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.
HHS track coach Benson cool under fire as Highlanders enter state meet as heavy favorites
Dan Benson Sr. came within a point of a gold WIAA state championship boys track trophy back when he was coaching Wauwatosa West in 1964.
Now his coach son, Dan Jr. at
And he's working very hard at keeping a low profile as his team prepares for Thursday's trip to
When asked how he was feeling over the weekend, after analyzing the state heat sheets and looking at wissports.net's pre-scored standings, which has the Highlanders as easy winners, he said: "What a great question?"
Which he then elaborated upon.
"There are too many thoughts to start," he said. "The number one thing that I'm thinking about is that we qualified someone in every event group. Every coach we have on staff is represented. Usually a team favorite has one or two great areas they build upon, but this is the first time in my career that I can say we have everything covered."
To that end, long-time assistants like Jeff Mehring (pole vault) and Dan Claussen (distances), along with trusted aides like Steve Manor and Adam Schleis (hurdles), Bill Richards (weights), and Todd Brawner (long sprints) are going to be called upon to keep their young charges focused and make sure they are prepared for the ultimate test.
Benson, who himself will handle the jumpers, including top-ranked high jumper Dan Schiller, has confidence in all these people.
However, it is Brawner, the former state championship winning coach of long-time Homestead rival Germantown, whom Benson says may be the "ace of the pyramid" in this situation, as Brawner will continue to hone his work with the state's top-seeded 800-meter runner Gabe Genovesi, along with the top-ranked 1,600 and 3,200-meter relay teams.
Brawner came over from
"His experience in being in these kind of situations (
"We had a good group of kids for him to work with in the junior class when he started. It took a year for them to learn his system and then a year to execute."
And the Highlanders have been executing across the board all season, with eight major meet titles, including no losses to a
Five of those entries (Genovesi and the two relays, Schiller and Justin Barber in the discus) have the top seeds going into the state competition that begins Friday at UW-La Crosse's Memorial Stadium.
Benson knows that he has high-caliber people with big future plans in those top spots.
Genovesi likes to organize charity drives and is an all-state soccer player going to 2009 NCAA Division I national runner-up
These people and others learned much during the Highlanders' ninth-place state meet finish of a year ago.
"We were a little nicked up and wide-eyed going into that meet and we came home soaked to the bone (after a soggy finals Saturday)," Benson said, "but it served its purpose beautifully. They were disappointed and pretty determined to come back and do something big."
So now Benson sits with this opportunity with this high-caliber team that has great expectations attached to it.
How worried is he?
Not as much as you would think.
"Brawner likes to say that the process is rather boring and tedious," Benson said, "but if the kids have the patience and the tools for success, it doesn't matter what meet it is, the process itself does not change."
"They're excited, and they're prepared and that kind of situation tends to lead to better performances. We're going to be competing (at the higher levels) against a lot of the same people (we've seen all season). If you don't have to rely on lightning-in-a-bottle performances (like some teams have won state with), you should be OK. That's what is called responding to pressure."
He said he has spoken with his long-retired father about being faced with the very real possibility of a state championship and said the talk helped.
So has a season's worth of success.
"The reality of the situation is, is that I'd rather be in this spot than having to worry about guys moving up," Benson said. "The whole process of the season keeps us calm and very business-like."
"We're ready."
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