The University of Wisconsin football team will open the 2009 season with an evening game.
The Badgers’ opener at Camp Randall Stadium against Northern Illinois on Sept. 5 will start at 6 p.m., the Big Ten Conference announced on Wednesday.
Dear Editor: I’ll be the first to say I have no coaching experience and that coaches Bret Bielema and Paul Chryst have an established track record, but if they have decided to go with Dustin Sherer because he will be a senior who knows the system, many observers like myself predict we will be in for another long year against competitive teams.
The cynic in me took the day off, which explains the following response to the idea that the two biggest sporting events in the world could come to our doorstep.
Why not?
If Chicago is chosen to host the Summer Olympics in 2016, its plan calls for staging three of the five cycling events in the Madison area.
If the U.S. is chosen to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022, its bid committee would consider Camp Randall Stadium as a competition site.
Everybody knows Bucky Badger. Then again, nobody knows Bucky Badger.
That’s why the documentary “Being Bucky” will likely open a few eyes as to what it’s like — and what it takes — to be the live version of the state’s most visible symbol.
The film, which played to a sold-out theater at the Wisconsin Film Festival and will return Friday, April 10, to Point Cinemas, tracks the lives of the seven guys who play Bucky. It begins with the tryouts and continues throughout a busy, busy year.
The Western Collegiate Hockey Association has a PR problem thatâ??s not going to go away anytime soon.
Itâ??s not the one you think.
True, for the first time this century, the WCHA will not have at least one menâ??s team in the NCAA Frozen Four, which begins today at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.
Don Gehrmann’s granddaughter was over to his house the other day, having fun on the computer, when she asked him to come look at a link she had called up on the screen.
Gehrmann, 81, is probably the most legendary Wisconsin athlete you don’t know. That’s because since Gehrmann retired from competition more than half a century ago, he has kept a low profile.
Even in his home off of Cottage Grove Road, the trophies and press clippings are downstairs. Yet the story they tell is worthy of trumpets: Don Gehrmann was one of the great runners in U.S. history, a world-record setter, a phenomenal miler who competed in the Olympics and won 10 Big Ten track titles while running for the Badgers.
It’s no secret that some on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus believe the UW Athletic Department oversteps its bounds from time to time.
But when put in a position Monday night to take a closer look at the Athletic Department, the UW Faculty Senate dropped the ball.
More accurately, too many Faculty Senators inexplicably headed for the exits before this game was over.
The University of Wisconsin fencing team took second place in men’s foil at the National Fencing Championship held at Chula Vista Resort at the Wisconsin Dells over the weekend.
UW athletic department officials released a copy of a canceled check to 27 News as verification the transfer of a moped from Cindy Alvarez to a football player was a sale, and not a gift, but the copy deletes the name of the check writer.
27 News had made repeated requests for a copy of the cancelled check without redaction of the check writer’s name, after a moped dealer told 27 News the moped had been a gift from UW athletic director Barry Alvarez’s wife to the player. A UW official acknowledged such a gift would be a violation of NCAA rules, but said the transaction was a sale.
The remarkable run for Wisconsinâ??s womenâ??s hockey program continues.
UW coach Mark Johnson, who last month led the Badgers to their third NCAA title in four seasons, on Wednesday was named the American Hockey Coaches Association Womenâ??s Division I Coach of the Year.
It’s time to give the University of Wisconsin credit for more than beer, beer, brats, beer, a basketball team that scores 43 points, and the Godfather, Barry Alvarez.
There is some real genius at work, and it must be properly recognized.
It seems the school’s football players have figured out a way to use room and board money for way cooler things than chow and a place to sleep.
They diverted the money for mopeds.
The more I think about the situation involving the future of Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball coach Lisa Stone, the more restless I become.
I have a nasty case of ambivalence and haven’t been able to shake it.
One day I’m convinced she should be replaced. Six years without a winning record in the Big Ten Conference is too long. Zero appearances in the NCAA tournament defines underachievement when you know that six conference schools have made multiple trips during that time. Then there’s the reality that per-game attendance has fallen from 6,300 per game to a little less than 4,900 since 2004.
Each year around this time, I get emails wondering how likely we are to see baseball, dropped as a varsity sport in 1991, return to the UW-Madison campus. Athletic director Barry Alvarez has said this is something he’d like to see happen.
I wouldn’t count on it.
Title IX dictates that the university offer equal opportunities for men and women to compete in athletics. Adding a baseball team would require also adding another team sport for women â?? not likely in a challenging economic climate. College baseball is charming, but it doesn’t make money, and neither would any women’s team added to satisfy gender equity.
