MESSMER AND SHOREWOOD…THE LONG ROAD TO “MESSWOOD”…PART 3

Things had gone downhill for both Messmer and Shorewood in the 1970’s and 80’s and it carried forward. Messmer was a fixture on the Milwaukee northside as the city was seeing many changes. White flight to the suburbs was going on, the African American population was moving into the area to replace those who left. The strong German, Polish and Italian Catholic base was moving out. The first African Americans admitted to Messmer were in the early 1950’s and they were generally also Catholic. But as time went on that changed and after 1984 most students at the school were not Catholic. Those who attended from then on were from families who saw the value of an education that had better structure and discipline than the public schools in the area could provide. That didn’t necessarily connotate to bringing in great athletes to the school. Messmer produced some very good teams in sports other than football, but it was rough going. The school had as many as 1,150+ students in the 1950’s and the attendance continued into the 1960’s. But for most years there were 100-150 more females than males. The best record for the school’s football team after 1947 was 1963 when they posted an 8-2-0 record and finished in third place in the conference. A significant loss was the death of coach Michael Barrington who died in an auto accident in 1984.

Basketball and track became the major sports for the Bishops. In 1982 the basketball team went 25-4 and in 1987 they actually won a WISSA title. However, school attendance was declining in the Catholic schools and at Messmer in particular and the archdiocese decided to close the school along with several others in 1984. There were 974 students at Messmer in 1970 but by 1980 there were 650 and by 1983 there were 311 when the decision to close came along. A “Save Messmer Committee” was created, and the school was sold to Messmer High School, Inc. which ran the school after buying the building and contents for $375,000. When the school reopened in the fall of 1984 there were only 135 students and 14 teachers. Between 1984 and 1999 the school was not affiliated with the archdiocese but maintained its Catholic teachings as a private, independent Catholic school. The new focus for this new Catholic school wasn’t necessarily mainly religious as it had been in the past, although scripture was still part of the school courses.

The school had more of a community focus to help those in need, to serve their current attendee’s needs and as a result the school got stronger with an increase in attendance. The focus of what the school was attempting to do, inside the school and outside through outreach programs, was on social justice Yes, parents now had to pay more than in the past when it was affiliated with the archdiocese but the school still offered most of the same curriculum that it had when they had 1,000 students by keying in on more individual student needs and providing strong classes in science, math, and the humanities. Because of its standing in the community, when school choice arrived to help pay for private education, many parents jumped at the chance to have their child in a good, solid private school. In 1999 the school achieved renewed archdiocese accreditation and the football program that had been cancelled in 1984 was revived in 2001.

Meanwhile, less than two miles away, Sherwood football was having its own problems. After 1988, when the school posted a 3-6 record, the school had a miserable posting of 4-104. YES, four wins between 1989 and 1999, including the 63-game losing streak that was mentioned in PART II of this series. They also had a 32-game losing streak as well among the 104 losses in that timeframe. To say that the football program was on a downward spiral is to put it mildly. THEN, the private schools were admitted into the WIAA after the WISSA dissolved in the 1999-2000 school year. Both schools were at a crossroads. Shorewood had 750 students of which 75% were white. Messmer had 525 students of which 80% were from minority backgrounds.

Shorewood had a football stadium with an active, al be it, very struggling football program. Messmer had no team and few of the males at the school had played much more than pick0up games. To those people in Shorewood, Messmer was “that” school by the expressway (I-43). To the students at Messmer, Shorewood was “that” school across the river (The Milwaukee River). To many they were a million miles apart, not two.

Now, I’ve not done a lot of digging into Catholic schools that co-opted with other Catholic schools. I’m sure, as Francis Jordan, Notre Dame, Pio Nono, and a few other Milwaukee Catholic area schools were beginning to close there may have been something like this happening. And while it wasn’t super common for public schools to co-opt id did happen…Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau (GET), Cambria-Friesland and Wittenberg-Birnamwood…to name a few. It has become more common among the schools that have 8-player football. But the merging of Shorewood and Messmer to play football was the first for having a private school and a public school join together.

