AFTER THE MICKEY VANDEHEY YEARS…AUBURNDALES 31-GAME STREAK PART1 1968-1969

I did a blog on the great athlete, Mickey Vandehey, back on January 25, 2021. Mickey had been a fabulous career as a multi-sport star from 1960-64 who played football, basketball, baseball, track and even golf at Auburndale. He is a Wisconsin high school legend.

The years after Vandehey graduated were not lean ones but, not to the heights that he had taken the Apache to when he started. Mickey had a 26-4-1 record as the starting quarterback. From 1965-68 there were a series of head coaches with middle-of-the-road records. Being in the Marawood Conference meant that they were facing tougher, overall competition each season than when they were in a lesser conference (The defunct C-3) prior to 1963. When they joined the Marawood had eight teams but later added two more teams so that by 1970 there were ten members.

In 1967 Vic Bundgaard was the head coach and the Apache were 5-3 (4-3 in the Marawood). He played a lot of younger members of the squad and that set the stage for the beginning of the streak.

The season began with convincing wins over two non-conference foes, Fall Creek and Colby, before they lined up with their seven Marawood opponents. In 1967 undefeated (9-0) Stratford was rated #1 in the Associated press poll until week nine when they squeaked by Spencer in a 14-13 and they then dropped to #2 in the final “Little Ten” rankings. In a preseason poll of Marawood coaches Stratford and Auburndale were rated even for the conference title. Stratford had 12 returning starters with a total of 34 boys out for the football team.

Auburndale had 14 returning starters and an incredible 54 players start practices considering that the town’s population was only about 400.Stratford had a 15-game win streak and the game eight date for the battle between the two teams was highlighted on both teams’ calendars.

Stratford started with two non-conference wins over Neillsville and Adam-Friendship and then three conference wins before they played Pittsville, always a tough foe. Stratford led 13-8 in the fourth period. Pittsville then scored a touchdown and missed both of the extra points. A misplay earlier by Stratford on a bad snap on a punt that went into their end zone for a safety. That late Pittsville score made the score 14-13 in their favor. Stratford did drive to the Pittsville six-yard line but was stopped on a fourth and one play. Thus ended their 20-game win streak.

The next week Stratford blew out Edgar 60-7 and looked like they were back on track but then they faced Auburndale and they lost again, 20-0. The Apache dominated the game out gaining Stratford 239-yards to 193 and 15-9 in first downs. Auburndale’s season ended with the win. They were 9-0, their best season ever. Stratford had a later finale against Spencer and tied 14-14 to end 6-2-1. Stratford had been ranked #1 until the Pittsville lose but for some reason the polls didn’t show any love for Auburndale. They earned only a number 7 ranking in the final AP rankings.

Five players were named to the all-conference team with offensive guard Jerry Willfahre also earning a spot on the defensive line. Jim Mann was named as a defensive end. Bob Weller earned a spot as on offensive tackle and junior Chris Linzmeier was named to the quarterback spot. They ended 9-0 and they had a lot of young players coming back for 1969. It also ended coach Vic Bundgaard’s final season as the head football coach at Auburndale. He was also a very successful wrestling coach and after the winter season he would announce that he would be moving to Colby, 30-miles north as the head wrestling coach and as an assistant on the football team.

NOTES: I must digress now to explain that my research was done mainly based on using the internet stories of the Marshfield News Herald newspaper. Prior to the mid-1970’s it seems to e that the paper didn’t spend a lot of space for some aspects of sports…statistics, pre-season previews, post season recaps and all-conference stories. The game reports had minimal stats or even scoring recaps. It was hard to get information on the players and even know who the coach was. I weaved through the stories and was able to piece together needed information. This seemed to change sometime in the late spring/early summer of 1970.

1969 brought in Richard “Dick” Varsho as the new head coach. Varsho had been an assistant for the football team and head baseball coach. Now, the name Varsho might sound familiar. Dick passed away in 2020 and his obituary showed only the names of immediate family members. Former baseball major leaguer Gary Varsho and current MLB player Daulton Varsho are both from Marshfield. Same last name as Dick. Maybe their uncle? Nothing mentioned in the paper for a lead.

