Waukesha - 1964-1976

The Blackshirts would go 7-0-1 in 1964 as they tied South Milwaukee for the conference title. 1965 brought an indifferent record of 4-3-1. In 1966 they would lose to South Milwaukee but again tie for the conference title as the team posted a 7-1-0 record. In 1968 Hollub directed the team to a 7-0-1 record as the team tied West Milwaukee 7-7 and earned the conference championship. Waukesha would go 6-2-0 in 1969 and finish second in the Suburban. The following year Waukesha earned a 7-1-0 season record in 1970 and a ranking of #5 in the press polls. 1970 would begin the schools four year run (1970-73) as Suburban Conference champs. 1971 saw the “Shirts” lose the final game of the season, 21-14 to Wauwatosa East but their 7-1-0 record earned them a tie along with three other teams for the conference crown. Cudahy was the team that beat Waukesha in 1972 but really the Blackshirts beat themselves in a 8-6 loss to the Packers as they fumbled 11-times (Losing four) and quashing all but one drive. The team tied Whitefish Bay for the conference crown as they posted a 8-1 record. Even with the good record, fumbles, besides the huge amount in the Cudahy game, hurt the team throughout the year. This was the schools ninth conference title under Hollub in 18 seasons and their 19th overall Suburban Conference title. The team had a great tight end and three starting backfield juniors who looked forward to 1973.

Coach Hollub believed his 1973 team would go 6-3 even with the returning lettermen as he worried that the line might not come together. The 1973 team had many stars, none greater than John Anderson who could do it all on the field. Anderson was not only an all-state end but a super linebacker and kicker. He earned County Player of the Year honors. An all-round athlete, Anderson also earned all-county honors in basketball and tennis. He would go on to star for the University of Michigan and the Green Bay Packers as a linebacker. Many of the linemen had been back-ups the previous year and when the season opened with a close 7-0 win over Cudahy things looked like it might be tough going for the team. But, besides John Anderson, offensive tackle/defensive lineman Mark Parson and defensive end Kurt Holm earned All-Suburban honors. Running back Dean Hilmer, quarterback Steve Schoepke and guard Rick Close earned spots on the All-County team. With this much talent it is hard to believe that the team finished 8-1, losing to South Milwaukee 54-35 and tying them for the conference title. Waukesha would end up ranked #6 in the AP poll and co-champion South Milwaukee (Also 8-1) moved up to the #9 spot. The week before the South Milwaukee game Waukesha was ranked #2 in the polls, close on the heels of Antigo, which would be named #1 in the two polls for the second consecutive year.

While not as dominate as the Blackshirts, the “Red Rockets” of South Milwaukee had plowed through the conference with only one hiccup, a 22-20 loss to Wauwatosa East. The shocking loss to South Milwaukee was hard for the team to absorb. In the previous 16 games they had given up only 52 points. They were coming off a huge win against Shorewood, 76-0. In the 54-35 loss halfback Kevin Kuchevar for the Red Rockets had a 70-yard punt return, two touchdown runs of 68 and 65 plus a 63-yard interception return. He gained nearly 200-yards rushing. Back Jim Lofy had an 82-yard kickoff return. Waukesha couldn’t score without South Milwaukee getting big plays soon afterwards. The Blackshirts didn’t have any fumbles and only the one interception but were outgained 330-173 on the ground. They didn’t have the big plays that South Milwaukee was able to come up with. The team was just outplayed. On the morning after the defeat, coach Hollub had his players on the practice field at 8am to work out the mistakes from the previous night. It was a grueling two hour practice but the team corrected their mistakes. They closed the season a few days later with a 21-0 shutout, their sixth of the season, against West Allis Hale.

As a team they forced 41 turnovers while committing 24. Individual efforts were many but none as strong as that performed by John Anderson. As a tight end he caught 33 passes for 416 yards. He scored nine touchdowns, kicked 45 of 48 extra points and four of eight field goals for 111 total points. On defense he led the team with 49 solo and 86 total tackles along with three fumble recoveries, two blocked kicks and intercepted four passes from his middle linebacker position. He punted for a 45.1 average and his kickoffs boomed to a 49.5 average. He even completed his only pass attempt for a first down on a fake punt. In 1993 he was voted by the press and coaches in a statewide poll to the Milwaukee Journals Team of the Century as a first team end, first team linebacker and an honorable spot as a kicker.