2001 the team known as Shorewood/Messmer, with over 1,200 students, posted a lackluster 0-9 record, scoring few points while giving up many. Their first coach was Jim Trost who stayed for the one season before moving on to be the head coach at Horicon/Hustisford where he had some good success. It was in this timeframe where fans would cheer “GO Shorewood” or “Go Messmer” that someone chanted “Go Messwood” and the chant was born. To get a good feel for that first season together, read Greg J. Borkowski’s story from the November 25, 2001 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel posted by the Marquette University Education Department… First and Long: Shorewood-Messmer endures rough inaugural season - Children in Urban America (marquette.edu)

The next season brought a former coach out of retirement to teak the reigns. That new coach was Hall of Fame Coach Ron Davies who had directed Kenosha Tremper to two consecutive WIAA state titles in 1979 and 1980. He had a strong resume for success. Davies had retired in 1993 after 18-seasons at Tremper. He would coach Messwood from 2002-08. Things started off slow, going 2-7 in 2002 and 0-9 in 2003 but the first signs of a revival came in 2004 when the team went 5-4. In the first six seasons under Davies the schools played in the Woodland West Conference division. In his final season the team would go 6-3 playing an independent schedule, they played four Milwaukee City Conference schools and five others from around the eastern part of the state, from Kenosha St. Joseph to Sevastopol. Only one of their three losses was a blowout otherwise they might have gone 8-1. The next two seasons were disasters, 0-9 in 2009 and 1-8 in 2010. In 2010 the school was placed in the Midwest Classic Conference by the WIAA conference realignment and there would be a revival for several years thereafter.

Under Drake Zortman, a former assistant at Homestead, Whitefish Bay and Nicolet, the team went 4-5, 7-2 and 7-3 from 2011-13. They won their first conference title in 2013. After Zortman left the program there were several other coaches including Tony Davis who took the 2018 team to the top of the Woodland East Conference, finishing with a 7-3 record and making the first round of the WIAA playoffs. They lost to Racine Horlick, but they have shown pride in what they have been able to overcome. In 2019 a documentary about the program was filmed and it is good viewing if you have a chance…'Messwood,' on Messmer-Shorewood football team, to debut at DOC NYC (jsonline.com)

While the teams haven’t won any state title’s and few conference trophy’s their story is one of people coming together. In a 2012 Journal Sentinel story about Messwood, former coach Ron Davies said that football teaches kids a lifetime of values about accountability. They have to take pride in what they do and not just show up. I think the kids playing for Messwood today are not just showing up

Finally: I’m not sure why a coopt team with Whitefish Bay Dominican (3-miles north east of Messmer), Glendale Nicolet (5.2-miles north of Messmer), Milwaukee Rufus King (.8-miles west of Messmer) or Whitefish Bay H.S, (3.1- miles north east of Messmer) never seems to have been proposed For that matter, what about a Shorewood coopt team with Whitefish Bay H.S (1.8-miles north of Shorewood) or Milwaukee Riverside (1.4 miles south of Shorewood) also never seemed to be proposed. I’m noy saying any of these other choices would have been better. I’m just curious. These are all schools both Messmer and Shorewood have played against in other sports at other times so it’s not that they are unfamiliar with each other and I’m not advocating it now. Just food for thought.

