Full Show - 9/20/2025

Full show from the Donovan & Jorgenson Heating & Cooling Studio: Saturday, September 20th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into the Varsity Blitz high school sports show presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores
only on Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeartRadio app
coming live from the Donovan and Jorgensen. He did'ted cooling
studios to the boys from Whitefish Bay that are coming
in for the ten o'clock hour. Bring a sweatshirt. Bring

(00:20):
a sweatshirt. It is cold in the studio today, can
tell you that. Let me run down today's show nine o'clock.
Right now, we're going to talk to the football coach
at Carthage. They got a game coming up this afternoon.
Wanted to reach out to Matt and have him on
for a little while. We're then going to go over
to the AAYFL talk some youth football for a while.
Patrick Schuster is going to join me in studio from

(00:42):
the Greendale youth football program and they are part of
the AAYFL. Looking forward to talking to Patrick. At ten o'clock.
Jake Walter, head football coach at Whitefish Bay, and four
of his players are coming in studio. Was on the
sidelines for their game last night and they went out
to see and beat Cedarberg and looking forward to having
Jake and a number of his players to talk some

(01:04):
blue duke football that ten o'clock hour. But to start
the show, we're joined by the head football coach from
Carthage College. He is Matt Popino, and I get a
chance to interview him every once while on the sidelines
of the high school game of the week, and I said, hey,
when you start getting some Wisconsin boys coming to Carthage,
when you start recruiting our kids from the state of Wisconsin, brother,

(01:28):
you can come on my show anytime. And I talked
to him last week. He said, you see our roster.
I said I kind of did. He said, we're starting
and I said you are, and I'd love to have
y on. I'm a big fan of this young man.
And I'm telling you, guys, I have complained to coaches
from Carthage for years that you're not giving our kids

(01:48):
a chance from the state of Wisconsin to play at
the next level. Well, Matt Popino's doing that. And I said,
come on, coach, let's talk about it. They got a
big game today. Coach, first and foremost, good luck in
your game today. But I appreciate a couple of minutes
of your time, especially on game day. How you doing great? Now?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I appreciate the time, Mike and the kind words. And
like you said, I mean, Wisconsin has been a big
priority for us in recruiting. You know, I took over
the roster in January of twenty four there was only
twenty guys on our entire roster from Wisconsin. And you
know we were able to bring in twenty three guys
in our first recruiting class from Wisconsin alone. And you know,
like I said, fifteen guys from Rating if you're from

(02:27):
Kenosha too, and a couple from Milwaukee. So we've made
a big priority to get Wisconsin guys in our backyard
to come here and see the opportunities academically and athletically
here at Carthage.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Hey, Matt, give us your background. You're a young guy,
and I love the fact and reading your bio. You've
been around football now for a long time and you
made the decision, you and your wife made the decision
to take the job at Carthage. And I know that
you've had some success in an assistant coach. It's a

(02:59):
long wait those six inches on the bench from an
assistant coach to a head coach. Is it might as
well be ten miles and I love the fact that
that you know you have taken this. But bull by
the horns and said, look, one of our number one
priorities is get kids from from the state of Wisconsin.
But talk to me about that first year last year

(03:19):
as the head coach at Carthage. Look, there's a lot
of things you don't know as an assistant coach. You
think you know, but until you're in that position as
the head of the program, there are a lot of
things in that template. The first year makes things a
little bit easier the second year. But talk to me
about that transition for being an assistant coach to a

(03:39):
a head guy.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean the well I had. I
had a coach that I worked for a Rutgers that
was the assistant there, and you know, he told me,
becoming a head coach it's kind of like a parent,
Like you can read all the books and prepare as
much you want, but you're never really prepared, so you
actually become one. So I mean, I'm taking this job.
I was excited because of obviously the campus, the academic opportunities.

(04:02):
I knew that coming to Cartage that whether you play
one snap here or a thousand snaps here, You're gonna
get a great four year degree, great internship opportunities between
Chicago and Milwaukee, and even the city of Kenosha itself
with the opportunity it's like Amazon U line jockey Harbo.
So I just felt like there's a ton of opportunities
for every kid that I can recruit here, and I know,
no matter what the situations, are going to get a

(04:23):
great degree here. And I also felt like in our
first year it was a big just establishing a culture
where the kids know that we have their best interests, right.
We always talked about that it's not tough love. We
love stuff like we like, we have your best interests,
not just as a football player, but as a person here.
And we were able to kind of help clean those
things up. And like our guys, you know, I took over,

(04:44):
we were two sixteen GPA, we were at three to
zero this past semester, We've had guys you know, attending
other sporting events around campus, being more involved in the community.
And I think there's been a great buy in from
our kids that think they know that we care about
them a lot as like a whole person and not
just Hey, I'm a tackling I could block, or if
I can't block, the coaches don't talk to me. They
know that we kind of care about the whole person.

(05:07):
So that first year is a challenge, obviously establishing the
culture and getting the guys that buy in. But these
kids have been great here, and our administration has been awesome,
and it's been great here. We're excited to kind of
continue to build here in here.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Two. Hey, you know when I get a chance to
interview guys from the emissions department on the sidelines, you
know you're this is the third year in row that
you guys have said Carthage is set a record for
for incoming freshman class numbers. And I am such a
fan of the campus at Carthage. If if if a

(05:39):
student athlete and their family has not been on campus
and you and you're recruiting them, and you get the
family to come on a Saturday or just come and
the day of a practice and they see the campus,
are you surprised that how many people walk on that
campus to go wow? I never knew how beautiful in

(06:00):
it here.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm surprised how many people don't realize what's being offered
here sometimes between our facilities, our academics. Obviously, the lake
is beautiful, the area is beautiful. We got a new
turf field last year, so we have great facilities, great
athlete only weight rooms, great locker rooms, great recovery rooms
for our athletes, great classrooms, newer buildings. So I think

(06:23):
people come here and kind of just never realize what's
right in their backyard. And I think, like to your point,
with the class size being three years in a row,
the biggest the Carpus has ever had, that's not just
an ATHLETs thing, that's an academic thing. That's just students
in general understanding what's being offered here academically, what type
of experiences they're going to get, what type of internship

(06:44):
opportunities they're going to get with our four year guarantee
graduation here. So if they want to change their major,
if they're not sure, like we're going to help you
still graduating four years here. So I think the whole
picture here at Carthage that people maybe don't realize sometimes.
So they get on this campus and they're like, wow,
is beautiful. And I think when they come to our
practices they see a lot of energy, like our practices

(07:05):
like they're competitive, they're fun, Guys are joking, chart guys
that jump up and down chairing each other on It's
just an energetic environment. So I think it's it's something
that I kind of take for granted, maybe myself sometimes
where I'm like, how great this place is and how
many people maybe don't realize it. I think it's like
a given. And maybe some families when they come to campus,

(07:25):
they're they're shell shocked about how great the campus is
and the opportunities that are being presented here, and.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
And the facilities are are great, and and the other
part of the scholarships that that that they can give
out for academics is really high and and financial aid.
There's a lot that that Carthage has to offer. And
then they get a chance to to to play for
you and play for your staff. I think once you

(07:51):
get them on campus, did you get to their kitchen
table or in their in their living room to talk
to their parents about what it's going to take to
go from a high school to then come to Carthage
be able to play and the academics that you guys offer.
There's so much that you can offer, coach, and I
like the fact that when we talk on the sidelines, Look,

(08:12):
you don't just talk to me about what you're running
offensively and who's the defensive coordinator. You talk about the
entire experience of being part of the Carthage family and
all of the help with the tutors and all the
things that you can offer kids when they're coming from
from high school to now being on their own, having

(08:34):
to take care of their academics without their mom and
dad getting on them a little bit. And I love
the fact that you have those conversations with me, and
then you certainly have them with these sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
year old kids.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Absolutely like I, like I said, I want what I love,
Like I came from a small high school, small college
obviously at Rutgers, but I've always gravitated this small college
because I want you to be successful as a whole person.
I think everything matters. Like I want you to succeed
in the classroom. I want you to see as a person,
and then obviously I want you to succeed on the
football field. But kind of your point, like to me,

(09:10):
it's the whole picture. It's like we're instilling these guys'
values that will carry them for forty years of their life.
I think that's what's important to me as a head
coach and what we're trying to still in our program
and something that I was told as a young coaches,
players don't care how much you know until they know
how much you care. So that's why I try to
try it with our assistant coaches and myself and try
to show them the opportunities here and let them know

(09:32):
that we're here to help them and support them in
every way possible and push them to be the best
versions of themselves. So I think that's what we've instilled
here and the guys that really enjoyed that. I really
believe that.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Guys, we're talking to Matt Pipedo, he's a head football
coach at Carthage. They've got a game today and that
against just anybody number one team in the country. Are
your boys ready for this one today? Coach?

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Oh yeah, we're ju just up like we're all about competing.
Here a great opportunity to compete, and and you know,
obviously Brad over there at North Central coach Spencer and
those guys that have done an amazing job of that program,
and for us, it's an opportunity to get better. It's
an opportunity to grow, it's an opportunity to compete with
the best. And if you're a competitor, you love that.
You want to face the best.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, going down to North Central down in Naperville, Illinois,
coach last on the sixth of September, you got to
win against Lakeland University. Looking at the stats, you guys
didn't throw the ball a whole lot, didn't need to.
You rush for almost three hundred yards and threw the
ball thirteen times for two touchdowns, ten for thirteen your quarterbacks.

(10:42):
And if somebody were to ask you, are you more
of a spread kind of guide you like three yards
in a cloud of dust? Looking at the stats, you
didn't need to throw the ball a ton, But it
looks to be like, if you guys need to, you
certainly have the skill set and some guys that can
can can throw it a little bit.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I think we're fortunately have a great coaching staff with
coach Dubin Deck, our offensive coordinator coming from Saint Thomas,
Eastern Michigan, Michigan State, I feel like we're more of
that pro style multiple offense. You know, it's more like
an NFL system where we could get big, we could
get heavy, but we can also spread out. And I
think it's just what was it going to take to win.