Other stat leaders were Dean Hilmer who led the team on the ground with 842 yards on 148 carries. He caught 10 passes for 186 yards and added 404 yards on punt and kickoff returns. He was second on the team in scoring with 12 touchdowns (72 points). As mentioned before, Steve Schoepke directed the offense as he threw more passes, 128, and completed more balls, 70, for, more yards, 922, than any other Waukesha player up to that time. He also tossed 12 touchdowns, also a school record, and he only had nine interceptions. Schoepke also rushed 51 times for 275 yards and seven touchdowns. Fullback Mark Malinowski chipped in with 598 yards on 101 tries and nine scores.

1974 brought new changes to the football scene in Waukesha. The city was expanding and the athletic program faced a similar situation to what Wausau had faced. In that area there had been just the local public high school for many years but with a population growth spurt in the area a Catholic high school (Newman) was created in 1951 and then in 1970 the school district split into three public high schools…Wausau East, Wausau West and DC Everest. There had only been one public high school in Waukesha but during the 1920s through the late 1940s there was Waukesha Technical School, a facility for boy’s who had trouble with the law. The two schools didn’t play each other and there were very few newspaper stories about that school’s athletic program. In 1949 Catholic Memorial opened and syphoned off some of the players that would have attended Waukesha High. Now, a second public high school, Waukesha North opened in 1974 as the school district split. A third public high school, Waukesha West would open in 1993. Waukesha High School became Waukesha South and remained the Blackshirts. In their first meeting with North in 1974, they won 30-16 and went on to post a 5-4 record. The 1975 season would be Ken Hollub’s second to last as head coach. The year didn’t start well as the team was 0-4 at the beginning but the Blackshirts went on a five game win streak and finished 5-4 for a middle of the pack standing in the conference. Their final victory over Wauwatosa West helped the second year Waukesha North program (With a 7-2 record) to tie for the conference title along with three other teams, just as South had done in 1971.

1976 was a repeat of the two previous seasons as South again went 5-4. In April of 1977 South appointed Hollub as the athletic director and while he wanted to keep coaching the school administrators didn’t want the AD splitting time with a single team. At age 49 he stepped down as the head coach and he remained in the AD position until 1988. The head coaching job went to former star, Ted Bear. Ken Hollub’s career as head coach was now complete but it was capped off a few years later by his being named to the WFCA Coaches Hall of Fame in 1982. In 22 years at Waukesha HS and then South he posted a career 133-41-8 record including, in a 17 year stretch, a mark of 112-21-6 with 10 outright or shared Suburban Conference championships. The football stadium at Waukesha South was named after “coach”. He passed at age 88 in February of 2016.

Waukesha 1943-63

After the 1942 season ended, Waukesha had a series of coaches who did a fair job but couldn’t quite compete with the accomplishments of Lee Saubert and Clifford Goerke. In 1950 a talented coach appeared in Waukesha by the name of Vince Gavre. Born in Port Edwards, Wisconsin Gavre attended Madison and was the Badgers quarterback from 1936-38. He was drafted by the Packers but chose to take a teaching and coaching position at Merrill. After serving as a captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II he returned to Madison as an assistant for the 1947 season before taking the head coach’s position at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado for the 1948 and 1949 seasons where he posted an 11-7-0 record. He returned to Wisconsin with his family and became a teacher and the football coach at Waukesha High School. 1950, his first season at Waukesha, was a disaster as the Blackshirts posted a 1-7-1 record. He turned the program around the next year with a 7-0-0 record and the Suburban Conference title. The polio epidemic of this period caused a cancellation of the West Allis Central game. A close 19-18 victory over Whitefish Bay was the key to the season’s success as the team scored 138 points and allowed only 44. The 1951 season was followed by a 3-4-2 record in 1952, 5-3-0 season in 1953 and finally a 3-5-0 posting in 1954. His family came first to Gavre so he decided to step down to make way for a new coach. It seems that Waukesha is a great place for former head coaches to stay and teach. Like Saubert and Goerke, Vince Gavre stuck around for 21 more years as a well-respected teacher of American problems, sociology and economics.

The new man on the scene as the school’s football coach and physical education instructor was Ken Hollub. Born and raised in Oshkosh, Ken chose to attend the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse. He served in the military and was an assistant coach at La Crosse from 1952-54. He and his family moved to Waukesha where he taught physical education with Lee Saubert and coached football for 22 years. Over the years he also coached swimming, track and wrestling. Ken Hollub believed in the ground game and for many years passing wasn’t often in his playbook.