MESSMER AND SHOREWOOD…THE LONG ROAD TO “MESSWOOD”…PART 2

While Messmer was having a bit of success, Shorewood High School had some better outcomes during the same period. Shorewood high school opened in 1915. Prior to that the high school students attended Milwaukee East (Now Riverside) but they had to pay tuition. The football teams first major success was in 1927 when they won the Suburban Conference title going 7-0-0. 1936 rolled along and they again were champions, going 6-1-0. Two seasons later (1938) they had sunk to a 0-7-0 but rebounded in 1940 and went 9-0-0, 7-0-0 in conference play. 1940 started a 34-game undefeated streak (32-0-2) that included four consecutive conference titles. Besides 1940, the Greyhounds were 7-0-2 in 1941, 8-0-0 in 1942 and 8-0-0 in 1943. The Suburban Conference was made up of nine teams and for many seasons the teams played against six or seven of those teams. As a result, in 1942 Shorewood actually tied with undefeated (In conference play) Waukesha.

It's interesting that in 1940, Shorewood, the second smallest school (Village population of 15,184 in 1940) in the Suburban, won the title and West Milwaukee, the smallest school (Village population of 5,010 in 1940), finished with a 5-2-0 conference. (I wish to digress for just a moment. West Milwaukee won the title in 1933, their only time they led the pack).

The undefeated streak was the high point for Shorewood in this timeframe. Not only did the school win four conference titles but they finished in second place in the 1944 and 1947 seasons. There were many fine players on the Shorewood teams during this timeframe but one of the best was quarterback Stan Heath. While Heath earned All-State, he also earned a scholarship to Madison. He only stayed one season before transferring to the University of Nevada-Reno where in 1948 he became the first college player to throw for 2,000-yards (2,005) and he also set an NCAA record for tossing 22 touchdowns. He was named to the UPI college All-American team and finished fifth in the Heisman Voting. Heath would be drafted by the Green Bay Packers as the fifth overall draft pick. He was with the team for only 12-games before he moved on to play in the Canadian Football League for six seasons.

Stan Heath

The 1940’s were a successful period for Shorewood as they went 61-19-6. The early part of the 1950’s was not so good overall for the Greyhounds but During the 1940’s and 50’s the Suburban Conference had as many as 10 teams…Waukesha, Wauwatosa, Cudahy, South Milwaukee, Greendale, West Allis Central, West Allis Hale, West Milwaukee, Whitefish Bay, and Shorewood. When Greendale joined, they were often the conference doormat as they were usually beat up. As I mentioned, West Milwaukee was a small city followed by Shorewood but Greendale, with only 2,752 citizens in 1950. This was before the suburban growth in population which exploded during the years between 1950 and 1960. The village exploded to 6.845 people in 1960 and then up to 15,089 in 1970. While West Milwaukee and Greendale were getting whipped muchof the time the late 1950’s were great for Shorewood.

Four more Suburban Conference titles were earned, beginning in 1956 with a 7-1-0 record. Prior to the 1950’s most of the conference members played one or more non-conference games. Milwaukee Riverside and Messmer were their usual opponents. But, with 10 members in the conference the members decided to only play a closed schedule against each other. 1957 brought another 7-1-0 record. Bookend losses against South Milwaukee in the season opener and loss in the final game to Waukesha dropped the team into the third place standing with a 6-2-0 record in 1958. They regrouped in 1959 and blew out the competition with a 8-0-0 standing. In 1960 they again went 8-0-0 and finished #4 in the UPI final football poll. How strong was the Suburban that year? Well, as you look at the week four poll Shorewood was one on FIVE conference members undefeated and listed in the UPI top-30 list. Those numbers dropped each week after that and in the end the statewide poll showed only Shorewood in the top-30. Like the Milwaukee City Conference that had 10-12 teams during this period, the Suburban, as mentioned before, only played member teams as few schools statewide played more than an eight-game schedule.

Carl Silvestrie

One of the stars of that decade was halfback Carl Silvestrie who earned all-conference honors three time, Honorable All-State as a junior and first team All-State and Honorable mention All-American honors. As a senior he would go to UW-Madison and earn a place in the school’s athletic hall-of-fame as well as having an abbreviated pro football career.