(11:25):
I think we felt like that game grounded pale is
the way to go and be efficient in the past game.
And I think to me, it's like whatever it takes
to win. If it's five hundred yards passing and no
yards rushing or vice versa. To us, it's whatever it
takes to win the football game.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, you guys actually rushed for three hundred and five
total yards. Your quarterback was minus eleven. Must have been
a sack at Obviously he's not Michael Vick, but boyle boy,
he could do nine for eleven for three touchdowns. I'd
be pretty happy with that starting quarterback. Other than the
minus eleven rushing yards. I guess, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
I mean Easton's first start, you know, only a sophomore.
We don't have a quarterback on the roster that's older
in a sophomore, so it was his first start.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
And Jack d.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Philippus got some time in Maine South Illinois kid, and
they did a great job being fishing in the past
game and making good decisions that were helped set up
with a great running game with Bryce and Mark and
the old line. So we're really fortunate that, you know,
in that fact, and Bryce Frank did a great job,
and Marshall wisconstant kid, and and we're really proud of
what we're able to do with the run game that's

(12:30):
set up that a fishing passing game.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Guys, their their next home game is going to be
a September twenty seventh against Illinois Westland University down at
Art color Field at Carthage. If you've thought about going
down to watch them play, if you have a son
who is a high school football player, whether he's on
JV right now, is a freshman in high school, or

(12:55):
he's on varsity, if you're thinking, boy, he'd like to
play at the next level, we haven't thought about Carthage
as an opportunity. I would go down there one o'clock
kick on the twenty seventh of September. Go down there,
get a feel for what that campus is like. I
would get there around eleven thirty and walk around the campus.
You know. I would also let the head football coach

(13:18):
let Matt know that you're coming on campus and you're
gonna see their game and take a look at what
that would feel like and see if your son can
can feel like that could be home for him. And
I'm telling you that this coaching staff, under the direction
of Matt Pepino, have made a concerted effort of giving

(13:38):
the kids from the state of Wisconsin a chance to
play at the next level. And I thank him for that,
because again, I still get coaches from fifteen years ago saying,
do you remember you had a college coach on and
you cut the interview off in three minutes after you
looked at the roster, and I go, I did, But
that's not the deal anymore. Look at Carthage roster. You've

(13:59):
got kids from all over the state of Wisconsin playing
at Carthage now. And that's because Matt Pepino and his
staff have said, these are the kids. We're going to
recruit kids from our own state and give them a
chance to play at the next level. And again I
thank them for that. Hey, coach, good luck today. You
know today's going to be I really you're going to
be able to know good or bad where your team stits.

(14:22):
But number one team in the country, North Central College
down in Daperville and Illinois. You'll get a good good
feel on what you guys need to work on next
week before you play Illinois. Westland and Coach, thank you
so much for the time that you give me on
the sidelines to high school games and for this show.
I really appreciate it absolutely.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Mike, thanks for having me on. Thank you for the
kind words and support for our program. Like I said,
we want to keep building us with Wisconsin dudes. So
really appreciate the kind of words, and we'd love to
get some Wisconsin dudes on campus here for this fall
for a game.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Hey, Matt, last question, like, I don't know how old
you are, but you look look like you're twenty one
to me, and so I'm one of those old guys.
Does that give you an advantage because you're not that
far removed from from the college experience.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
I'm thirty three. I got the I know, I got
the baby face, but I guess it's a good thing.
I just I try to bring energy every day for
our guys and bring a lot of juice and and
let them know that, you know, I'm a guy that
they could talk to and joke with and and and
just have a relationship with. I'm not just you know,
just their coach, but I'm a mentor for them and
someone that's looking out for them. So I try to

(15:32):
use that used to advantage.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
I guess, and you should. You should. You're still probably
getting carted down there in Kenosha, and that's not a
bad thing, Matthew. I gotta gotta be honest with you, brother.
Thank you very much. Good luck today, good luck the
rest of the way, and we'll be a touch. We'll
have you back on later in the year.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Thanks, Mike, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
You got it. We're gonna get you a break. The
other side of the break. Patrick Schuster, he made it.
He made it, went to the wrong radio station. I'mna
give him a little smack for that. Ayfl he runs
the Greendale youth football program. We're gonna talk to him
about that ten o'clock. Jake Walter, head football coach at
Whitefish Bay, and a number four of his players are

(16:13):
going to join us in studio and that second hour
of the Varsity Blitz, we'll talk some blue duke football.
But before that, Patrick Schuster will join us as we
talk youth football, especially Greendale youth football. Coming up on
the other side of the break. This is the Varsity
Blitz High School Sports Show presented by your local Pick
and Save and Metro Market stores only on Fox Sports

(16:35):
nine twenty and your iHeartRadio App. Welcome back to the
Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show presented by your local
Pick and Save and Metro Market stores on Fox Sports
nine twenty and your iHeartRadio App. Coming live from the
Donovan and Jorgans and Heating and Cooling studios. The cooling
part works, the cooling part it does. We gotta get

(16:55):
might want to get Donovan Jorgenson over here, the largest
employee owned HVAC company in the state of Wisconsin. I
am part of their maintenance program for under two hundred bucks.
They come out twice a year, check the furnace, check
the air conditioner, and they find small issues before they
become major problems. Go to Donovan Jorgensen dot com. So

(17:16):
Patrick Schuster went to the wrong place, and the reason
being I gave him the wrong address. I'm taking the
blame for Patrick.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
I wasn't gonna call you out.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
No, I'm calling myself out. One hundred and twenty. First,
in grains, there's just houses. There were very nice houses.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, yeah, they were a little weird when I started
knocking on doors.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, well, hey, where's Mike mcgivert Mike and your basement.
I have not been in that radio station one hundred
and eighteenth in Grains in a long time, number of years,
so I apologize to you for that. It's good to
meet you in person. How long you've been You been
involved with the AOIFL for a while.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
I have. I with Greendelle itself. I started when I
moved back. So my wife and I moved back to
Greenville right when my oldest son was born, and that
was twenty three now, wow, and he was where you
move back from. We lived in Iowa for five years.
My wife worked at the University of Iowa and I
worked for a small phone company there. But once our

(18:11):
first was born, we said we wanted to be by family.
I grew up in Greenville. I played for the Greendale
Youth program. I went to Greendelle High School and we
happen to find a house man.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
That's awesome. Yeah, you happy to be home.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
I love being home.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
A boy can't come home.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
No, it couldn't. And it worked really well. Sadly, I
lost my dad this past April.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
I'm sorry, but no, it's okay.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
It was great though that I was here for those
last few years, being back home. It's always good to
be home, and you can be lost.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
My mom a couple of years ago, and I miss her, Yeah,
I miss her. She listed to this show religiously every week,
but always forgot and I'm putting up in quote that
I did a home improvement show prior. Oh I always
forget that one, Michael. But because she knows I can't
do any home improvements on my own. And she'd always say, Man,
if your dad was alive, he would think it's the

(18:59):
funniest thing ever that you're doing a show. But then
the high school show, she would listen every week and
she would call me right after the show and say, Hey,
was that coach a good guy? Was that? Were those
kids good kids? Was that kid out? Tall? Was he?
And I'm like six at my the kid barely fitted
the studio that kind of stuff. So I'm sorry that

(19:20):
that your fathers. But he was a big part of
the AA.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yep. He used to run the equipment for Greendale, which
kind of was set that bug for me. Is my
basement growing up was one wall was all Greendale twinite
baseball equipment. Right down the middle was enough uniforms helmet,
shoulder pads, pants to suit one hundred kids for Greendale
youth football.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
So, man, hey, you're not coaching anymore.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
And not on the youth level.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Nope.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
I still coach at the high school level. Okay, I
gave up coaching at the youth level. Oh, it's been
six years now. Once my oldest son, he went on
to St. Norbert College. He played four years of football there.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
I see the jacket you have yep.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
So it was a little bit hard being around on
saturdays because I was up there. And then my youngest
son played at lacrosse, so that my saturdays just became busy.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
But you're still involved with a still I still run it.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
I'm I'm part of the board for the AIFL. They
me and Dan Snell and another one of the board members,
kind of the long term guys that have been there
for quite a while.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
A lot of Snells on that board there are quick
and it's a great family. You're a great family. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Their dedication is amazing and they're all good guys.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Well, I got to tell you so. Greg Clark called
me and the second year that you guys been involved
with what I do, and and I didn't know. I
knew of Greig, but I didn't know a whole lot
about I knew about the a YFL, but I didn't
know a lot about the mission statement and what they
they are trying to accomplish. And he called and said, hey,

(20:52):
can we can we meet? We want to hook our
wagon to you somehow because the high school and the
varsity blitz that you do. And I said, I don't
understand what you're trying to accomplish. And then when we met,
he said, here's what we would like to do. And
so I put a proposal together and eat one night
a week, I go out and we name AIFL team
of the week. The slinger read eighth grade this last

(21:13):
year or last week. I went out and addressed the
team and gave him a beautiful plaque. And we do
that each week. And that gives me a chance to
meet these coaches and meet these players and some of
the parents around it. And now you guys are involved
with the high school football game of the week on
my twenty four and I get a chance. Last night
I interviewed the guy from Cedarberg who's the president of
the Cedarburgh team, and we'll do a zoom meeting with

(21:35):
the guy who was the president of the white Fish
Bay team organization. And so I'm getting a chance to
meet guys like you, and it always I don't know
why it surprises me. Normally, I would think that the
people that are most involved and the presidents have kids
in the organization. Where your kid's been gone a long
time and you're still running this thing and giving your

(21:58):
time back to this organ What makes you do that
each each year?

Speaker 3 (22:03):
I just to me, it's the importance for these kids
to have the opportunity. I took over from a gentleman,
Jerry Myers. One of our conferences named after him. Great
man ran the program for a long time. Jerry did
a really good job with Greendale. He took it over
actually when we were in like kind of a financial
crisis and Jerry just cleaned house and made our program

(22:24):
turn around. When I got involved with him and he
asked me to take over for him, and that was
a transition time too. We went from checks and cash
to electronic payments. We went from orange uniforms. So if
anybody knows Greendale program, I always wondered why we were orange.
We finally switched over to green and black as our colors,

(22:46):
but in which it should be it should be y. Yeah,
there's a history to it on why and if you
know the history, you're like, oh, that makes sense, And
I'll give you a quick snippet of that. When we
joined the league back in nineteen eighty six, other teams
and there weren't enough home and away you just had
one color jersey. Well, when we joined, we had the

(23:07):
US in Greenfield joined the same year we both went
in green. We lost the coin toss, so then the
colors came down to purple yellow, which right there you
got the Vikings right or orange. We had nothing to
do with that Viking color. So yes, we ended up
being orange. And that's where that orange color came from.
For all those years, there was.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
How many teams in the AOI followed.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
That when they started four, then I believe it went
to six and seventy eight, and then I think we
were up to eight in nineteen eighty one.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Now the largest youth football league in the state of Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, outside of Pop Warner, but that's the national program, correct.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, it'd pretty incredible and What caught my attention to
it is, look, I have grandsons, and you know my
daughter was I don't know if I want them playing
tackle football. And it started with Tom Swa called me
one day and said, look, can we during the summer,

(24:04):
can we do a WFCA show? And I go, well,
I normally talk baseball. What are you thinking? And he
said every other week. It was right when President Obama
said if I had a son, I wouldn't allow him
to play football. And that was shocking to people that
were in and around youth football because of all the
work has been done to teach kids how to tackle correctly.