A UW-Madison athletics department official told 27 News verification the provision of a moped from the wife of UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez to a football player was a sale and not a gift will be produced.
After repeated requests from 27 News for verification of the transaction through a document such as the player’s cancelled check, associate athletic director Vince Sweeney said documents would be made available for inspection to 27 News.
You’ll have to forgive Michael Garrison, an avid hoops fan, for vouching for another favorite sport of his — even if his top choice isn’t nearly as well-known in this country.
“I’m completely biased,” Garrison said with a chuckle, “but fencing’s so much cooler than basketball. I mean, we have swords.”
Thanks in large part to Garrison, the sport is once again considered cool at the University of Wisconsin — and at other colleges around the country whose varsity programs who have been slashed in the last two decades.
What if I told you there was going to be a public forum on the world of the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department.
Would you show up?
What if I told you that many of the major decision-makers involved with UW sports â?? including director Barry Alvarez, his top aides, members of the Athletic Board, chancellor Biddy Martinâ??s office and the Board of Regents â?? would be on hand in the same campus lecture hall to outline key policies of the department. Would you be curious?
27 News uncovered the wife of UW-Madison Athletic Director Barry Alvarez provided a moped to a Badger football player, with the terms of the exchange of the vehicle unclear.
27 News discovered Cindy Alvarez’s actions as it investigated the use of university scholarship funds by players to purchase mopeds and in some cases, cars.
UW-Madison associate athletic director Vince Sweeney acknowledged to 27 News a gift of something of the value of a moped from Alvarez to a player would constitute a violation of NCAA rules. But Sweeney said no rules were broken.
UW football players used scholarship funds earmarked for housing and food to purchase mopeds, and in some cases, cars.
Senior Jonathan Casillas told 27 News the practice of ciphoning money from room and board uses made sense.
“Once you get to your second, third year, you start learning what’s cheap (housing), what’s expensive. Maybe live with somebody and split the rent. And hopefully you can get a moped, or maybe even a car. Some people got cars.”
Casillas told 27 News he bought his moped from a housing scholarship stipend. Casillas was also arrested on that moped for alleged first offense drunk driving. Casillas has a plea hearing scheduled for April 22.
Former University of Wisconsin football running back P.J. Hill will not face any felony charges in his upcoming trial, according to charges issued Tuesday.
For the third time in four years, Mark Johnson has been named the best Division I women’s college coach in the nation.
The American Hockey Coaches Association bestowed that honor on him Wednesday following a season in which Johnson’s Wisconsin Badgers went 34-2-5 and won both the WCHA and NCAA postseason tournaments.
The University of Wisconsin football program may have to forfeit its 2008 victory over Cal Poly because it installed illegal goal posts at Camp Randall Stadium, a source confirmed Wednesday.
The Badgers were able to escape with a 36-35 victory in the regular-season finale when Mustangs kicker Andrew Gardner missed three extra points, including one in overtime. Cal Poly is a member of the Football Championship Subdivision, formerly called Division I-AA.
Itâ??s sort of like getting a bid in the NCAA basketball tournament, just a little lower-profile.
UW-Madisonâ??s equestrian team is heading to the national collegiate championship at the end of April after winning its region over the weekend.
Former Wisconsin Badgers running back P.J. Hill wonâ??t face criminal charges for a March 14 incident in which he allegedly led police on a short chase while driving drunk.
Hill, 22, the third-leading rusher in Badgers history, instead was ticketed Tuesday for first-offense drunken driving, reckless driving, refusing to take a Breathalyzer test and driving without headlights.
The International Olympics Committee delegation committee visits Chicago this week, and Madison officials have been told they should be prepared should the committee decide to visit.
Move over, Chapel Hill. Make room, Louisville. Quit hogging the spotlight, Villanova. There’s another basketball powerhouse town that’s big-footing the rest: Juba, Southern Sudan, otherwise known as “land of a million giants.”
Every March, when it comes time to predict the NCAA Championship team, it behooves a fan to place at least one loyalty bet on the hometown boys and girls. In college ball, heart can go the distance.
Duany Duany knows. He helped take the University of Wisconsin to the Final Four in 2000 before playing professionally in Europe and the Philippines. But during this and every March Madness, Duany bets on Juba â?? never mind that the town has only one basketball court.
The former University of Wisconsin football player who threatened to kill Athletic Director Barry Alvarez in November was sentenced to three years probation Thursday after pleading guilty to stalking and unlawful phone use.