1969 began the same as the previous season. Two successful victories over non-conference foes, Fall Creek and Colby again. There was no mention in the paper leading up to the game or in the newspaper story on the game about coach Bundgaard coming back to face his former team. Fall Creek fell the week before, 8-7 in a real battle between two fine teams. Five plays into the game the Crickets scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point. In the second quarter Chris Linzmeier ran three -yards for the score then passed to end Bob Bassuener for the two-point conversion and what would turn out to be the win. Fall Creek would end up 7-2 in 1969.

NOTE: The two-point pass or run after a touchdown was new in 1969 as before then when those plays were worth only one-point.

The Colby win was 18-7 but the Apache were in charge all the way and now were ready for the Marawood season. The conference opener was against troublesome Pittsville, a 20-12 win followed by wins over Spencer and Edgar. After the Spencer win Auburndale had entered the Little Ten polls at the #2 spot. However, ranking were strange. Auburndale had kept winning but dropped for some reason to #3 by game seven. In game number six against Athens the team gained a huge 645 yards. They had a semi-close game #8 vs. Marathon, a 20-6 win but all the teams in the Little Ten were having a close game or two. The season ending game would be against Stratford. Durand was ranked #1 followed by Gale-Ettrick (they didn’t become Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau until 1972) at #2 and both were 7-0-0. Auburndale was #3 with an 8-0-0 record. Both of those school were in long win streaks as was #10, Port Edwards (7-0-0).

NOTE: All the newspapers in the area…Marshfield, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids…had Auburndale with an 18 or a 19-game win streak when it was really 17 going into the season final match with Stratford.

The win over Stratford was a blowout, if you can call a 20-0 victory, as they outgained the Tigers 323-yards to 92. Stratford ended the season with a 7-2-0 record (An earlier loss to Pittsville was their only other loss). The Wausau Daily News had both Stratford and Pittsville with a season final record of 7-1-1 but that wasn’t correct. They were 7-2-0.

Coach Dick Varsho discusses strategy with quarterback Chris Linzmeier during 1969 20-0 win over Stratford (Courtesy of the Marshfield News-Herald)

Here is the AP Little Ten poll before the Stratford game…Oct. 23, 1969

A few days later, Oct. 29, 1970, the final Little Ten poll was released and as you can see, there was a lot of movement.

Note: The AP had not updated Auburndale’s season record which was 9-0-0. Durand’s 36-game winning streak ended with a 20-14 loss to River Falls.

Again, the team earned six spots on the Marawood Conference first team. Offensive end Dennis Raab also was named as a defensive back on the squad. Cliff Altman was named as an offensive tackle; George Swetz was on the defense as a tackle and Bob Bassuener was listed as a linebacker. Chris Linzmeier was a repeat at the quarterback spot. Chris would also garner spots on the Wausau TV-Channel 7 All-Area first team and noted as an honorable mention all-state. Linzmeier posted, the best I can piece together, passing stats of 148-83-1421-14 with eight two-point conversion completions. He gain about 400-yards on the ground and scored eight touchdowns on the ground and even caught a 31 pass for a score against Athens. The senior was a true leader and well respected and a multi-sport star.

The first two seasons of the streak were now complete. Next time, the final part of the streak.

UPDATE ON A PAST POST

Last fall I did a series of stories on females in high school football. I have three specific additions, out of many, to the list of females playing the game that I find interesting. I did my “BREAKING BARRIERS” series on females last October.

In January I went down” the rabbit hole” …not to be confused by the upcoming Kiefer Sutherland tv show on Paramount+ since that starts March 26. I started to do some national research on some teams that claimed the 1935 mythical championship. How I started is a long story but in doing so I ran across an interesting story from 1935.

While looking up scores in Newspapers.com for the 1935 Knoxville (TN) High School team (The school didn’t print a yearbook for me to reference scores that year because money was tight due to the Depression) I was forced to look at the Ashville (NC) Citizen-Times for a score that wasn’t in the Knoxville newspaper. Knoxville played Ashville, in Ashville, and the story of the game was in that paper. Right below the game story was an intriguing headline from the November 5 edition.

Going back to my blogs on females playing football I told the story of Luverne “Toad” Wise from Alabama who I declared that in 1938 was the first female to play high school football. Well, that’s almost true. Wise played on a varsity football team for two seasons. The story I found had the headlines “Girl Center Leads Connecticut Grid Team To Victory.”