(24:29):
We're not doing bull in the ring twice a practice.
We're not doing nutcracker twice a practice. People wonder why
I can't remember my nieces and nephew's names because back
at mess where they kept putting me in then some
of those drills, because I was getting blown up half
the time. And nowadays, the idea of doing those type

(24:49):
of drills it's foreign to people because you don't want
to get kids injured. You don't want them to be
afraid to hit. Look, football is a violent sport. There's
going to be some injuries. But if we're smart, if
the adults in the room are smart enough to teach
kids how to do this correctly, to keep your head
out of the game, to tackle the way you should tackle,

(25:10):
we can do this and we can make it as
safe as possible. There are more concussions in soccer nowadays,
I believe then there are in football. Nobody talks about it.
No presidents ever said I won't have my kids play
soccer because of all the concussions. And so when Twitter
came to me and then I start learning about the
AAOIFL in some of these youth football leagues and all

(25:32):
of the training that you guys do to make sure
these coaches understand what you want, and the mission statement
behind the AOIFL is to get as many kids to join,
many communities to join, because the amount of lessons that
you learned as a youth football player, as a high
school football player, and your kids learned, and then to

(25:54):
take that out of the college football field, it's amazing
how many lessons I would get arguments out as a
basketball coach, and I'd get an arguments with Joe Cook
and he'd say, Nope, look, when you have the staff
that we have at the high school level and you
have eighty kids on your roster. That's different than twelve.
And you know you have twelve on your roster in

(26:16):
basketball and they can learn a lot of life lessons,
but football, Look, you're not going to like everybody you
work with when you get older, and you've got to
learn how to deal with that. And Joe Cook convinced
me that the life lessons you learn from being part
of a football team, whether you're the starting quarterback or
either backup holder, it doesn't matter. These kind of lessons
you can learn. And the AOIFL has taken that and said, look,

(26:40):
we're going to teach all these lessons and we're going
to teach you how to play football correctly.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, that's our goal too, I know with me and
at Greendale, the way I approach it too is I
want kids to be active. I want them getting out
of the house, getting off their phones, that kind of things.
We get them out for football. We'll take kids to
play soccer and we're like, look, we'll work around your
soccer program and you can just be here on Saturdays,
that's the one day of the week we want you

(27:06):
to be there. But try something new, get involved my
years of Actually I think I coached youth football for
twenty years. I did three years when I was in college,
and you could just see it in kids that these
kids just want to be a part of something. Or
you also knew the kids that were there because their
parents made him be there. It was that thing. And

(27:28):
dads will get mad, what's wrong. I'm like, your child
doesn't want to play football, and with all due respect,
make him do something like, if you're not going to
play football, go play soccer, go play vollive, be active,
because I think our kids nowadays just are not active enough. Hey,
and that's part of it. They've got to get out there.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
But we're talking to Patrick Schuster as the president of
the Greendale youth football program through the AAYFL. And I've
told this story a lot. But my grandson who's now
a freshman at Lake Country Lutheran, he's young for his class.
He just turned fourteen, and he's a bigger kid, and
he would cry ten times a day for no apparent

(28:05):
reason when he was younger. And my daughter said, we're
putting the tackle football and then I shook my head.
I thought, are you sure? She said, we need to tough.
The boy up a little bit, and I can tell
you Patrick, after their first scrimmage the first year, I
went over to his house and I had a lump
in my stomach, thinking, oh, this is not going to
be good. And I walked in and I said, how'd
you do? He said, I pancakes some kids. I said,

(28:27):
you ate pancakes some kids. He said no, and he
showed me video and he walked away with a swagger.
And I looked at my daughter and she put her
shoulders up, like told you. And this kid is now.
He dresses for varsity games at Lake Country Lutheran. Guy
gets a few snaps, plays JV football, but he's like, Papa,
I don't want to play basketball anymore. And I go, why,

(28:48):
you're pretty good? He goes, they keep calling me for foules.
I go, you won't move those giant feet of yours.
Move here. I've taught you how to take a charge.
And he's like, I want to play lacrosse in football
because I get to hit people. And when he's away
from the field, Patrick, he loves to play the piano.
He reads a lot. He's the nicest kid. He's a
really good student athlete, but he puts that helmet on

(29:11):
and things change a little bit and he's got a
little swagger to him. And it's amazing the lessons that
Logan Bonner has learned. The older grandson said, look, I
don't want to play football anymore. And he was a
good wide receiver, and I said why. He said, I
don't like hitting and I don't like getting hit, and
I go, don't play football. So he's running cross country
playing basketball, and his younger brother, who's six one about

(29:34):
two hundred pounds, is like, you're missing that you're running
all day. I'm getting a chance to just go out
and hit people, and I enjoy it. So the lessons
that these kids have learned through playing youth football, it's
pretty incredible to me.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, it's amazing too, And I've seen it over the years.
I've seen it with my own kids. Is I always
call it this, They flip the switch. They understand, they
hit that point that it just clicks for him. They realize, Yep,
I can be mean, I can be tough within the
rules while I'm on the field. And I even tell

(30:07):
kids that I play with, like you're gonna hit somebody
really really hard, don't unt stick your hand out, help
him up, and help him up, just say we're gonna
do it again.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Hey. Joe Brynner, who is offensive tackle our guard for
the Badger's, played at Whitefish Peck when he was a senior.
I was telling him about my grandson Logan, and I said,
you know, we pancaked this kid. And then I saw
the film he helped the kid up, and he goes,
tell him, not, I don't ever do that. You can
shake his hand after the game, you can be so

(30:36):
kind before the game, but you pancake him. No, you
do not help. And you tell me your grandson, I
don't believe in that, and I go, I will, I'll
let him know because this kid playing at an awfully
high level.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Oh yeah, it was much better than me.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
So, yeah, where did you play?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
I was at Green Dell.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
I didn't play what position.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
This is old time, so I'm not young, but I
was one hundred and eighty five pound guard.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
So really yeah back in the day.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
That's small running back nowadays.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, or a wide receiver, guys in the hair coming
out of the Yeah, that one of the pretty boyson
in today's How is a Greendale varsity team struggling a
little bit right.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Well, this year, yep, it's just a transition year for us.
It's been a long time since we've had a season
that's just been this way said. But we've got a
great bunch of kids and younger team, more inexperienced because
we played a lot of seniors the last few years.
I love these kids to death, but yeah, we just

(31:34):
were we kind of shoot ourselves in a foot with
stupid penalties like happened misplay.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, yeah, they'll be back here, truck, trust me. Greendale's
not a team that that that is not going to
be near the top again next year or the year after,
and they'll get after it. How healthy is the youth program?
How many kids in the youth program?

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Uh, we're sitting right around ninety six. I believe it
was kind of number for us.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Had a good number for you guys.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
That's yeah, it's not a bad number. It's much up.
Like as we talked to you mentioned earlier, the COVID
years too went back up again, which is a good thing.
We always ebb and flow at certain grades. So eighth
grade has got high numbers. We've got one class that's
a little small way actually because of injuries sprain ankles
and family vacations. One of our teams actually had a

(32:22):
forfeit today, sadly, but.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
What creator is that?

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Sixth grade?

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Okay yep.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
And they were a smaller team last year and they're
a smaller team this year. And once the injuries get
in there, and when somebody's on vacation, you're like, yeah,
we had a call Brooke where like I can't field
the team with twelve players.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Sorry, no, I think And they understand that. I hope
not happy about it, but they understand it. And look,
you'd prefer to have somebody like you come out and say, look,
we've got twelve kids and we're not gonna be able
to do it, rather than to go over there are
twelve and not be able to finish the game. So
I commend you guys for doing that. Under the leadership

(33:01):
now of Greg Clark and the board at the AOIFL,
one of the things that we talk a lot about,
and not only the safety and getting more kids involved,
but we want our communities to come out each week
and support these kids, support these coaches, support this program.
It's free to get in go, you know, bring fifteen

(33:22):
bucks with you, buy a couple of hot dogs and
bag of popcorn, because that's going to help the youth
program survive. How hard is it to get people to
volunteer in the program that seems to always be look,
youth football, youth basketball. It's a lot like church, right,
ten percent of the people do ninety percent of the work,
and you've got to get more people involved and be

(33:45):
able to help and volunteer. Look, you guys aren't helping.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
You.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Guys aren't asking volunteers to volunteer while their kids playing.
Come watch your sun play, Come watch your kids play?
But after or before can you give us an hour? Concessions?
Can you give us an hour and security? Stuff like that?
Do you guys? Do you find it hard in Greendale
to be able to get KIP people to help volunteer.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Not hard, No, And again it's not for everybody. But
that's actually part of our registration for years. And again
I tipped my hat to Jerry Myers. He did a
great job building a bankroll for us, so we have
the equipment and that that we need in Greendale. I believe,
other than one other program in the AYFL, we're one

(34:29):
of the least expensive programs. We charge you one hundred
and five dollars to play football. That's it. If you
think of a travel baseball team, sixteen hundred, one hundred
and five hundred dollars out of pocket, that's all it
costs you for our family or to put a kid
into our program.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
And you get well, you got a pay exture for
the equipment uniforms.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
We asked for a deposit, and we do a equipment
volunteer deposit. So that's one hundred and fifty dollars per player.
And as long as you volunteer twice and you give
me the helmets, shoulder pads, and jerseys past everything back,
we'll brache your check back for you one hundred and
fifty dollars, So one.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Hundred and five at the end of the year covers
everything everything.

Speaker 5 (35:07):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
We also give you fifty Raffle tickets that you got
to sell two dollars apiece. Now, and I've been part
of it for however many years now, when.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
You go to these same people that buy your Raffles.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Ticket, well, and that's it. I personally never bought a
Raffle ticket, and I put two kids through the program,
so eight years of them, I never bought one they'd
come home with the raffle tick and they're like, Dad,
I'm like, I'm not buying one. Go knock on your
neighbor's door, Go knock on Grahama and Grandpa's door.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
You know the lessons they learned from that. Oh yeah, yeah,
don't give them my number because I'll buy him too.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Well that, I'm like.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
You know, I volunteer for the program. I volunteered as
a coach on the board running. I'm like, go knock
on doors, and that's our goal. And I can only
speak of Green Dell, but that's our goal in Green
Dell is keep the cost down and let's do it
that way. And if you've got a problem and you
family struggling, reach out to me.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Missus Shuster, You're involved. She was for years.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Julie was amazing. She ran the concessions.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
She did she a while. Love her and you can't
find it. You can't find too many people that are
willing to run at the concessions. We've had amaze people.
We should have brought Julian with you.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
She's on a girls weekend this week.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Look at you.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
You might be listening right now, going don't up talk.
She teaches people how to communicate, so I'm sure she's
criticizing this right now.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Guy, Julie, do you know do you know the kind
of poker party that Patrick's having at your house tonight?
I can tell you you're gonna come home. It's not
gonna be a grade. I can tell you that, no parking,
no poker parties at your house. But you'll watch some
football this weekend.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
I will, ye, I'll watch them football. It's always nice.
I'll watch them tape too. We got solve Milwaukee for
the high school coming up next week, so I'll watch
a little huddle film.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
What do you do? What? What side of the ball
do you coach? On the varsity?

