Category: Athletics

University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema’s administrative assistant, Lisa Powell, came into the office on Monday and asked if they should high-five.

Long before Jim Doyle became governor of the state of Wisconsin, he was living the ultimate jock story: star basketball player for Madison West who married the homecoming queen. Doyle’s basketball playing days diminished while studying at Stanford, the University of Wisconsin and Harvard, and while serving in the Peace Corps and beginning a successful political career. But his love for the game hasn’t diminished and Doyle has been an avid, long-time supporter of UW men’s basketball.

To the University of Wisconsin hockey team and the Green Bay Packers, for making the Frozen Tundra hockey game between the Badgers and the Ohio State Buckeyes at Lambeau Field on Feb. 11 such a big success. More than 40,000 fans went to the game, one of the few outdoor games held in football stadiums. Besides the game, the Badgers and the host Packers teamed for other events, such as an autograph signing and a chance to see the Stanley Cup. The game certainly isn’t an every-year proposition, but we’d welcome another hockey game at Lambeau whenever the Badgers want to come back.

Earl Lane, named Sunday as Wisconsin’s defensive line coach, has decided to return to the south and take a position as the defensive line coach at Louisiana State.

John Settle was busy preparing for his ninth season as Fresno State’s running backs coach when his phone rang last week.

On the line was Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema, who was looking to add a running backs coach to complete his first staff. Settle flew to Madison on Monday, interviewed on Tuesday and on Wednesday was named UW’s running backs coach.

Bill Nayes, football operations coordinator and head of team travel for the Seattle Seahawks since Feb. 2000, was named assistant athletic director and director of football operations at Wisconsin, head coach Bret Bielema announced in a press release yesterday.

Bill Nayes knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to tell his boss that he was taking a job as the director of football operations at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin.

Nayes’ boss?

Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren.

Bill Nayes, football operations coordinator / team travel with the Seattle Seahawks since February of 2000, has been named assistant athletic director / director of football operations at Wisconsin, UW officials announced Tuesday.

The logistics appear nightmarish, and a cooperative non-conference opponent probably would have to be willing to give up a home date to make it work.

But if the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team can call Lambeau Field home for a game, why can’t the UW football team do the same one day?

GREEN BAY, Wis. Wisconsin hockey at Lambeau Field could lead to Badger football.

U-W Madison associate athletic director John Chadima says a home game in Green Bay in unlikely, since Camp Randall has contracts with its suite and club seat holders. But, the door’s open on playing a nonconference game with a team willing to give up a home game to play at Lambeau.

The Lambeau Leap may never be the same.

One by one, members of the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team, in full uniform and with their skates still laced, moved from the temporary rink inside Lambeau Field to the stands at the north end of the stadium Saturday afternoon.

Up and over the green wall they went, into the waiting arms of their fans, some fully dressed and others naked from the waist up, to celebrate a memorable day for the program and a critical victory for coach Mike Eaves’ team.

Bob Bostad is coming home. Bostad, a 39-year-old native of Pardeeville and a graduate of UW-Stevens Point, is joining coach Bret Bielema’s first staff at Wisconsin to coach the Badgers’ tight ends.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mark Johnson for talking me off of the ledge.

With the Winter Olympics opening today in Italy, I was thinking about taking the plunge into the dangerous waters of declining Olympic relevance.

Since everyone is asking the same questions about the Frozen Tundra Hockey Classic – the University of Wisconsin men’s game against Ohio State at Lambeau Field at 3 p.m. Saturday – it’s best to answer them right off the top.

If there are no open spots on the University of Wisconsin football staff, coach Bret Bielema had better create one � for a baby sitter.

Nobody should be naive about big-time college sports: the teams aren’t made up of angels and boy scouts.

But what the Wisconsin program has gone through lately borders on ridiculous. Eight players have been arrested in the last 42 days.

P.J. Hill, a freshman running back on the University of Wisconsin football team, was allegedly wielding a baseball bat during an altercation Jan. 26 that resulted in his suspension from the team.

According to UW Police Department Lt. Eric Holen, Hill has been charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct while armed for brandishing a baseball bat during a 2:15 a.m. disturbance outside Sellery Hall last month.

Madison: The line up of Badger football players in trouble with the law keeps growing, but the athletic department is trying to stress the positives.

The latest incident involved 4 freshmen on the football team.

UW Police say just after 2 in the morning on January 26th P.J Hill, Jonathan Casillas, Elijah Hodge and Javery McFadden were involved in an altercation outside the Sellery Residence Hall.

Q: During games at the Kohl Center, there are intermittent flashes of light on the playing floor that come from overhead. What are they? Can they be eliminated? These flashes are extremely annoying for the fans.

When the second semester began, the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team had a 14-2 record and was solidly in the Top 10 of the Ratings Percentage Index.
Since then, the Badgers – who play Indiana tonight at the Kohl Center – are 1-5 and have dropped to 25th in the RPI, a measure of strength of schedule and performance against that schedule that the NCAA uses to set its tournament field.

The University of Wisconsin athletic department has an image problem.

During a 42-day span from Dec. 16 through Jan. 26, eight UW football players were arrested or issued citations by police, with several of the alleged crimes violent in nature. Five players were suspended from the team, including two repeat offenders, and one player was dismissed from the team.

Including the latest incident, involving four players, one football player was arrested every 5.3 days during that 42-day span.