Some years back, the University of Wisconsin awarded special status to six of its athletic programs.
Because they were given additional resources, those tier-one programs â?? football, volleyball, menâ??s and womenâ??s basketball and menâ??s and womenâ??s hockey â?? automatically became the face of UW athletics.
Therefore, it was fitting that the last of UWâ??s tier-one sports still standing in this academic year â?? the womenâ??s basketball team â?? squandered a 15-point lead in the second half and lost to St. Bonaventure in the WNIT last week. It was appropriate because, with one notable exception, athletic director Barry Alvarezâ??s highest-profile teams just couldnâ??t finish what they started this year.
Jaevery McFadden always wanted to give back to the organization that he fondly remembers having a positive impact on his childhood. He finally got that chance Friday afternoon at the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County — on his second attempt.
“I applied for a job last summer here, and they didn’t hire me,” McFadden said with a grin. “So I don’t know what happened. But it’s all good.”
McFadden was joined by UW safeties Shane Carter and Aubrey Pleasant and cornerback Devin Smith, as the quartet of Badger defensive players hung out and played football with about 30 children between the ages of 7 and 12 in the gymnasium of the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County in south Madison.
First, the University of Wisconsin womenâ??s basketball team lost its identity. Then it lost the game.
The Badgers, who redefined their program with their defense this season, watched their defense get shredded by a savvy St. Bonaventure team in the second half as the Bonnies overcame a 14-point halftime deficit to pull out a 56-51 WNIT victory Thursday before a crowd of 1,655 at the Kohl Center.
After winning its third NCAA National Championship in four years, the University of Wisconsin womenâ??s hockey team was formally welcomed home by their fans and friends yesterday at the Nicholas Johnson Pavilion.
Every once in a while itâ??s possible to pick up a book and judge it by its cover. What you see on the colorful jacket is exactly what you get when you start turning the pages.
So it is with the University of Wisconsin womenâ??s hockey program. Inside and out, itâ??s just what you think it is.
Itâ??s great players and good people. Itâ??s selflessness and humility woven from top to bottom. Itâ??s a genuine appreciation for others and whatever the day might bring.
Before the storybook finish, before all this talk of a dynasty, there was an emotional gathering behind closed doors that changed the world.
The University of Wisconsin womenâ??s hockey team wasnâ??t playing terribly in early February, but a 1-1-2 stretch suggested there was something wrong and it needed to be fixed.
So UW coach Mark Johnson talked to his veterans and implored them to get everyone back in line. That led to a post-practice, players-only meeting at their Camp Randall Memorial Sports Center headquarters.
â??It was definitely heart-to-heart,â? junior winger and co-captain Meghan Duggan said. â??It was an open floor. There were a lot of tears shed because itâ??s emotional. And weâ??re girls, obviously.
â??We just decided right then and there we were going to win the national championship, almost. From then on out we were unstoppable.â?
The University of Wisconsin held a rally in Madison to honor the National Champion Wisconsin women’s hockey team on Monday. The Badgers took home their 3rd title in 4 seasons with a 5-0 win over Mercyhurst on Sunday in Boston.
UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez congratulated the team on their success and steady play this season and told the team to enjoy every minute of the experience and not to take winning for granted.
Not guilty pleas were entered Monday morning for University of Wisconsin basketball player Trevon Hughes, appearing in court on two traffic matters the day after the Badgers bowed out of the NCAA tournament with a second round loss to Xavier.
Hughes, 21, the Badgers’ starting point guard, was charged with his second offense of operating a motor vehicle without a driver’s license and failure to stop at a stop sign, with both infractions coming Feb. 24 at the intersection of Observatory Drive and Babcock Drive on the University of Wisconsin campus.
Midway through the second half Sunday, things were looking pretty grim for the University of Wisconsin womenâ??s basketball team.
The Badgers were struggling to score and after dominating most of the first half, they found themselves trailing Kentucky, 30-23, in a Womenâ??s National Invitational Tournament second-round game at the Kohl Center.
Want to help the Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team celebrate another NCAA championship?
Fans are invited to attend a welcome home celebration for the Badgers on Monday at 6 p.m. at the Nicholas Johnson Pavilion, which can be accessed via Gate B at the Kohl Center.
BOSTON — Sundayâ??s NCAA women’s hockey championship game could have been called a lot of things.
Hard-fought? Certainly. Suspenseful? Briefly. Close? Not even.