Speaker 3 (36:46):
I jumped, I left the offense, and I went over to.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
The defense and we went to the dark side. I
went to the dark side? Man, how's that going?

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Kyle Patton is our defense coordinator and he's a great guy.
And he asked me to come over and take outside linebackers.
And Kyle was a coach on our youth program, and
I've seen him coach, and I always knew what kind
of guy he was. We never crossed pass coaching together,
but when he asked him, like yeah, I'll come on over.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Hey, I'm still still a big Rob Stultz guy, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Great young man, young man, he's are younger than me,
but he's a great Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
You know what he said, I'm not that young anymore.
He has been where you're sitting and at the other
station and here. And one thing I love about Rob
Stoltz is he is about as honest as the day
as long. He will tell you and and and he
will say, look, when when I first started as head coach,
I thought I knew everything, and I didn't. And he

(37:43):
said I was cocky and arrogant, and and he goes, look,
I learned some valuable lessons, some tough lessons. And he
came on my show one one Friday night and he
and they started the season not very good, and he goes, look,
I knew it was coming because our guy didn't put
the Swade equity in the off season. And they thought,

(38:03):
we have Greendal in the front of our jerseys, of
course we're gonna win. Well, that's not how this works.
The other that's the classes before them put all the
work in and so they they would walk out in
the field knowing that they were going to win. These
kids didn't do the work in We're gonna be much
better at the end of the year, trust me. And
they were. But he said the first couple of games,
I saw it coming and I warned them, but they're

(38:26):
not gonna listen to me. And I just like and
Stole even to this day, like I had him in it.
And he goes, why are you bringing me in? I
go bad. I just love I love telling stories with you.
It's just good stuff. And he man, he has a
lot of love and respect for the have football coach
at Greendal now and and he goes, look, yeah, Jermaine
does a Jermaine Murray does a nice job over there.

(38:48):
And he's he's the same, he's not as outgoing to
get him to coming studios a little bit more difficult
than it was having Stole to get it. Yeah, yeah,
So I was fortunate.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
I get to play. I played high school ball with Rob.
He was here me.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
So he's pretty. He was one of the pretty boys
one day.

Speaker 6 (39:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah, he was a hard Yes, he was so one.
I give him all the smack. Yeah, no doubt. Let's
get to a break other side of break. We're going
to continue to talk Greendale youth football and the AOIFL,
and I thank the AOIFL for believing what I do
here and being a part of what I do and
for what I do on on Channel twenty four on
Friday nights, and you can watch the AOIFL Spotlight segment

(39:27):
during our segment, our pregame segment that starts at six thirty.
We've gone through five weeks already, which is amazing to me.
Four weeks to go six thirty pre game seven o'clock
kickoff only on My twenty four and we'll get we'll
get to a break other side, Patrick Schuster and the
Greendale Youth Football program will continue to talk about them.

(39:48):
This is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show, presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores,
only on Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeartRadio app.
And welcome back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show,
as always presented by your local Pick and Save and
Metro Market stores. We will start I believe October fourth

(40:08):
is we'll get back to the Pick and Save student
Athlete of the Week and the current Electric Superhero of
the week. Looking forward to getting those going again on
that October fourth show. We are talking Greendale youth football
with Patrick Schuster, and I thank him for coming in.
Sorry that I gave him the wrong address. I apologize

(40:28):
to him for that. Hey, you just made a mention
during the break that that you got some good news
health wise. Huh I did?

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, oh ironically yeah, well and most people didn't even know.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
But well, I'm sorry to bring that up. That yep.
I I like the fact that you got good news
and health wise you're feeling uh, you're feeling good. Hey,
when when Greendale youth football? When when you guys we
darted you guys started the program a while ago, and

(41:03):
now you're up to almost one hundred kids in the program.
How many coaches and how difficult is it to get
volunteer coaches to coach in the Greendale youth football program.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
I'm trying to think coach wise, I think we've got
just over a dozen. I think maybe fourteen coaches between
the different programs. To get the coaches is usually not
too hard. One thing we've been fortunate about is we've
always had long term coaches who have been part of
our program. So our eighth grade head coach is Aaron
and I coached together years ago. He took a hiatus

(41:38):
for a while. Now he's back. Aaron Smith is great
because it's one of those staples that are just there,
and it's something we try to do in the program
is have coaches that aren't just dads that will just
be there to run the program and all that. I
love the dads that want to be involved, Yeah, but
in my tenure of running the program, you also get

(42:00):
the dads that are not there for the right reason,
and you just you've always got to balance that out.
So we've been very fortunate to always have coaches that
are just there. We've got some new dads now that
were former high school coaches, which the feedback I get
on these guys is tremendous from former players that are
in there and other coaches that have been there, like

(42:20):
this guy's amazing you to keep them and it's great
to hear.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
That, Hey, is there anything as the president of the
Greendale Youth football program, anything that keeps you up at
night anymore or if you kind of seen all of it?

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Sadly, I think I've seen all of it. Every year
I do a new parents meeting and I bring in
all it's usually fifth grade and other parents. And something
I learned from Rob Stoltz and the way he ran
the high school is look, we've got a three step
progress or process. If you've got a problem, if you
don't think your kid's getting treated fairly or getting playing time.

(42:54):
Step one, your child needs to talk to the coach.
If that doesn't change things, after a week, Step two,
you and your child talk to the coach. Step three,
come to me, and then we'll all meet. Since I
implemented that process, I think it's been twelve years now,
nobody's ever hit step three. Really, yeah, I have people

(43:16):
complain to me all the time and I'm like, well,
have you done step one? Step two? Well no, I said, Okay,
after you do, come talk to me. And I'm not
trying to be standoffish, no, But I want these young children,
and I say children, I don't say boys, because we
do have girls in a program. These young children to
just stand up for themselves and say what do I
need to do to be better?

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Patrick? I coached freshman football Dominican years and years ago,
and after game two a kid named Scott Volker You're
not kid anymore, came in after the game and handed
me his equipment. He said, you know what I'm done?
And I said, what's going on? He said, you have
no idea how good of a football player I am.
You look at this hair I wear. You look at

(43:56):
the grateful dead T shirts I wear, and you come
completely wrote me off And you don't know. I'm a
really good football player. This is a freshman in high school.
And I'm sure in his youth program they had that.
Because this kid was comfortable enough to come to a
grown man and go, you don't know. And I said, Scott,
would you do me a favor? He goes, what? And

(44:18):
he was not happy with me at that point. I said,
give me a week and let me read, let me
take another look, and if I was wrong, I'll tell
you I was wrong. And after a week I said
I was wrong. The kid never got off the field.
He used to pull on his jersey like get me
and I go, you didn't even play the first two weeks.
You can't be tired. And the kid was really good.
But the amount of guts it took for him to

(44:39):
come and just look me in the eye and say, coach,
you don't know. And you looked past me because you
see the hair and you look at these tiedyed shirts
I wear and you don't think I'm a football player
and I'm really good and he was and I'm telling you,
I missed it and this kid coming to me. So
I love that. I love the fact that you have
these kids. Look these guys in the audiences say hey, look,

(45:01):
why am I not getting time? What do I have
to do to get more time on your team? And
that's going to go. There's that life lesson that they're
going to have.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah, and I look at it, think of how many kids,
what is it one percent of college player of high
school players go to play at the college level. Now,
I was fortunate both my boys did that. They didn't
get that talent for me. Thank you, Julie, Thank you
for your mom, mom and her relatives. But you're here

(45:30):
to learn the life lessons how to be a good
young man, a good young woman. In our program, you're
here to learn to stand up for yourself, communicate for yourself.
That's what I want these kids coming out of all
youth sports with. But specifically I can control football because
it's the odds of you make in the NFL. Let's
be honest, it's one percent of that one or it's

(45:50):
not even it's like half a percent of that one percent.
That's a minute amount. But if you can become a
good person, learn how to work, as you mentioned earlier,
learn how to work with people that you may I
don't necessarily like and you wouldn't be friends with, but
you know, to get a job done, I've got to
respect you, I've got to work with you. That's what
I want these kids.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
He is Patrick Schuster. He is the president of the
Greendale Youth Football Program, part of the AAYFL. If you're
living in Greendale and you've got a son or daughter
third fourth grade that you're thinking, oh, maybe I'll let
him try football, I would get a hold of Patrick
Schuster and I'd say, look, can I spend fifteen minutes

(46:27):
with it, because I we're nervous about having my son
or my daughter joined the Greendale youth football program. Spend
a few minutes with him and let him talk about
the lessons and what the mission is behind this program
and him being the president. Trust me, he can tell
you he's been around it a long time and he
firmly believes in what this youth football program is doing.

(46:52):
And if you don't have kids, go out and support.
Go out and support this, Go out, go see it.
Get fund Some of these kids and some of the
family are having Patrick. It's good to see you. Hey,
we met before we have Yep.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
My oldest son was one of your player of the weeks.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Say if he could save student Athlete of the week.
They truly believe in highlight promoting celebrating those kids.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Can I say not just if you live in greenew
if you live in any of.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Our ay amen to that.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
I'm on the board of the AYFL. I know all
these guys running these programs. I don't think I'm unique.
I think every one of these programs wants those kids
out there being involved.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Even Greenfield, even even I.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
We are our travels. But I've had really good relationships
working with their presidents to turn their board over a
couple of times, and I'm just simply said, let me
know if you need help, if you know how to
do things, because it's not about me and them, as
Jim Jureki said, it's just for kids. That is a
mentality that I think we don't think about a lot anymore.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
But this is youth football. Hey, this is for the kids.
Do you know what that statement makes me proud to
know that I'm in a small way trying to highlight,
promote and celebrate the aoiflh what you just said, rather
than saying, Hey, I hope Greenfield, I hope they fail. No, no,
we don't want them to fail. We want everybody to
be strong and that gets our whole organization stronger. Patrick's

(48:14):
good to see you again, you.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Too, pleasure to be here, all right, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
You bet we're gonna get you a break on other
side of the break, very happy Whitefish bad Blue Dukes.
They got a good win against Cedarburgh last night, and
we will talk to Jake Walter and four of the
players from the Blue Dukes team for the next hour.
This is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores
only on Fox Sports ninety twenty and your iHeart Radio app.

(48:41):
Welcome back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show,
presented by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market
stores only on Fox Sports ninet twenty your iHeartRadio app. Jake,
We're coming from the Diamond and Jordans and Heating and
Cooling Studios. They've done a great job cooling the studio,
haven't they absolutely? Man right now? He is Jake Walter,
the head football coach at Whitefish back good Win last night,

(49:06):
coach Seedarburgh's got some talent, man, And I thought the
second half you guys wore them down a little bit.