With all the success Shorewood had, 10-conference titles between 1927 and 1960 and being in contention for the title most other seasons, when Shorewood football is mentioned, it is as a loser, not as a competitive team. 1967 and 1981 were their last good seasons. 1967 saw another conference title with a 6’1, 195-pound halfback leading the way. Tom Albright ran behind a line that averaged 158 pounds. He earned 2nd team All-State, Honorable Mention All-America after the Greyhounds went 8-0-0. Albright filled in at times as the team’s quarterback and completed 21 of 40 passes for 450 yards and five touchdowns. On the ground he ran for 1,101 yards, averaging 6.7 yards per carry and scoring 13 times. He was a four-sport athlete who, following his junior year, collided with a catcher and separated his shoulder. He played the 1967 season with a cast. Albright went on to play college football at Cornell and then on to Harvard Law School. 1981 was a good team with many close wins and another 8-0-0 record. But it seems that Shorewood became known as the hard luck team of the 1980’s and 90’s

After ending the 1988 season with a 25-14 win over Wauwatosa East the Greyhounds would lose 63-consecutive games an all-time state record. They were part of the expanded Suburban Conference which grew to 16 teams and then the Parkland. The Greyhounds went 0-9 in each of the 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995 seasons. They lost the 1995 season finale to Milwaukee Riverside 18-7 but in the 1996 opener they again faced Riverside and pulled out a 14-0 win. 65-games in total from win to win with 63 losses in between. Five head coaches. They only scored 430 points with 2,411 points allowed while being shut out 27 times. The losing streak stuck in people’s minds for several years until the Shorewood team could get back on track.

It would come in the form of MESSWOOD.

MESSMER AND SHOREWOOD…THE LONG ROAD TO “MESSWOOD”…PART 1 (Messmer)

Two schools in cities right next to each other on the north side of Milwaukee County, less than two miles apart and both on the same street, Capitol Drive. Divided by the Milwaukee River, today the two cities are a diverse mix of economics. Shorewood is in fact a 15,000+ person village. It is a city, population size, but because if the size of land (Only composed of 1.59 square miles) the people who inhabit the area considered Shorewood to be a village.

The area around Messmer is/was a bit of mixture of residential mainly to the west and south of the school and industrial to the east north of Capitol Drive. This main street that connects the two schools is a heavily traveled thoroughfare that today bridges the two schools. But it wasn’t always that way.

Until the 1970’s the area around Messmer was heavily white but that began to change. More and more blacks moved north into the neighborhood and whites moved out. Like Milwaukee King, which is located about 11-blocks west and three blocks north on Capitol Drive, Messmer experienced the same change in the racial makeup of students beginning in the mid-1960’s. And like Shorewood football, Messmer had also declined.

Opened in 1926 and named Diocesan High School, the schools name was renamed in 1928 to honor the then current Milwaukee diocese Archbishop, Sebastian Messmer who would pass on in late 1930. 1930 was the first season of varsity football for the school and for the next eight seasons the Bishops were pretty much in the middle and lower part of the then five to six member teams of the Catholic Conference. After only one win in 1938 Messmer had 14-returning lettermen going into the 1939 season. The Catholic Conference was formed in about 1931 with Milwaukee Marquette, St. Francis Pio Nono, Milwaukee St. John’s Cathedral, Racine St. Catherine’s and Messmer. St. Stanislaus joined in 1939 and would later change the school’s name to Notre Dame. There were other Milwaukee area Catholic high schools playing football but because they were smaller schools with new programs, they weren’t officially part of the Catholic Conference.

The 1938 final standings for the conference showed Marquette (5-0-1) and St, John’s Cathedral (4-0-2) in first place, Pio Nono (3-2-1) in third place with St. Catherine’s and Messmer (Both with 0-5-1) in last place. You will notice that they show each team playing six conference games. This is confusing. St. Stanislaus played all five of the official conference teams so that makes five “conference” games. Where did the sixth conference game come from? Did they include St. Benedict, a smaller boarding school for black students and located near Marquette University. Not all of the conference teams played St. Stanislaus and I can’t determine for sure the sixth team. There was controversy that year as several teams were caught with playing an ineligible player.