Senior forward and team captain Erika Lawler tallied three assists and senior goaltender Jessie Vetter notched another shutout as the Badgers routed Mercyhurst 5-0, nabbing their third national title in four years.
â??Weâ??re all just really excited right now,” Lawler said. “It was definitely the ideal way to go out.â?
Wisconsin goalie Jessie Vetter has won the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the nation’s most outstanding NCAA Division I women’s hockey player.
The winningest goalie in women’s NCAA hockey history, Vetter beat out Sarah Vaillancourt, last year’s winner, and Mercyhurst forward Meghan Agosta.
Vetter will lead her top-ranked team into Sunday’s national championship game against Mercyhurst. The Badgers are seeking their third title in four years.
Wisconsin clearly defined itself as the best team in womenâ??s college hockey yesterday, turning aside a strong effort by a young Mercyhurst squad with relative ease for a 5-0 victory in the Frozen Four championship game yesterday in front of 2,437 at Agganis Arena.
The win wrapped up an era of dominance by the Badgersâ?? senior class, which set an NCAA record by appearing in four consecutive Frozen Four championship games and took home three titles.
How did this team lose two games this season?
The top-ranked Wisconsin women’s hockey team started slowly, gained speed, and then sprinted away with the national championship yesterday, running roughshod over Mercyhurst, 5-0, before 2,437 at Agganis Arena. Wisconsin (34-2-5) claimed its third national title in its fourth trip to the final in four years.
UW-Madison police shocked a woman with a Taser in October at a Badgers football game after she took a swing at the officers and kicked one of them in the leg twice, according to a federal court filing Friday.
But the attorney for Margaret Hiebing, who sued the officers Feb. 20, said the kicks never happened.
Responding to allegations in Hiebing’s federal civil rights lawsuit, the state attorney general’s office, which is representing three UW-Madison police officers, said police tried to remove Hiebing from her seat because she was causing a disturbance at the Oct. 11 game. That led to the Taser incident.
BOSTON — For the third time in four years, multiple members of the UW women’s hockey team received All-America honors.
Senior goaltender Jessie Vetter and sophomore forward Hilary Knight were both named RBK Hockey/AHCA Division I first team All-Americans Thursday night. This marks Vetter’s second All-America honor and is the first time since 2007 that multiple Badgers were named to the team.
Some people come to a crossroads in their life and are so caught up in deciding which way to go that they miss all the great scenery around them.
Meghan Duggan, the junior right winger for the University of Wisconsin womenâ??s hockey team, has stopped for a moment to take it all in.
â??It gives me the chills,â? she said.
Marcus Landry’s vision of the future is still a bit clouded.
He has a fairly full – and far-ranging – list of ideas he hopes to fit in, from hosting his own cooking television show to teaching in an inner city school.
All the while Landry, a senior forward on the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team, wants to provide for his family, which consists of wife, Efueko, and children Marcus Jr., Mariah and Makaylah.
This much is clear, though: Like his older brother Carl, a forward for the NBA’s Houston Rockets, he wants to play professional basketball at the highest level.
The University of Wisconsin Badger basketball team is going to Boise, Idaho, for the NCAA Tournament, but the big question is whether their fans will follow them.
With Boise a nearly 24-hour drive from Madison, flying seems to be the only practical option for diehard Badger fans.
The Badgers made a previous NCAA trip there in the 2001 tournament.
The University of Wisconsin womenâ??s basketball team knows itâ??s going to play in the Womenâ??s National Invitation Tournament. The Badgers just donâ??t know who theyâ??re going to play or when theyâ??ll get to play them.
The Badgers (18-14) received a first-round bye and will play host to the winner of Wednesdayâ??s first-round game between Kentucky and Chattanooga. The second-round game is expected to be held at the Kohl Center but the date and time were not immediately announced, though it is expected to be held Sunday.
Marquette got the news late Monday that it would get a chance to defend the WNIT title it won a year ago and the Wisconsin Badger also won a berth, and a first-round bye.
The perplexing finishes of the Wisconsin men’s basketball team intrigued coach Bo Ryan so much that he didn’t review just the final 10 possessions of the team’s recent collapse against Ohio State. He and his staff looked at the final 10 possessions of every Big Ten game this season.
What he learned might surprise you.
“We fared pretty well,” he said, “and actually better than we thought.”
Former University of Wisconsin-Madison star running back P.J. Hill was arrested on a drunken driving charge last weekend after he allegedly led police on a short chase, then crashed his car near his campus-area home.