Speaker 7 (49:13):
Yeah, definitely, Ceedarburgh has a lot of talent. You look
at their stats this year. They haven't given up a
lot of yards and or points on Their defense has
been really really stout against a lot of teams. And
it was seven to nothing a half, and we felt
the second half we warmed down.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Like you said, I thought it was gonna be ten
to nothing and a half.

Speaker 7 (49:30):
But yeah, it should have been ten to nothing. But
definitely coaching there, I'll take credit.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
For that long of a field.

Speaker 7 (49:37):
Yeah, I thought we were a little closer, so we
ran out the clack a little longer. I should have
probably used the time out a little earlier, kept win
in the back pocket.

Speaker 6 (49:44):
But that's all right. Our kids picked it up in
the second half.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
It worked out. It worked out well. We were also
joined by a number of players and you send a
text said, hey, I got one more coming, carter House coming,
and he's got it He definitely has that radio voice,
so I'm starting with him. He did a nice job
in that interview last night as well. From the sidelines, Carter,
how you doing I'm doing great? How are you doing great?

(50:07):
You don't mind being on the radio right? No? Yeah,
your boys are all laughing over there. Who was the
kid in the background last night when I was doing
the interview that was doing all the facing.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
That was nasier?

Speaker 1 (50:20):
My wife thought that was the funniest thing out.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Yeah, he's He's a He's a funny kid, also a
great football player.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Hey, good win last night. I feel pretty good about
where this team is at.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
Absolutely, I think, like I said last night, we played
great football, but I think there's definitely stuff we can
improve on. Got to watch the film and get back
after it on Monday.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Hey, Jake, you guys are You've always believed in that
that that statement it's the next man up. But man,
it's getting a little ridiculous, isn't that. You've had a
number of injuries and if I'm counting right, as many
as ten starters from who you thought would start in
the beginning of the year to where you're at now.

(50:57):
Might be getting some guys back we'll see, but man,
it's getting just a little bit ridiculous. And it's not
like you can just go on the cupboard and grab guys, right,
it's the numbers aren't what they used to be in
anybody's program. Maybe a couple, but not many. But you're
you're doing it with with some duct tape at this point.

Speaker 7 (51:17):
Yeah, we've definitely, uh, since week one, have lost you know,
projected starters at some point, probably twelve, twelve or thirteen
guys have missed time that we're projected starters offense or defense.
But like you said, the biggest thing for us this
year is this is the first year in three years
that sophomore through senior year we actually have full classes.

(51:38):
We usually the last three years we've had small senior
groups or you know, a sophomore group that's small. But
we have a lot of guys that are capable of
playing Friday nights. And we said that in the offseason
and they're showing it that they they're getting their time
to shine and they're, uh, they're running with it.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Man, the love Kid had a game last night. He
sure did.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
We we knew that was in them.

Speaker 7 (51:58):
We definitely knew that was in them, and he's been,
you know, early on first varsity action the first three
four weeks, kind of tentative, but it's like, man, trust yourself,
trust the line, know where you're supposed to go.

Speaker 6 (52:09):
And he was definitely a man care that interview.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
First of all, had a smile that light up the
whole night sky, I'm telling you. And then when I
asked him, do I need to get you a homecoming day?
He goes, yeah, did you do that? And I heard
you say it the whole team just about you might
be able to help years ago a way to kid
from Greendale. Then that he was sitting where carters and
car and said, yeah, yeah, well here here's your number one.

(52:32):
Call her live on the air. We had her on
and he asked her and she said no to begin with,
and everybody stopped. It was like a moment where time
stopped and she goes, all right, no, go what took
you so long? And we went to a break. He said, look,
I thought I'm gonna have to I'm going to transfer school.
I can't go back anybody you need us to call?

Speaker 4 (52:52):
By the way, no, I'm all good.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
You sure because we can make that call. Hey, how
long have you been. How long have you played varsity
football at Whitefish Pad?

Speaker 4 (53:04):
Kind of the same situation as this year. There was
some injuries early last year. I didn't get an opportunity
till Week four, the second half of the Week four game.
But since then, I've I've been holding down the center
position for us.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Good great, good position for you to enjoy.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
I enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Kind of.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
I look at it as the leader of the offensive line.
I have to make some of the pass protection calls
for the guys, and I just think being able to
lead our offense with Chase is great.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
He doesn't yell at you at all, does he?

Speaker 6 (53:31):
You know?

Speaker 4 (53:31):
Sometimes but we'll talk to him sometimes, Chase Walter is going.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
To be up next. We'll find out who we yelled.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
At sometimes, But then he realizes that we're protecting him.
We're just trying to do our job.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah. Well, I tell you what. I got a picture
of him being in another studio with me ten years ago.
Really yeah, and we're gonna we're going to take a
picture again today and update that one. But I can
tell you back then, and you think ten years ago,
it was ten years We're we're in by my by
my office away from the studio throwing a ball and

(54:04):
I said, Jake, this kid control and he goes, Yeah.
In fact, we were. We also went to a client
of mine. Do you remember that over on Highway there's
a clothing store and we were thrown back then and
he was and you had to yell at him, hey,
knock it off, but throwing stuff, and he just wanted
to keep throwing. Have you always played center, Carter? Has

(54:26):
that been your position? Uh?

Speaker 4 (54:28):
In middle school and junior Duke's I played guard, and
then early in high school I played tackle and then
they kind of moved me to center my junior.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Year and in nowhere that's where you stayed. Do you
know what's going on with you next year yet?

Speaker 8 (54:41):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (54:42):
I'm probably just gonna go to college, probably not for football,
but probably somewhere you never know, in the middle. Yeah,
you never know.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
But it's some place away from the state of Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Probably.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yeah. You want to get you want to travel a
little bit. And yeah, if you had a guess, have
you looked at different schools.

Speaker 4 (55:00):
Yeah, I'm looking at a lot of Big ten schools. Okay,
I'd say probably right now, the dream is to get
into Kelly and Indiana their business school. Okay, if not,
I'll probably end up going to Iowa or Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
There you go, staying in the big tene Yep, yeah,
good for you. Do you know what you want to
go to school for?

Speaker 4 (55:18):
Probably something with sports management. That's my top major right now,
because I've been playing sports my whole life and I
want to continue to be involved in it.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
So before I started working in radio stations, I was
the director of sales marketing for like the Rampage and
the Wave and the Mustangs. I was a general manager
for an indoor soccer team in Chicago, and I ran
it right into the ground. I was really bad at it.
So I'm not can't help you with that, but there
might be some other things that I might be able
to guide and direct you. Hey, Jake, this team about

(55:49):
where you thought it would be? Is it a further long,
a little behind with the injuries? About where you thought?

Speaker 6 (55:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (55:56):
I think that first week win against Masmorial really, you know,
got us excited, big school, big physical program.

Speaker 6 (56:04):
But we did get beat.

Speaker 7 (56:05):
Up a little bit in that game with injuries and
not that that. We took Wisconsin then lightly, but I
don't think we were as a coaching staff and kids
weren't prepared well enough. I think we kind of shot
ourselves in the foot there. In hindsight, maybe that's a
good thing for us, because it kind of woke us
up and said, hey, we got to clean some stuff up,
make sure we're doing the things that we need.

Speaker 6 (56:24):
To do to be successful.

Speaker 7 (56:25):
And you even with the score last week with Homestead,
we had some really really good things on tape. So
we saw that. We were like, all right, we're gonna
be just fine. You know, we're moving in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Homestead is as good as people saying. We had Drake
in last week and he kind of got that smirk, like, hey,
we got a chance to be pretty good. That's a
pretty good team.

Speaker 7 (56:44):
They're very good. Yeah, they don't beat themselves, that's sure.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Do you know how many times I've told this story.
Years ago, we were doing the Homestead Bay game at
Bay and in warmups you were fired up. I said, man,
you're ready, and you said, if I could put the
uniform out one more time, I would play against Homestead,
and I would I would take it to him. It
was awesome. And I had to see that in you,
that it's still there and this coaches. Sometimes we lose

(57:10):
that part of it because now we're right, we're coaching
young men, but to still have that feeling in your gut.
If look, if I could get the uniform on one
more time, this is the team I would play against.
And look, I talked to Dave Keel for a bunch
last week, and you know, I told him you were
coming in and he said, please say hi to him
for me, and he though he liked competing.

Speaker 7 (57:33):
He's a big fan of your Yeah, he's unbelievable obviously,
Hall of Fame coach, and yeah, handing it over to Drake,
who's doing wonderful job. They've got four or five other
head coaches, previous head coaches on that staff. I mean,
they just they got a lot of head coaches do
a wonderful job over there.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
You know, it's funny, is so Drake was in studio
on Saturday. Monday, I went to Morning Star. I was
playing nine by myself and there are two guys said, hey,
you want to join us? I said, yep, they go,
we're waiting at another guy. I said to one guy,
what do you do? He owns champs On in Brookfield.
The other guy's an accountant two holes in. Another guy
came and I said, Hey, I'm Mikey goes, Yeah, Mike McGivern, right,

(58:10):
I go, yeah, he goes, I'm Drake shortmans brother and
I go, enough Short, I don't want to hear about
it anymore. Enough of that. Hey, before we get to
a break, and I'm going to have the next three
guys and one of them is your son, Chase. How
was it for you? And I asked you last night.
Coaching your son good experience for the two of you.

Speaker 7 (58:32):
Yeah, it's a It has a fine line of you know,
keeping it on the football field, in.

Speaker 6 (58:37):
The locker room.

Speaker 7 (58:38):
You know sometimes when you want to, you know, make
sure he watches more film or you're at home. You know,
he wants to still be a high school kid and
go out and you know, hang out with his friends
and do homework, and when I want to kind of,
you know, I'm not sure we got the game plan
set all that stuff. So there's a fine line there.
But we do a really good job with that, I think.
And he's just an unbelievable kid that you know, he

(58:58):
does everything.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Was your dad was he a coach?

Speaker 5 (59:02):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (59:03):
He did all my youth stuff.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
So when you were playing and look, you tell me
to stop doing this, and you can never get me
to stop. I believe the greatest all around athlete ever
to come out of Tosist is Jake Walter. I believe that.
And people will say, well, what about Devin har I'm
talking about all around athlete? And and when when you

(59:26):
were there? How involved was your dad? Would he say, hey,
listen when you're when you're playing this position in basketball?
Was was he? Was he a guy that you could
go to And And I'm wondering, does Chase come to
you with with some of the things that maybe you
didn't get a chance to go to your dad with.

Speaker 7 (59:42):
Yeah, there's there's obviously definitely moments, you know, after games,
and but he was more of just wanting to be
there for me, and you know, it's actually more my
mom and my my brother and uh kind of gave
me more advice of like the path that like make
sure you stay grounded and you know, keeping your head
on straight up.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Do you think these guys have any idea which you
were like in high school?