The story concerned a girl from Middlefield (CT), playing for a team called the Middlefield Air Cadets named Esther Burnham, three seasons before Wise. The Associated Press story hinted that she was in a high school game. But here is where the story gets muddled. Esther was a freshman in high school at state powerhouse Middleton High School. The “CENTER” of attention lived just outside of Middleton but as I learned she attended the high school there, but the question was “Who were the Middlefield Air Cadets?” Middlefield is only about three miles from Middleton. The village had their own high school so why was she playing for the team? The newspaper stories that were available, were sparse as there aren’t a lot of Connecticut papers on Newspapers.com to review. The initial AP story that I found in the Ashville paper was also posted in several other papers around the country. Several additional stories that were written by the Associated Press made it seem that Esther attended high school in Middlefield. She did not as the initial story noted that she was attending Middleton. I couldn’t find any additional information about the Air Cadets, so I think they were a collection of students that didn’t play varsity football for any of the area high schools. Sort of like an older baseball little league team. They did play a few smaller high schools but also several “All-Star” teams.

Esther didn’t end up playing in her last three high school years for the Middlefield Air Cadets nor for the Middleton High School. In fact, other than a few local stories or articles posted by the Associated Press in 1935, I find no further record of Esther. The story that caught my attention mentions that this was Esther’s second season on the team so it must have been an All-Star team of their own. She started playing as an 8th grader. There may have been a few other females nationally that played football, Luverne Wise probably was the first be on a high school varsity team. I’m not putting in the AP story that I found in the Ashville paper but one that appeared in a more local edition, The Meridian Journal (CT) November 4, 1935, a few days after the AP story, dated November 2, 1935. (Sorry for the blurry picture)

The one aspect of playing on November 3 against Fall River was that The Meridian and other local papers had made such a big deal about a female playing football that Esther sat in her parents’ car for much of the game before the coach called her to enter. So many fans had shown up she with so many cameras she was nervous. But with the game scoreless at the half, she joined her teammates and was able to block a punt that led to her team’s 6-0 victory. As the game wound down, she ran off the field asking people to leave her alone and to not take her picture. She just wanted to play football and not make a scene. There would be several ore games left on the schedule and she played in them both after having overcome her fear of the publicity. She was a novelty of the time and wasn’t ready to be in the limelight.

Today, females seem to be more at ease with the crowds or the press as their coaches are their buffers.

There had been a number of females in high school football who had been kickers, and several were truly very good. A number were profiled in a 2012 MaxPreps.com article… Top 10 greatest female kickers in high school football history - MaxPreps.

Recently, one such kicker named Allison Chang of Iolani High in Honolulu (HI) made some headlines in the 2021-22 seasons as she kicked 98 extra points and 15 field goals. Allison saw herself as a role model for other girls who want to participate in the sport. She knew that playing other positions would be tough, but she liked the way a predecessor, Mika Makekau, had played for the team (2015-18) as the star kicker and she was drawn to the game. In several 7-on-7 scrimmages Allison had played defense and knew how to tackle but her size led her to staying with kicking. She was on the team for four seasons, but it was her last two when she started. In 2022 she was named to the Special Teams Player of the Year on the Cover2 Hawaii Awards. Besides being a role model, she wants to be known as a good person and student who can do more than just kick. She earned respect from her teammates and others for being the good person she is.

Place-kicker Allison Chang (Image credit: Nick Abramo/Bedrock Sports Hawaii)

Another standout is Bella Rasmussen of Laguna Beach (CA) who not only scored two rushing touchdowns in a game against Godinez High in a 48-0 win on October 14 but played in seven games over two seasons as a backup running back. But more notoriety came her way after her senior season completed.

Bella Rasmussen Photo by Michael Goulding/ IMAGO from Sports Illustrated Magazine

Bella is a raved Los Angeles Chargers fan and after the October 14, 2022, game she was suddenly in the spotlight not only in California and also nationally. The Chargers supported her after finding out she was a fan and that led to a major change in her life. She was picked to be in a prime Super Bowl commercial sponsored by the NFL titled “Run With It” featuring the Mexican national flag football team and their star Diana Flores. She also became the first girl as a high school football player in California to sign an NIL contract. She signed a contract with KeyWise which is an app that focuses on people’s mental health.

