Cheers and Jeers
Sportswriter Steve Tietz will use this blog to try to duly reward the great, praise heartily the hard-working, uncover the unsung, and take to task the spoilsport, the foul-mouth and the crass in the local prep sports scene. He'll try to remember that kids are just kids and that coaches aren't in it for the money. He'll try to gently remind parents that the kids are playing for fun, not for profit and that the officials, though occasionally human and therefore prone to error, are there to ensure fair play and not out to get anyone.
Inducted into GT Athletic Hall of Fame, Kuells and Wagner were truly all-around good sports
Both Paul Wagner and Kris Kuells Tsakonas took the all-around route in gaining their recent induction into the Germantown Hall of Fame.
They were stars in multiple sports, continued their athletic endeavors beyond high school and always sought to make their teams better.
I remember Wagner's breakthrough moment clearly.
He was already seven years clear of Germantown stardom when it happened, having earned a full baseball scholarship to Illinois State, and having twice been named to the All-Missouri Valley Conference team as a pitcher while there.
It was 1992 and one day Wagner was throwing for one of the top minor league squads of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the next moment he was jet-lagged and happily bleary-eyed after getting a mid-season call-up to the big squad.
"They liked my live arm," he said at the time.
It was the major leap forward in a 12-year professional odyssey for the former Warhawk multi-sport star that included a one-hitter in 1995 and stints with Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Cleveland and New York before injuries hastened his retirement in 2001.
Not bad for a person who is in the Germantown top five all-time in scoring in basketball, was a sure-handed and sure blocking tight end for Warhawk football teams dominated by running back Jamie Meulemans and was just about everything for the Chuck Ritzenthaler-coached "Boys of Summer" baseball teams.
He was first-team All-Braveland Conference in football, basketball and baseball, the only Germantown athlete to earn that honor. Germantown's conference affiliation history includes the now-defunct but well-remembered Scenic Moraine and Braveland organizations as well as the current North Shore.
Meanwhile, Kris Kuells Tsakonas is remembered well by long-time Germantown coach and teacher Dennis Kloth as a top-flight all-around athlete in the late 1970s back when girls' high school sports were just getting off the ground.
"She was good at almost anything she did," Kloth said.
Indeed, as the long-time Waukesha School District teacher was a four-year varsity letterwinner in tennis, basketball and track. An original 12-letter girl back when that feat was exceptionally rare.
She played first singles in tennis, leaped a school record 5-4 in the high jump and teamed with fellow GT Hall of Famer Amy Nickel to form some of the best Warhawk girls basketball teams ever.
Kuells Tsakonas was second-team All-Scenic Moraine Conference in hoops in 1977 and 1978 and earned first-team all-league and team MVP honors in 1979. She earned the area American Legion Athletic medal for her achievements in 1979.
While at UW-Platteville, she earned two letters in badminton and three in track. Kuells got her undergraduate degree at Platteville and her masters at Whitewater. She's been teaching and coaching in the Waukesha area since 1984 and has also coached at St. Mary's School and in the Little league organization.
So it was a fine evening when the pair were honored at a recent basketball, looking scarcely a day older when posing for pictures with their plaques.
Ironically, the photographer was none other than Ritzenthaler himself.
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