Speaker 6 (01:00:04):
Now, once in a while they leave me shoot a basketball.

Speaker 7 (01:00:06):
Once in a while we played faculty for students.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Did you win in high school fourteen fourteen, I go,
I got it to sixteen. I don't know how, but
I just the older you get, the better you were
type thing. But I've said this to you since the
first time we met that that look, I've been around
high school athletics a long time, and I believe and
at least in the conversation, as the greatest athlete ever

(01:00:30):
to come out of tost season. They've had some great athletes.
And I love the fact that that you were not.
You know, you've been the head football coach at white
Fish Bay for fourteen fourteen.

Speaker 6 (01:00:40):
I've been there for thirteen years and eleven to eleven,
so and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Look, it's a great fit for you, it really is.
And and I love the fact that now your son's
is starting quarterback. I also I read a book when
I was coaching my son in basketball called Coaching Our Sons,
The Good in the Bad. They're really ugly of Wisconsin
families broken apart because idiots like we were trying to

(01:01:05):
coach our sons. And I learned so much from that
book and I recommend it to anybody who was coaching
their sons. Hey, Carter, did you know coming in this
year that you guys had a chance to be pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Yeah. I mean, I think it all started with the
off season. We have a great lifting coach, Coach k
He turned a lot of us into some pretty strong guys.
But I think that with our senior class we have
and how close we all are, I think we knew
that we absolutely had a shot to be a pretty
good football team.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
That's awesome. Hey, the last segment, and I'm gonna kick
the head coach out of here for a bit and
we're gonna talk about it behind his back. He'll sit
over in the studio, so be careful because he's gonna
hear all of it. But I'll ask all of these
guys that last segment of favorite memory of being part
of Whitefish Bay football. We're gonna have Reggie Hart and
Chase Walter and Robert Grano join us on the other

(01:01:57):
side of the break, and they can talk about Carter
behind his back too. We'll do that on the other side.
This is the Varsity Blitz high school sports show, presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores
only on Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeartRadio app.
Welcome back to the Varsity Blix. High school sports show
presented by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores,

(01:02:18):
coming from the Dinovan to Jorgans and Heating and Coolian Studios.
We're talking Blue Duke football or sports for that matter,
but Blue do football for the most part. Let me
start with Reggie Hart. Good game last night. Thank you, man,
oh man you. I think you came in second maybe
for the US breed Player of the game. Do you
put up some numbers? Huh?

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Have you had a good year all the way through?

Speaker 9 (01:02:41):
I think so, especially on the defensive side. I've had
three picks so far in five games, so, you know,
kind of striving to make the top ten all time
for our school.

Speaker 10 (01:02:54):
So that's kind of my main goal right now?

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Are you you more? You like the defensive side more?

Speaker 10 (01:02:59):
I like offense. I like getting the but but defense
is pretty fun too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Yeah. The cheerleaders like the boys that are scoring touchdowns.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
I don't need to get you a homecoming day too.
I no, No, you're okay with that. Nobody wants to.
Should I make a call for Chase over there?

Speaker 9 (01:03:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (01:03:15):
Probably you probably should.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Yeah, you give me her name of a number. We
can do that if you want. How long have you
played on varsity?

Speaker 9 (01:03:22):
So I started on varsity my junior year, but I
got pretty quality reps in games my sophomore year.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Defense. Again, did that help you your junior day? So
normally kids come in from JV and it takes him
a few weeks for things to slow down a little bit.
With quality reps as a sophtomare did that help you
coming into junior year knowing what you're you're getting into?

Speaker 9 (01:03:48):
I think so it's definitely a quicker game. All the
guys are bigger, faster, stronger. So just having those reps
it really like mentally prepared me for what I was facing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Hey, Reggie, are you a multi sport athlete? I am? Yeah?
What else do you play?

Speaker 10 (01:04:04):
I play baseball?

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Yeah? What position?

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
I'm an outfielder.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Yeah, you can go. You can go get it a
little bit. Lead off hitter, not lead off, No, not leaf.
You got some wheels, don't you.

Speaker 9 (01:04:14):
I'm I'm quick, but not I don't really have the
hand eye coordination.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
That's okay, man, that's honest. Right there, they got you
down in the middle of.

Speaker 10 (01:04:24):
The lineup or down towards the end nine somewhere in there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
That's all right. No, no worries on that. Hey, let's uh,
let's talk to Robert before we get to that quarterback.
I'm not look, we're gonna I got a few questions
for that boy, Robert. How are you?

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Linebacker? Offensive line?

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
What position do you like better?

Speaker 8 (01:04:45):
The linebacker? I love hitting guys.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Yeah. Yeah, that a boy. How long you've been at
our city?

Speaker 8 (01:04:50):
I've started since my sophomore year.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Hey, did you know coming in here? Yeah, that thing
moves a whole that thanks Robert. Yeah perfect. Did you
know coming into this team had a chance to be
pretty good? Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:05:03):
Definitely. We've got a senior class that's really been together
since junior Duke sin.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
It's really been.

Speaker 8 (01:05:08):
Fun along the way just seeing how we all progress,
especially with the younger junior and sophomore classes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Did you did you have leaders on that team a
couple of years ago that you learned how to be
a leader.

Speaker 8 (01:05:19):
Yeah, definitely definitely have some guys to look up to,
both on the offense and defensive side of the ball.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Heye I told his story earlier that Brunner who's playing
up at Wisconsin. I have a grandson who's a freshman
at Lake Country Lutheran getting a couple of snaps of
varsity playing JV. But he pancaked some kids his first
scrimmage and he helped him up, And Brunner said, you
tell him knock it off. We don't help him up.

(01:05:44):
You can be nice to him before the game. You
can shake their hand after the game, but you pancake
a kid, you just give him a look and smile
and walk back to the huddle. Did he teach you that.

Speaker 8 (01:05:54):
Or I didn't learn it directly from him, but my
offensive line coach is definitely made that pretty clear.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Pretty clear, he doesn't want to see you. You helping
these guys up off season. Were people fully engaged in
in the weight room and in the off season stuff
that you guys were trying to accomplish.

Speaker 8 (01:06:13):
Yeah, definitely, during our morning lifts and the contact days,
people definitely bought into the system and we were all
just more together as a unit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Chase Walter, Hey, you're a veteran coming on this show
man ten years ago, and I have a picture of
you being in a studio with Coach Swiddle. By the way,
you might have to hold that.

Speaker 11 (01:06:31):
That was awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
I remember having my Bernie Bernie the Burr coloring black.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Yeah, Yeah, that was awesome. I think that might be
even in the picture ten years ago. Feel pretty good
about where this team is at. I can tell you this,
young man, I was watching it from the sidelines. You
own the huddle, that's your huddle, and I was very
impressed with the maturity that you that you showed last night. Then,

(01:06:58):
not that you were a squirrely little kid ten years ago,
but a little bit, a little bit, but you could
throw it back then as well. Do you remember being
a kid that age dreaming and thinking about man one day,
one day Friday night, that's gonna be me. I'm going
to be the quarterback of the Blue Dukes. And last year,
right you played quarterback last year, things slowed down to

(01:07:21):
this year a little bit for you.

Speaker 11 (01:07:22):
Definitely, Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5 (01:07:23):
I feel like last year, you know, I was kind
of small and like I wasn't I don't think I
was ready to play a quarterback, and that this year,
now that I gained some weight.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
And all that, I got a little bigger.

Speaker 5 (01:07:36):
Yeah, and then I got confidence in all my line
Carterhouse and Robert, I think that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
They did a nice job for you last night. My
favorite part of last night was your reaction after you
threw that bomb for a touchdown. That for me. Look,
I know you guys are laughing and you might be like,
oh I I but I'm telling you man, that for
me showed a lot. Like God, it meant a lot.
And you threw a dime. I mean you threw an

(01:08:02):
absolute dime, right, and and to see you run down
the field, you know, pumping your fish knowing that that
was probably you know, that was it man. We we
just got these guys and it was a really nice pass.
And that line gave you some time last night. Definitely. Yeah, Hey,
would you prefer that you guys threw the ball a

(01:08:23):
little bit more? Are you happy with with where you're
at right now? As first? How many throws a game?

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
I mean, you know, I mean I think that Lati
is just a great running back. So we got to
give him the ball and we gotta throw at times
when we need to.

Speaker 11 (01:08:34):
Yeah, but let's he's he's great.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
And you have some running backs that are coming back
maybe too a little bit, right.

Speaker 5 (01:08:41):
Yeah, we got Bo who has a chance to come
back in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 11 (01:08:45):
So he was going to be our main guy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
But I was watching him on the sidelines. I don't
know if he's a couple of weeks. Maybe maybe he's
a quick heel, but man, there it might be a
little bit longer than that. Hey, did you know coming
in the same question I have for these guys. Did
you know coming in that you guys had a chance
to be pretty good this year?

Speaker 5 (01:09:03):
Yeah, definitely feel like offseason lifts. You know, we all
came together as a team, like last year wasn't so
great as a team, and I think we just had
to take another step up. And we knew that our
conference is always going to be good Homestead Slayer and
all of them.

Speaker 11 (01:09:18):
And I just think that we come together.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
That conference, man, and now all of a sudden, West
Ben West is good.

Speaker 5 (01:09:23):
Yeah, they're they're decent. So you got them in a
couple of weeks. I think that would be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
And we we don't look for that game. We looked
to swing it runs coming out. I saw that hard
for They're gonna give you everything. Oh yeah, definitely, they're tough.
They also played a really good game of nicol Yeah,
und Hey, how was it playing for your dad? Look,
you were a ball boy, Uh, you were at practices.
You've been around him and and and you know what

(01:09:49):
he expects. And last night in the interview, we said, look,
he's just another guy in this team, and I treat him.
I think I was harder on my son, and I
think he's probably harder on you than than than the
average guy, because you know you've got his last name.
How was it Ben playing for him?

Speaker 5 (01:10:08):
I mean it's awesome also him being like my play caller,
like I gotta trust him.

Speaker 11 (01:10:12):
And you know he's only messed up once this year.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
That really what let's talk about that when did he
mess up?

Speaker 11 (01:10:19):
What game was that?

Speaker 5 (01:10:20):
The oh that was against Wisconsin Lutheran. He called some
like under center that was supposed to be in gun.
It was like, it's actually a run for me. It
was like a belly Q and he called it like
under I was like, how am I supposed to?

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Did you take a time out or no?

Speaker 5 (01:10:36):
I just kept asking like that does not make any sense.
I was like, no, I'm right, but we got to
figure it out.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
And did you go under center?

Speaker 11 (01:10:45):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
He got it was undergun and he got did you
get a few yards?

Speaker 11 (01:10:49):
I got the first down? Its third down?

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
Shore boy? Hey, how much does he want you to
run the ball?

Speaker 11 (01:10:55):
Not a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
No, I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either, and I wouldn't
have you at linebacker.