Read the entire Sports Illustrated story for a more Indepth story at: How high school football star Bella Rasmussen made it to the Super Bowl - Sports Illustrated

While Esther Burnham was a forerunner to Luverne “Toad” Wise leading to today’s female players…Allison Chang and Bella Rasmussen. They have taken up the gauntlet as role models for those who follow.

THE FIGHTING CARDINALS RULE 8-PLAYER FOOTBALL…SURVIVING WITH LOW STUDENT NUMBERS

Newman players hoisting the 8-player championship trophy after beating Belmont in 2022

Back in January, after the state records were updated on the WFCA web site I got an email from a father of the star quarterback for the Wausau Newman Catholic Fighting Cardinals. The three or four additions I had erroneously omitted were quickly added. I was pleasantly surprised that I had received so few new additions after the posts that I had overlooked overall for both 11-player and 8-player. I guess I had made the updates correctly and I felt good.

I’m not sorry that my attention is 98% focused on 11-player football but I do need to pay more attention to the 8-player side of the game and add a few more stories.

While adding the missing records I noticed that Newman really had quite a record from when they switched to 8-player in 2017. In fact, they have the best record for the past six seasons of any Wisconsin football team with an incredible 63-2 record over the past six seasons. This includes two state titles (2021 and 2022), an undefeated COVID shortened season in 2020 (5-0), two state runner-up seasons (2018 and 2019) and a great initial 8-player season in 2017. The Cardinals won the Jamboree, a precursor to the official start of the 8-player state championships, with a 10-0 season, that year. This was after the team went 1-9 in their final 11-player season in 2016.

In 13 seasons, 2004-2016, Coach Paul Michlig had only been able to compile a 45-80 record with two brake-even 5-5 seasons and only two winning seasons (7-3 in 2009 and 7-5 in 2010). A 1996 grad from Newman, Michlig attended UW-Eau Claire and then returned to Newman as an assistant coach. He spent two seasons in that position and then became the head football coach. Things were tough with Newman being placed in several of the WIAA formed conferences (First the Marawood and later the Cloverwood) from 2000-2017 with tough competition against top teams like Stratford, Edgar and Abbotsford. After being a middle of the road team in the old Central Wisconsin Catholic Conference under the former WISAA format the transition to the Marawood was tough. Prior to joining the WIAA the school had endured a 27-game losing streak. Never having a large school enrollment and having to deal with the likes of Wisconsin Rapids Assumption, Marshfield Columbus, Eau Claire Regis and Chippewa Falls McDonell year in and year out in the WISAA things were tough for the Wausau school.

When the move to 8-player football was first discussed it was thought that maybe the school could co-op with Wausau East and remain in the 11-player format, but things didn’t work out. To me this was a surprise that the Wausau schools have been “down” for so long in the sport after the heyday of Coach Win Brockmeyer. But, since 1970 with the introduction of new schools to the area and new school boundaries being drawn up it’s been hard for Wausau East and Wausau West to compete in the Wisconsin Valley Conference and the Valley Football Association. Newman opened in 1951 but found it hard to draw good players from Wausau High with Brockmeyer in charge.

When the 2016 season ended and the decision to move to 8-player Michlig and his assistants put their nose to the grindstone to learn all they could about the game. They went to the Iowa football coaches annual clinic, picked a lot of coach's brains and spent time with their players planning for the next season. They obtained film and studied the game hard. In Iowa there is rule that if the school has fewer than 115 students, they have to play 8-man (Yes, it is called “man” in Iowa as well in some other states) football. The move was natural for Newman for player safety. Michlig had his share of injuries to his players over the years and this caused the team to be shorthanded against bigger schools. He might have had 22-25 players on his squad but some with limited experience or nursing an injury. The move to 8-player made sense.

The move was helped by the development of a very good quarterback, Ben Bates. At 6’2, 185-pounds, Bates stepped in and tossed the ball for a career record 7,022 yards and 95 touchdowns with only 12 interceptions leading the Cardinals to a three-year record of 33-2. Bates ranks #1 as the all-time 8-player passing yardage leader.