Hill, 22, who decided in January to skip his senior season and enter the National Football League draft, appeared in Dane County Circuit Court on Monday on tentative charges of drunken driving, fleeing police, second-degree reckless endangerment, driving without headlights and reckless driving.
University of Wisconsin-Madison star running back P.J. Hill was arrested this weekend on suspicion of driving under the influence and other charges.
The 22-year-old is accused of drunken driving and leading UW police on a chase early Saturday morning. He was arrested on 2:30 a.m. after officers were called to the Open Pantry convenience store on Randall Avenue and Regent Street near campus after a car hit a guard rail and then apparently kept going. Officers said that that they quickly spotted a vehicle driven by Hill that allegedly matched the one in the hit-and-run.
The Badgers (19-12) received the No. 12 seeding in the East Region of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and will play No. 5 Florida State (25-9) at approximately 9 p.m. in Boise on Friday. If the Badgers win, they’ll face No. 4 Xavier or No. 13 Portland State.
Pity the poor Cornell fans.
No, not because their beloved Big Red drew Big 12 champ Missouri in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Because Cornell wound up in Boise, Idaho, a place that’s as tough to get to from upstate New York as it is costly. Think “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” minus John Candy and the oompa band.
The dismal economy wasn’t lost on the NCAA tournament selection committee, which was even more mindful than usual of keeping teams as close to home as possible. But when three conferences have seven teams in the tournament, another two are sending six and there are rules limiting who can play each other when, some teams are going to wind up far from home.
Itâ??s almost impossible to imagine a student-athlete at the University of Wisconsin having a fuller, more rewarding existence than Jessie Vetter.
Man, woman. White, minority. Full ride, walk-on. Team sport, individual. Then, now. It doesnâ??t matter how you break it down.
Vetter has spent the past five years joyously squeezing every last drop of satisfaction out of her multi-faceted world.
Jay Bilasâ?? analysis sounds rather obvious, but it applies perfectly to a good chunk of the 65 teams in the NCAA menâ??s basketball tournament field.
And the University of Wisconsin is among those teams.
â??There are a lot of teams (the Badgers) could beat, but there are also a lot of teams that could beat them,â? the ESPN analyst said in a phone interview before UW learned its Selection Sunday fate.
Noted: Chicago 2016, the organization making the bid, has already spent millions in detailed planning as part of its pitch for the $4-billion games. Because there’s no suitable site for cycling in Chicago, an auxiliary facility called the Wisconsin Olympic Village would be constructed on the UW-Madison campus in the Natatorium area. “For the mountain bike and road cycling competitions, cyclists and officials will stay in a brand-new student residential complex at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on the beautiful shores of Lake Mendota,” offers Chicago 2016’s bid book.
America’s second-most famous pilot will be grand marshal for the 28th annual Crazylegs Classic race in Madison on April 24, race organizers announced.
Jeffrey Skiles, the co-pilot of U.S. Airways flight 1549 that made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York City on Jan. 15, will be on hand when thousands of participants line up on Capitol Square for the runs and walks to support University of Wisconsin-Madison athletics.
Marcus Landry really believes people forgot.
It might seem like ages since that the Wisconsin men’s basketball team stormed into Indianapolis and validated its regular-season title with a tournament crown won by sandwiching double-digit victories over Michigan and Illinois around a 12-point come-from-behind victory over Michigan State.
Many expected that team to win the Big Ten tournament. This year, the Badgers (19-11) are an underdog.
Lisa Stone has had more than a few achievements in her career, including an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance as a basketball coach and many honors as a player.
But one particular statistic makes her happiest. At one point a few years ago, 13 of her former players were working as coaches at various levels.
“That was my proudest moment,” said Stone, who has been the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach since 2003.
That sentiment didn’t last long, however.
First impressions, second thoughts and the third degree:
The debate whether Lisa Stone is the best person to coach the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team has grown more spirited despite three straight winning seasons, but no matter how much angst and statistical data you bring to the table, one reality trumps all others: The bill. â?¦
It will cost UW Athletics a minimum of $550,000 to make a coaching change â?? which starts with buying out the last two years of her contract â?? and the tab pushes beyond $1 million with the hiring of a new staff. Those are jarring totals for a department looking to cut costs. â?¦
Canadians Meghan Agosta and Sarah Vaillancourt are among the three finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the top player in NCAA Division I women’s hockey.
Agosta is a junior forward with Mercyhurst College and Vaillancourt is a senior forward at Harvard University. The third finalist is University of Wisconsin goaltender Jessie Vetter.