Speaker 5 (01:11:00):
I'm pretty careful about it because I got spraining my
ankle against Kinds keep sneak.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
So yeah, we don't want to do that. We want
to keep you up. We want to keep you up. Right.
I know you're a multi sport athlete, a big time
baseball player. Is that do you think when you look
in you're junior, she can change your mind one hundred times?
But you do you think that's your ticket to play
at the next level?

Speaker 5 (01:11:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 11 (01:11:23):
I think.

Speaker 5 (01:11:24):
I mean, I love football, but I think baseball like
is the way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
And you know, I take you deep right. You've been
to bring a whole bucket about trust me, I can't.
I can't. I talk a lot of smack and I
can't back any of it up. I can tell you
this that you're going to get looks to play football.
Are people talking to you yet about it?

Speaker 11 (01:11:43):
Not yet?

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
They are, They'll come. Yeah, you know, I watched you
play last night and I'm thinking, man, he if he
wanted to play at the next level, he definitely could
could play at the next level. Who do you play
for in baseball. Who travel team.

Speaker 5 (01:11:58):
I used to play for Bruce A. But I just
went over to Jerby six Academy, So you did.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
Why did you make the change?

Speaker 5 (01:12:04):
I mean, I just I got the chance to play,
and they play all around. So I just think that
play with the best of the best.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
And with that, if you could play any played baseball
anywhere in the country, where would you play? What would
be the spare choice?

Speaker 5 (01:12:20):
Yeah, I mean obviously down south in the SEC, but
Big ten is also pretty cool to play, and so
that would be.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Cool if it was down south. Where would it be,
like you have a Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:12:31):
I mean everyone loves Tennessee NLCU, but yes they do.
I feel like Florida and Georgia would be pretty cool.
But I mean that's pretty hard to go.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
We're supposed to be talking football. But I got to
tell this story. I got a brother that's seventy two,
still playing hardball, still catch it down in Florida, and
he's got a buddy whose son was a pitcher, a
big time pitcher JUCO down in Florida, and he goes
we used to laugh at the boys that came from
the North, like they played twenty twenty five games. Oh yeah,

(01:12:58):
and he goes. We play one hundred, one hundred and ten,
and he goes. And then we realize that these guys
aren't even close to being as good as they're going
to be, Like, they haven't even come close to getting
to that point. And after they've been with us a year,
all of a sudden, they're way better. And we start
stopped laughing at these kids coming from the North because
now they're the best players on our team because their

(01:13:21):
arms are fresher, their legs, the whole bit. Hey, when
when you look at your schedule, who's the team And
we don't want to put anything up on the bulletin board,
but everybody's got their own who's the team in the
North Shore that you circle and go, Man, I don't
like them. We got to get a win against these.

Speaker 5 (01:13:39):
Guys, definitely, nikola I mean, I feel like everyone's going
to agree with me on that one.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Really, Yeah, for sure. Really I figured it'd be Homesteads.

Speaker 9 (01:13:47):
Well, Reggie, but yeah, Reggie, why Nikolay, Well, especially this year's.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
You don't play You don't play them anymore? Right you personally,
are you a junior or senior? I'm a yeah, so you.

Speaker 10 (01:14:00):
Yeah, I mean obviously we're done playing Homestead.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
But Nickolay is coming up. I'm sorry, Nicholas coming up
a couple of weeks in October tenth, just in case
Nickola was wondering.

Speaker 9 (01:14:10):
Yeah, so that's that's our senior Night and our homecoming.
So pretty pretty big game just for the community, especially
for us seniors. I know we're all really looking forward
to it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Robert, same question, is it, Nicola.

Speaker 11 (01:14:25):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 8 (01:14:26):
I mean it was great going into their place last
year and just pounded them.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
So yeah, we just want to get a win. Senior night,
homecoming night. Football coaches hate homecoming week, you know that, right.
They used to say to me as a basketball coach,
why don't you take it one week? We got practices,
guys are coming into pajamas, you know, all of the
stuff that homecoming week does. It should focus on the game,

(01:14:50):
but it doesn't focuses on all the things that you
can do for that week. And so make sure that
as senior leaders and junior leader, that you keep that
team focused on what the most important part is, and
that's the game and then the whatever whatever the dance
is the next the next day. For sure. Hey, great,
point wise, you guys are all talking to Jake, your

(01:15:12):
head coach. You guys got a chance to to probably
be up there with anybody in the state with with
your academics. Reggie, do you know what you want to
go into next year?

Speaker 10 (01:15:23):
Probably engineering?

Speaker 9 (01:15:25):
I'm looking at Colorado, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Those are my
top three schools.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
Yeah, if you could pick one right now, what would
you pick?

Speaker 9 (01:15:33):
I mean, Colorado's pretty awesome, but it's it's a little pricey,
so u W's probably a little more realistic.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Good for you. I've I've been to Colorado once. You've
been on that campus.

Speaker 10 (01:15:45):
Yeah, Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
It's beautiful. Yeah. I officiated a wedding in the mountains
once and it does something for your soul to be
in it, to be in that setting for sure. Hey, Robert,
how about you?

Speaker 8 (01:15:57):
I'm looking into finance or business schools.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Have you chosen where you want to go? Do you
want to play football the next level?

Speaker 8 (01:16:04):
I don't think so. I've had some talks with some coaches,
but I've been mainly looking at like where my career
path is gonna take.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
What schools are you looking at?

Speaker 8 (01:16:12):
I had to talk with the UW lacrosse recruiting coach
and you said they're definitely interested in me, but I
still gotta think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Yeah, And if you don't want to play football at
the next level, where do you think you want to
go someplace warm? Or do you want to stay stay
close to home.

Speaker 8 (01:16:25):
I'm planning on staying in the Midwest, not going too
far from home.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Guys, I'm gonna I normally do this at the end
of the show, but but I'm gonna do this, and
I want Carter to listen to this as well. Look,
you guys got a chance, you're gonna guys gonna get hot,
and you get a lot of football we've played. Don't
let anybody mess this up, especially you seniors. You know what,
you can go to parties after the football season's over,
and I can tell you some horrible stories teams that

(01:16:52):
have made some mistakes. Guys get you know, ineligible for
a week or two and the season ends, and you
know two three years later they back at that and go, man,
why do we do that? So make sure you're having
those conversations with those guys. We're going to get to
a break. The other side of the break, We're gonna
have Carter join us. I'm gonna ask you guys that
one question, and I may ask you a second one

(01:17:12):
and I'll give you a heads up on that. But
your favorite memory being part of the Blue Duke's football program,
and I told you guys don't share your story, so
we'll find out what that is. And then I may
ask you if you could get all the uniforms you've
ever put on in your entire life, and we put
them in a closet and you get to pick one
out to get one more game. What game would you pick?

(01:17:34):
And now you normally ask that on a Faith in
the Zone show, I do, and the answers are incredible,
So give that some thought as well. We're talking Whitefish
Bay football. Jake Walter is in studio with four of
his players and one being there starting quarterback. I said,
bring that starting quarterback to me. I haven't seen him
in a while and it's always good to see Chase Walter.

(01:17:54):
This is the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show, presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Mark stores,
only on Fox Sports ninety twenty and your iHeart Radio app.
Welcome back to the Varsity Blitz High School Sports Show
presented by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores.
If we again October fourth, we'll start the Pick and

(01:18:15):
Save Student Athlete of the week. If we did that
this week, we got four guys that could could could
get that. And you know I appreciate student athletes like
pick and Safe does. It's not your right to play
on the football team at Whitefish Bait. It's a privilege
you earned by taking care of your business in the classroom. So, guys,

(01:18:36):
I like asking this question. You have a lot of
football to be played. And in fact, you know, Chase
has got a full another year, so he's got a ton.
But these three seniors, I'm going to ask them and look,
with all the football to be played, you still have
have favorite memories. And let me start if I can.

(01:18:56):
Let's go over to Carter. Your favorite memory and being
part of the Whitefish Babe Blue Doooke football program, what
would it be?

Speaker 4 (01:19:04):
I would probably say last year at Nicola that was
the game where as a offense, we set a school
rushing rushing record. I think our back Hairy Bordolatti's now
at Wisconsin probably had close to three hundred yards and
some other guys combined for some crazy number like two
seventy five. Yeah, this this quarterback even even had like

(01:19:26):
a five yard carry that was pretty electric.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
He did.

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):
You know, we ran we ran a buck a buck
read and it was on a third and short and
I remember blocking and looking looking to my left and
seeing Chase with the ball. I'm like, oh no, But
then he ran over the middle linebacker and it was
it was very it was very hype.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
So man, that's awesome. Yeah, you know, you get done
as an offensive lineman and you set a school record
and look, you you heard your running back last night
my interview live. He thanked the offensive live right away.
Because you guys, you know, we we don't give a
lot of Player of the Game awards to offensive linemen.
We just don't. And I think we should a little

(01:20:06):
bit more. But the fact that you bring that up
and that we rush for set a school record over
three hundred yards, you know, Nikola remembers that, right.

Speaker 4 (01:20:15):
They definitely do, and that's why I think they've got
our matchups circled this year. We do too, but I
think I think hopefully we can repeat that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
That'd be awesome. Hey, let me go over to Reggie Hart.
Reggie Hart is a defensive back, three interceptions, got a
bunch of catch as a wide receiver. Your favorite memory
so far of being part of the Bluetooth Football I will.

Speaker 10 (01:20:39):
Also say the Nickel game last year.

Speaker 9 (01:20:40):
I remember it's probably five minutes before we're supposed to
leave to the game. The bus isn't there, and we're like,
where's the bush. Coach Walter goes, all right, guys, drive yourselves.
So I hopped in my car, I brought four of
my teammates. We drove over, got to the game. I
think we won, was like thirty five to one score

(01:21:02):
or something like that. And then we get we're driving
back out. Oh uh, driving back out, we're blasting music.
We get into the locker room and we're celebrating and
Coach Walter comes running into the locker room and he
joins our little our little dance circle, and that that
was just a really great moment.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Were you surprised, how, No, he has no rhythm? You
were surprised at that, you know what Toasi's boy, he
was just an athlete, man student athlete. But did he
have a little rhythm?

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
Yeah, yeah he did.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
He did. Look at that that a boy, Hey, let's
get over if we can't chase Chase Walter. Your favorite
memory so far being part of this program.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
I was gonna say the same thing as Reggie, but
I mean it was Yeah, it was awesome sending the
rushing record and after we got in one of my
friend's cars and we were just blasting music.

Speaker 11 (01:21:54):
Is actually Nikola a.

Speaker 5 (01:21:56):
Senior night and we were, uh, they were like a
bouncing all the seniors. We were just blasting music and
they I think they heard us. They heard you, Yeah,
they heard you. And then but also just kind of
my favorite membery with my dad is also Tim Seemed
running down the stairs in the locker room and just
going crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
It was.