The president of Zeppos & Associates, a Milwaukee public relations firm, said Tuesday that UW officials must take swift and decisive action to address the growing problem and reassure frustrated fans and alumni and prospective students.

The idea of flooding Lambeau Field’s famously frozen tundra for a college hockey game this weekend might seem like a natural – but nature actually has very little to do with the transformation under way on the stadium playing field.

More than 30 miles of plastic pipes coursing with 3,000 gallons of pink anti-freeze have been laid on a plywood platform on the north end of the football field. The fluid, chilled to around 10 degrees Fahrenheit by a rumbling 300-ton refrigeration system parked under the stands, is needed to ensure that the gridiron has been properly iced in time for the 3 p.m. Saturday faceoff between the University of Wisconsin Badgers and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The athletes who represent Wisconsin on this year’s U.S. Winter Olympics team are remarkable men and women whose dedication to achieve their dreams should inspire us all.
The Olympic team officially lists 10 competitors from Wisconsin. They include speedskaters Casey FitzRandolph of Verona, a gold medalist in 2002, and Tucker Fredricks of Janesville as well as curler Maureen Brunt, a native of Portage, and former UW-Madison hockey player Molly Engstrom of Siren. Other Olympians have Wisconsin connections, including ski jumper Clint Jones, a Monroe native, and former UW hockey players Chris Chelios and Brian Rafalski.

A 3-year-old dog owned by a former UW-Madison football player attacked and killed another student’s toy-sized puppy Sunday afternoon outside a campus-area apartment building, police said.

Bret Bielema officially has been on the job as head coach of the University of Wisconsin football team for less than a week and already he’s got a major public relations problem on his hands.

As he works to fill out his first coaching staff at Wisconsin, Bret Bielema might want to consider hiring a public relations firm to clean up the image of the UW program.

That image suffered another hit Monday.

P.J. Hill, a promising freshman tailback who redshirted last season, has been suspended indefinitely from the team for violating the school’s student-athlete discipline policy, school officials announced Monday.

….(A.J. Degenhardt is the only UW player left using the classic wooden stick. Others have moved on to sticks made of synthetic material, and the cost reflects it.

In the past five years, the amount the Badgers spend on sticks has doubled, UW director of hockey operations Rob Malnory said. This season, he expects to spend around $70,000 of the team’s budget on sticks alone.

New Badgers head coach Bret Bielema announced Thursday that UW-Madison junior and former running back Booker Stanley has been dismissed from the UW football team.

Junior Booker Stanley, who likely would have gone into spring practice as the No. 1 tailback on the University of Wisconsin football team, has been dismissed from the program, coach Bret Bielema announced Thursday.

Faced with his first disciplinary decision as Wisconsin’s head football coach, Bret Bielema acted swiftly and boldly.

He dismissed junior tailback Booker Stanley from the team Thursday, his second day on the job.

Text messaging isn’t a new phenomenon, but it certainly is building more and more momentum with each passing day because most college coaches consider it an efficient way to correspond with high school prospects.

“It’s quick. It’s responsive. And it’s informative,” said University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema.

It’s also becoming more and more controversial as its popularity soars — to the point where the NCAA and American Football Coaches Association are keeping a close eye on the practice.

With the Winter Olympics just around the corner, it�s hard to forget the triumph of the 1980 Unites States Olympic hockey team and the people who made it possible.

It remains to be seen where University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema’s first recruiting class ultimately ranks with the national pundits.

But the class has already earned at least one No. 1 ranking.

Bret Bielema’s first football recruiting class at the University of Wisconsin in many ways fits the model he described last week to the UW Athletic Board.

The 23-player class, to be announced today after the players sign national letters of intent, consists largely of players from UW’s traditional recruiting areas.

Dear Editor: As I begin my new duties as full-time director of athletics at the University of Wisconsin, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of the great fans of Wisconsin football for all of their support during my 16 years as head football coach. We accomplished a great deal during that time, but none of it would have been possible without your undying loyalty and enthusiasm.

I also want to say thank you to all of the student-athletes who worked so hard during all those years, and a heartfelt thanks to all of our great assistant football coaches and support staff whose behind-the-scenes work had such a positive impact on the program.

Barry Alvarez
Director of athletics
UW-Madison

As upset as some members of the red-sweater crowd are with the news of the UW men’s basketball program’s first academic casualties in 11 seasons, the Badger Nation may want to brace itself:

The worst news concerning this situation, potentially, is yet to come.

….The fact that three UW players were ineligible in the same semester not only hurts this year’s Badgers, but has the potential to haunt Ryan’s program down the road.

Bret Bielema’s first offensive line coach at Wisconsin comes with deep ties to the program, as well a lasting emotional bond with one of UW’s most popular head coaches.

Bob Palcic, 57, on Tuesday was named the Badgers’ line coach. He replaces Jim Hueber, who joined the Minnesota Vikings’ staff under longtime friend Brad Childress.

Booker Stanley appeared briefly in court Monday for a status conference, which determined a Feb 21, 2006 date for his preliminary hearing on charges stemming from an alleged domestic dispute, according to Stanley�s lawyer, Dennis Burke.

University of Wisconsin running back Booker Stanley appeared at the Dane County Courthouse Monday to set up a preliminary hearing for next month.

The college recruiting experience can be an eye-opener for a prep athlete.