The numbers on the 1939 football squad swelled from 33 to 45 including the 14 returning lettermen and as a result, even after a winless 1938, the team was picked by the other coaches in the league to win the title. The Bishops didn’t disappoint. They rolled to a final 9-0-0 record under the direction of Coach Orv Dermody. Five players would earn first team all-conference and two more made the second team.

Now this is a bit confusing. Or was it? According to a November 6, 1939 story in the Racine Journal Times the records for the teams showed that St. Johns finished with a 4-0-1 conference record and was in first place having defeated Messmer by a score of 7-0. Messmer was in second with a 4-1-0 record followed by Pio Nono (3-1-1), Marquette (2-3-0), St. Catherine’s (1-4-0) and St. Stanislaus (0-5-0) in last place. Two days later it was announced that Messmer had been declared the conference champion when St. John admitted that two starters in the previous Saturday’s victory. This was the third time in four seasons that St. John’s had used ineligible players. The final records for the two schools involved showed Messmer with a 5-0-0 record and St. Johns dropped to a 3-1-1 final standing. This was Messmer’s first title, and they were awarded the Knute Rockne trophy, an award given to the yearly football champion in the early years of the Catholic Conference. Messmer had a 2-0 season opening game win against Whitefish Bay, a 13-6 win over Neenah, followed by a conference 32-18 win over St. Catherine’s. Next, they blew out St. Benedict’s 45-6, then a close 7-0 win over Pio Nono, took Marquette down 20-6 before stomping St. Stanislaus 39-0. They lost to St. John’s 7-0, a loss that was reversed and then they played Prairie du Chien Campion and beat that squad soundly in the season finale 32-7. This would be the first of only two titles the Bishops would win. They would be declared the Catholic state football champions. Their next conference and state championship would come in 1947.

That year,1947, brought changes to the Catholic Conference. Some teams such as Pio Nono closed in 1941 and then reopened as St. Francis Minor Seminary. Don Bosco was opened nearby as a new school. In 1965 DeSales Preparatory Academy opened in place of the Minor Seminary and Pio Nono reopened. Don Bosco and Pio Nono later merged and eventually became St. Thomas More. Confused? Well, it was a confusing time for Catholic schools. St. Stanislaus became Notre Dame and Milwaukee Pius XI joined in the early 1940’s and would forge a second place 1947 spot in the league standings.

Racine Journal Times Nov. 3, 1947

As you can see by the standings, Messmer went through the seven-game league schedule undefeated but with one tie. And you will see that the tie was with seventh place Don Bosco. While doing research for my book I found a citation that showed Messmer went 8-0-0. However, that citation was incorrect and the Bishops didn’t play a non-league game that year plus there was a tie in their record. Just about every game was a battle going into the fourth quarter or to the very end. They opened with a come from behind 14-13 win again Marquette, then another close 6-0 win against Pius. Notre Dame fell 19-6 and then they took down in another come from behind win over St. Francis, 12-7. The only big scoring win was the 26-6 win over St. Catherine’s. Game #6 saw Don Bosco take the Messmer down to the wire and the Bishops tied 0-0 in a rainstorm. The season final was against St. John’s and the gas in doubt before Messmer pulled ahead 24-0 in the fourth quarter.

1947 Messmer

Not much in offense, only 101 points scored with allowing only 32. Six members of the Bishops squad, three backfield and three linemen made the All-Conference team out of eleven overall team members. They were a very highly thought of team and were ranked with Madison Edgewood as the 1947 Catholic state champions.

Messmer would after 1947 be a middle-of-the-road team, never again to be the conference champion. That is, until they merged football squads with Shorewood in 2002. More about that in Part 3. Yes, two more to come, one about Shorewood and then Messwood (The football merger).