Taking over from Gavre in 1955, Hollub matched Waukesha’s record from the previous year with a 3-5-0 season. 1956 was even worse as the team‘s record was 2-5-1. These were two of the three losing seasons that Hollub had. The other was a 3-4-1 record posted in 1967. Things began to roll in 1957 as he posted a 7-1-0 record and a tie for the Suburban title. The 1958 and 1959 brought undefeated 8-0-0 and 7-0-1 records (A 12-12 tie with South Milwaukee) respectively. In 1960 the team again “slipped” to 7-0-1 (A 7-7 tie, again, with South Milwaukee). Very good records for those four seasons of 1957-60 as they posted a 29-1-2 record in that stretch. Now, if you have read Ken Hollub’s profile on the WFCA Hall of Fame page it states: “His teams from 1957 through 1960 were undefeated” but they did lose in game five of the 1957 season 20-0 to Whitefish Bay. During the four season run Waukesha was ranked in the UPI prep poll as high as #2 in 1958 and #9 in 1959 while finishing ranked #10 in 1960.

With three players named to all-state teams the 1958 squad dominated the Suburban Conference as they went 8-0-0. The #2 ranked Blackshirts finished a close second in the final UPI team poll to Superior Central. Fullback John Loden gained over 1,000 yards and averaged 7.5 yards per carry as he was the best back in the conference. Loden was on the UPI 1st team and earned a 3rd team spot on the AP team all-state squads. He led the Blackshirts in scoring and was a strong defender. John Pichette (A future Waukesha athletic Director) was the top lineman in the Suburban and earned a first team placement on the AP team. The AP citation stated that he was the best lineman in the Suburban Conference as he cleared the way for the “Black Knights” backs. Evidently the "Black Knights” name was a misprint. Dennis “Rawhide” Williams earned honorable mention at the end spot for the two “all” teams.

South Milwaukee, Cudahy and Shorewood were predicted to contend for the conference title but they were dispatched. One of the highlights on the season was the 71-0 homecoming win over Greendale (A newer member to the conference). The 71 points was a school record. Kicker Johnny Fuchs led the Suburban with 25 extra points and a field goal. Besides Loden, Pichette and Williams, guard Jerry Ruetten earned 1st team all-conference placement and center Paul Senn was named to the second team. The 1958 season was the first undefeated, untied team for Waukesha since 1951.

Coach Hollub had a good 5-3-0 year in 1961 but jumped up to 7-1-0 in 1962 before 1963 rolled around. The “Shirts” again went 8-0-0 and again were ranked at the end of the season #2 in the UPI poll, behind undefeated Wausau. In fact, that Wausau team (9-0-0) was profiled in my book and #3 Stoughton (9-0-0) was profiled here back on February 8. While the 1963 Waukesha team wasn’t a super high scoring team, posting about 150 points less than Wausau and Stoughton, they had a strong defense. Waukesha allowed only 40 points on the year and didn’t allow more than seven points in a single game.

In the opener they started slowly but picked up the pace in the second half with two scores to overpower South Milwaukee 26-6. In game two they sort of shot themselves in the foot as they totaled 170 yards in penalties but the Blackshirts were able to gain just over 280 yards and scored an18-7 win against West Allis Central. Ted Bear scored three times in the first half of game three, a 39-0 win over Wauwatosa East. The Wauwatosa school district added a second high school in 1960 and an additional school was added to the Suburban Conference. The West Milwaukee Mustangs were up next and it wasn’t close as Waukesha crushed them 40-7. They trimmed the Shorewood Greyhounds 13-0, allowing only 92 yards. Fullback Dave Michler scored his fifth touchdown of the season and keyed the ground control attack. Quarterback Ken Oaks didn’t throw often but he tossed several key passes throughout the year and Michler was on the receiving end of some of those completions.

Following the Shorewood win there was a close game, a 12-7 win over Wauwatosa West. A late fourth quarter score by Waukesha and an interception by Ted Bear on the game’s final play turned a near defeat into victory. The homecoming game against West Allis Hale was one of the season high points as the Blackshirts played ball control for most of the game by outgaining Hale by over 130-yards on the ground. The final victory was an 18-6 win over Cudahy to clinch the conference crown.