The 2017 season was a surprise after past years but with the more wide-open game and fewer injuries they had the right players to do the job. Michlig and his staff helped develop brilliant receivers like Elliot Samuels, Charlie McCarty and Joe Stephen who all had seasons of 1,000 yards receiving or more from 2017-2019. Running backs stepped up and several picked up over 1,000 yards in a year. Kelly Kaliface ran for 1,236 yards in 2018. The biggest rushing yardage was achieved in 2019 by freshman Tom Bates who picked up 1,757 yards and 25 touchdowns on the ground. This was his biggest season but he was always a threat while gaining a career total of 3,547 yards on the ground and accounted for 84 overall touchdowns. His totals would have been more had he not missed multiple games with a torn ACL in 2021. He was also an outstanding linebacker.

After Ben Bates graduated the quarterback reigns were turned over to Dylan Ackerman who had backed Bates up for the previous three seasons. As a junior backup in 2019 Dylan threw for 855 yards and 10 scores. In the five game COVID shortened 2020 season he threw for 1,110 yards and 19 touchdowns

In 2021 and 2022 the leader in the offense was Conner Krach who was the 2022 8-Player of the Year. Conner ended up passing for 4,016 yards and 63 touchdowns as a two-year starter as well as rushing for 1,681 yards and 29 scores. As a senior in 2022 he was a regular on defense for the first time and intercepted 11 passes. Krach led the Cardinals to a 13-0 season in 2021 and a 12-0 record in 2022 as they won the state title twice. The Cardinals blasted Luck in the 2021 title game 49-6 and Belmont 54-0 in 2022 Kickers Charlie McCarty (2018-2020) and Matthew Hamilton (2021-2022) also have been bright spots in this department. They rank #1 and #2 on the all-time extra points career charts as well as #1-#4 on the single season extra point list.

While I’ve been writing about offense it was the play of the defense that really shown brightly in making a difference. Utilizing a 3-3-2 defense Coach Michlig and his staff found that you needed two good defensive ends to keep the opponents outside rushing game in check. They needed a good middle linebacker as well and good deep defenders. Sometimes they switched to man-toman coverage, assigning a defensive player to shadow a particular player as in 8-player even the center could be a potential receiver.

Michlig and his staff also picked the brains of some great Wisconsin coaches who had been successful 11-player coaches, in particular Terry Laube of Owen-With and Robin Rosenmeyer of Gilman. Both have made the transition to 8-player and been successful in their own right. Michlig’s staff consists of long-term assistants Karl Thorpe, Joe Ackerman and Nate Brill and they have been key factors to the team’s success. Consistency on the playing field as well as those directing the players is very important.

I asked Coach Michlig about 8-player kicking. I noted that few teams chose to try kicking field goals as well as extra points and I asked why his players had been successful. He said that in 8-player the edge game makes it hard to be consistent in the kicking game so many teams just go for it on fourth down instead of trying a field goal and in kicking the extra points they go for two points. Newman has not followed other schools in going for two-points as they have been successful in defending the edges for the extra points but it’s harder for field goals.

In what I expected to be a 35–45-minute phone interview turned into a great, informative 75-minute talk. I learned a lot about 8-player football. Much more than I had before we talked. Coach was free to praise his players and his staff. I admit that I haven’t ever seen an 8-player game in person, but several 2023 games are on my radar to attend. After reading about the game online I understand that it can be like a video game. Lots of shifting with different players eligible for a pass. Games are just intense as 11-player. I know that some 11-player coaches feal that 8-player isn’t “real” football. I other states, besides 11-player and 8-player football some offer 6-player or 9-player and of course, in Canada they play 12-man. The fields vary but most of the regular rules in 11-player are followed in the other formats. For the most part the trimmed down game seems to be safer with fewer injuries.

Paul Michlig…Wausau Daily Herald

I’m a purist and I think 11-player is best. The 2022 game between Washburn and Mellon with a 114-94 game was an aberration. There are high scores in any format but in this day and age super high scores are few and far between. I hope when I view in person 8-player games in the future the scores are like 28-24 or 35-21 not 200 total points scored.

After posting a fabulous record in their first six seasons of 8-player football they have to replace several key players for next year. I’m sure they will be successful in 2023. Coach Michlig and his staff seem to have things in place to keep winning.