Speaker 11 (01:22:13):
It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Man, you have been in that that Whitefish paid locker
room a long time, A long time. That that that shows.
I I like that. Hey, Robert, your favorite memories so far?
What would it be?

Speaker 8 (01:22:25):
Yeah, I definitely have to say the same thing as
the three other guys. It was great driving ourselves to
the game. And then after the game, me and my
car Carter was in it, and we had two other guys.
We didn't know where to park, so we ended up
parking on just like a random street in Glendale close
to say him, So we had to walk across the
parking lot and we had to walk back after we

(01:22:46):
had to walk through their parking lot and see all
the players and families after we just beat them.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
And then you're going to your car with your uniform. Yeah,
took the shoulder pads off of carrying it or what.

Speaker 8 (01:22:58):
Yeah, we were carrying our pads to my car.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
And Jake, you know, you're sitting over in the corner
listening to this and what impresses me? And it doesn't
happen very often. You didn't hear one of these guys go, hey,
I had fourteen carries, I had two interceptions, I threw
three touchdowns. You know. Our lineman's like, look, our offensive

(01:23:22):
line played really well. And the background for never once
one of these four guys ever say me, let me
tell you about what I did. They talk about the team,
they talk about the program, they talk about you with rhythm,
well done by the way, that kind of stuff. And
what that tells me is the culture that you have
built in the locker room is about us and not

(01:23:45):
about me. And that's hard to do as a coach
because at this age with social media, a lot of
it is look at what I've done. Let me post
this pastime, let me post this picture, and not one
kid talked about, Hey, this is what I did in
this game, and and that's why it's my favorite memory.
And I I really I like that a lot. Hey guys,

(01:24:09):
some of the drills that Coach Walter has you guys
do on a daily basis or a weekly basis. And
I'm gonna go get right to you, Carter, So I'm
glad you grabbed the mic. Is there a drill that
you go, Oh, come on, man, why is he guy
just doing this?

Speaker 4 (01:24:24):
I don't really think there's a drill that I completely dread, honestly,
but I think one that can kind of give some
guys some trouble is definitely uh do drill. It's kind
of set up as like a one on one, a
one on one, like three one on one matchups where
there's a blocker and a defender and then a ballcarrier.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Yep, there's some hitting going on.

Speaker 4 (01:24:44):
And now the absolutely there's not as much of an
opportunity for the lineman, the offensive lineman and the defensive
lineman to kind of go after it as much, but
to see some of our secondary guys in our middle
backers work off a block and blow some guys up.
It's it's kind of cool to watch.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
But I know not everybody loves no. No.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
I think it's it's a good drill. It's beneficial, for sure,
but I think that just watching it more than actually
doing it. As smarting Tank and Carter, do.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
You think coaching might be in your your future one day?

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
I would definitely consider it. I feel like the way
I've kind of been raised, I've always been around sports,
so I've kind of seen all the angles that you
can have on many different sports. So I definitely think
that's something I would go into.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
Your mom and dad come to every game?

Speaker 4 (01:25:33):
Yeah, my mom wasn't that last night though, unfortunately she
was on a on a trip for work. But my mom,
my dad, and uh, my grandparents come to do you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
Hear the crowd?

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:25:43):
My grandpa for sure. My grandpa what.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
Is your grandfather's name? Joe?

Speaker 4 (01:25:48):
His name is Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):
He comes.

Speaker 4 (01:25:49):
He comes to every single game with my grandma and.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
What's your grandmother's name, Linda?

Speaker 4 (01:25:54):
That they they come to every single game. He played
Division III football in college, and you know, he he's
always He was actually showing me a picture this morning
of us in twenty eighteen. I believe when he when
I was just starting off with football, he was at
one of my games and he was like showing me
how to get an alignement stance, and we were laughing
about it this morning. But I think having them there

(01:26:16):
is absolutely amazing because he kind of gives me great advice,
and you know, he's very vocal in the stands. I
think a lot of the parents are like, who's this guy?

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
Who is this?

Speaker 4 (01:26:24):
But that he's like he's always cheering the Dukes on
and cheering me on. So it's it's absolutely great.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
I love that. That's awesome, Reggie. Your mom and dad
come to all the games. Yeah, who do you hear more?

Speaker 10 (01:26:36):
To be honest, I don't hear either of them.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Yeah who do you think after the game? Who do
you hear from?

Speaker 9 (01:26:41):
I go after every game, I go over and I
talk to both of them, and my grandparents are there
as well. I think probably my mom is my biggest supporter.

Speaker 1 (01:26:51):
That's awesome. Yeah. Do you know what? And you're you're
a really good student athlete, right, what's your great point
four or five? Where do you think the motivation comes
from for being such a good student athlete. I don't know,
to be honest, competitive in the classroom as well.

Speaker 9 (01:27:07):
Huh yeah, yeah, I guess, you know, just trying to
think of uh the best like future for myself. I'm
just trying to put myself in the right place to
have success.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
What drill do you never want to do again when
you stop playing football that Jake Walter makes you do.

Speaker 10 (01:27:24):
Every once in a while, I guess never do again.

Speaker 9 (01:27:27):
Tackle circuit is it's a little uh a little long,
you know, like.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
We plus those pretty often those pretty boys they don't
want to do that kind of Look we got we
got Carter going. I love that drill, and we got
you going. I don't know if they.

Speaker 10 (01:27:44):
Come to balance.

Speaker 9 (01:27:45):
Drill gets repetitive, you know, you just kind of run up,
chop your feet and then hit a pad. I like
the actually the middle linebacker drill where you close down
the distance between the ball carrier. I like that one
the best, probably, but you know it does get a
little tiring.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Hey, did it surprise you at all when I made
the comment that I think Jake Walters all around the
best athlete ever to come out of toe. He's no,
absolutely not. You knew that didn't you. Yeah, yeah, he's
still a really good athlete. I'd mess with him, but
I wouldn't. I wouldn't have you messed with him.

Speaker 3 (01:28:17):
No, he was.

Speaker 9 (01:28:18):
He was actually throwing some dots in practice the other week.

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
Well, I heard the I heard the whole team go oh.
When I said I think your boy throws the ball
better than you, he was like, you know what he
said to me. Come to practice. I'll prove you wrong,
that's for sure. Hey, Robert, let me come over to
you real quick. Let me get to the drill side.
Is there a drill that you guys do that you
don't think you ever wanted to do when you get
done with this?

Speaker 6 (01:28:43):
Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 8 (01:28:44):
I despise Team slied.

Speaker 10 (01:28:47):
Coach hasn't pulled it out on us this year yet.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
But score too. Now, you should have never brought it up. Yeah,
maybe Nikolaekey brings that thing up right. Well, tell me
about Team sled.

Speaker 8 (01:28:58):
It's just constant like going on. It just really tires
you out. It's the whole team in general.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Hey, let's let's get over to
Chase Walter. He did you just sit with a red
vest and throwing the sidelines. Right, they don't make you, guy,
They don't make you do a ton of trick. Are
there any drills that they make you do that you
don't want to ever do again?

Speaker 11 (01:29:21):
Actually?

Speaker 5 (01:29:21):
Well, I'm not a defensive player, but I'd say pursuit
because because I gotta be like the running back and
I just got to run down the sideline and everybody's
just going through their defense position, So I'm just running
back and forth.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Well that's getting you ready for the way you got
to run over the sidelines after every play you get
to play. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's your dad getting keeping
you in shape.

Speaker 11 (01:29:44):
That's what the warmups are harder than the game really like?

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
Yeah, man, well I I love that chase when when
the game gets tight, right, you you have some tight games?
You're you're do you question any of the calls? Can
you audible out? Can you especially down you know, fourth
quarter kind of stuff? When you go over to get

(01:30:09):
the call from your dad, do you guys have a
conversation or do you get the call and then go
Can you do what he tells you to?

Speaker 11 (01:30:15):
I do what he tells me to.

Speaker 5 (01:30:16):
I trust him, So whatever call he calls him, we're
gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
You know, when he was on on the mike, he said,
you know, sometimes I don't want to go down with
his friends. I want him watching more film. You guys,
I'm sure have that. And it's a balance in a home.
It's a balance. And can you have that conversation with
him and say, Hey, Dad, not tonight. Tonight you know what,
I'm gonna go get an ice cream, I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna go get go to the batting cages. I'm

(01:30:40):
gonna go get some jump shots up, whatever it is.
Whenever that can whatever that would be, you guys can
have that conversation. Sometimes you have to go to your
mom and say, can you get my coach off me?

Speaker 5 (01:30:52):
I mean no, I think he's pretty good at it.

Speaker 6 (01:30:54):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:30:54):
Sometimes like in the day we he goes over a
play that he draws up and like, do you think
this will work this week? And maybe talk about like
the coverages that this next opponent's running and just get
prepared for that. But I think it's a great balance.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
Of Hey, last thing for you seniors, guys, this is
a year of last for your grandparents and your parents
and your family coming to watch you guys play and
I don't know if they've talked to you about that,
but I can tell you that Joe and Linda are
you know what this is? This is rough for them.
They've been watching you play since you were a little kid.

(01:31:31):
And Carter, they you know, last time you're they're going
to go and watch you play against Nikole the last
senior night, right homecoming, and give them some grace when
when you know what they may they may make some
comments like, hey, you should play a little harder today.
I wish you guys would have played better today. It's
coming from a place of love and and the fact

(01:31:51):
that they're going to really miss this thing. So make
sure that you guys know that's going on at your
house right. Hey, tell Joe, I wish I would have
known this be four. I would have went over and
introduced myself to him last night.

Speaker 4 (01:32:02):
Yeah, he would, He would have loved that. My family's
fortune thought. I still got a little brother coming up
in them. He's a sophomore, so it won't be they
won't be totally done afi school football.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
But is he playing JV right now? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:32:14):
He's playing JV. He got a jersey on varsity a
few weeks ago and he's gotten in what physicians he
plays a corner receiver. Okay, he's he's having a pretty
good year on JV. He's got a couple of touchdown,
a couple of picks.

Speaker 1 (01:32:25):
Kind of cool to have you.

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's great.

Speaker 3 (01:32:28):
It's a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
Yeah, that's all right. You'll come back and cheer her
mind for the Duke's guys, remember what I said, let's
not let's not have anybody mess up what is going
to be something special. I believe that you get a
few of these guys back and there's a chance you
guys got a long run in the playoffs, and let's
not mess that up. It's really good to see you guys.
It's good to see you again. Chase. Let me show

(01:32:51):
you this picture you as a ten year old. I'll
do that when we get to a break. Spencer, great job,
Jake Walter, thank you so much for the opportunity to
highlight the Bluedukes and some of the good things that
they're doing not only in the school, but on the field.
This is the Varsity Blitz high school sports show presented
by your local Pick and Save and Metro Market stores,

(01:33:11):
only on Fox Sports ninet twenty and your iHeart radio
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