Five players were named to the Waukesha Freeman All-County Team. Halfback Ted Bear gained 344 yards and scored four times on the ground in only 41 carries. He also caught eight passes for 173 yards and three touchdowns. Though the team didn’t pass a lot Ken Oaks was the team's MVP as he completed 29 of 78 attempts for 418 yards and seven touchdowns. On the ground he carried 76 times for 261 yards and six touchdowns. Fullback Dave Mickler had 97 rushing attempts for a team leading 478 yards and five scores. He also caught six passes for 75 yards and two touchdowns. End Chuck Verlow was a superb blocker who caught only eight passes for 114 yards and three touchdowns but was also a good defender. Against West Milwaukee Verlow intercepted his only pass and returned it 67-yards for a touchdown. Guard Cliff Goerke (son of the former coach) was named to the team as a first team guard. Linemen Bill Cox and Jim Kranpitz were members of the honorable mention squad.

So, if you add up the rushing and passing yards you will see that, as I said earlier, this wasn’t a high scoring or offense team but they prevailed against tough Suburban Conference opponents. This would be Ken Hollub’s last undefeated, untied team but he would coach other strong squads.

The 1938 Blackshirts

Many changes occurred in the 1930s for Waukesha High School (now Waukesha South). First, the name of the school nickname changed.

The team was once known as the Cardinals. During the Great Depression, the school needed to purchase new football uniforms. Unfortunately, the cost of jerseys made with red dye was too expensive for the school’s budget. Therefore, they decided to go with less expensive black jerseys. At the time black was apparently a rare color for football uniforms, so the opposing teams and their fans made fun of the Waukesha athletes and called them the “Black Shirts.” Rather than be embarrassed, the school decided to show pride in the name and therefore re-named themselves the Blackshirts. They also decided to keep the cardinal as their mascot, renaming him “Blackie Blackshirt.”

Did you ever wonder where your favorite school teams came up with a nickname? How about the Butternut Midgets, the Washburn Castle Guards, the Cudahy Packers or the Manitowoc Lincoln Ships (Shipbuilders). In 2015 Frontier Communications, a company that is the nation's largest provider of communications services focused on rural America began a series of stories covering high school nicknames that WisSports.Net picked up and featured on their website. The above explanation focused on the Waukesha South nickname. Steven Okonek was the author. I had asked South’s athletic director, Todd Sobnlsky how the name changed from Cardinals to Blackshirts and he provided the information from the web story.

The other major school change was the major change in coaching as Lee Saubert stepped down after 17 seasons. He had posted a 83-37-9 record in football and while he continued to coach other sports like basketball and track he cast a strong shadow on the team as the school’s athletic director. His replacement for football was a former star from the 1925 and 1926 teams, Clifford Goerke. After graduating from Waukesha in 1927, Goerke attended Carroll College where he lettered all four years in football and basketball and three years in track. As a junior in 1929 he earned all-conference as the team quarterback and in 1930 he garnered all-conference honors as a halfback. He’s named to the schools hall of fame in all three sports.

Under Goerke’s tutelage the Cardinals/Blackshirts posted the only undefeated record in southeastern Wisconsin in 1938. The nickname Blackshirts hadn’t completely caught on yet but the uniforms had changed. The yearbook for 1939 used both names. The team didn’t have a great, high scoring offense but their defense was spectacular, posting six shutouts.

The passing combination of Andy Sobrofski to Harry Frayett and La Vier Staven were key offensive components to the season. Don Kluge did the kicking with 8 extra points and a field goal along with placing kickoffs deep into enemy territory. Sobrofski also starred on defense hauling in five interceptions. After hurdling the first three opponents, all by shutouts they now faced the Packers, the most exciting game of the year. The victory over Cudahy came at the last minute. Down 6-0 they scored with only 10 seconds left as Sobrofski passed to Schneider who lateraled to Staven who, with key blocks by Harry Schneider and Harold Brecher, rambled fifty yards for a touchdown to tie the score. Don Kluge kicked the extra point and the Cardinals were number one in the conference with three games on the season to go.

The next game was a Homecoming 26-0 victory over Shorewood, the first victory over the Greyhounds in four years. This game was followed by a 14-0 victory over Wauwatosa which had been a thorn in the side of the Blackshirts for the past seven years. The season finale was a 19-0 shutout of West Milwaukee.

They did have some stars with five players on the All-Suburban first team and four on the second team. End Harry Frayett, tackle Don Kluge, guard Le Roy Mielke, quarterback Andy Sobrofski and fullback La Vier Staven were the first team members. Henry Schneider, Bob Williams, Perry Scheel and Harold Brecher were on the second team.

It was a successful coaching debut for Clifford Goerke. The 1939 season was a disaster as Waukesha went 1-7-0 but they improved to 3-5-0 in 1940 despite a number of injuries. 1941 the record jumped to 5-2-1 and a large number of young players were primed for the next season where the Blackshirts would cruise to a 8-0-0 record.