the Cards overcame the psychological problem of facing a long dominate foe/rival and his team believed.

I would love to say that the season, as late as it was, turned around for Chippewa Falls but they lost the next weekend to Menomonie 16-9 to end their conference season. The next week they played a non-conference game against Rosemont (MN) and won 7-6. Six days later they had their second matchup with crosstown McDonell and won, in overtime, 6-0 to end with a 4-6 overall record. Koepl jad been hurt again against Menomonie and played little the final two games. EC Memorial also fell in the next week, October 18, to Superior by a score of 16-14, but came back for the finale the next Friday to beat EC North, 14-0. But the game on October 11 broke the streak and that was something Chippewa Falls players, coaches and fans could be proud of.