 Hello everybody and welcome to the 2010 High School Football Show. My name is Mike Martin. Joining me as usual is the coach, Chris Wright. Coach, we have a great show tonight. Today, why don't you tell us who our coaches are? Well, really looking forward to having them come in again. We've got Matt Savatta, who's here from Sheboygan Lutheran, Kohler Christian. Chris Hein, once again the coach of Sheboygan South, and a new coach at Sheboygan North at Thompson took over after being a long time assistant there in at Kohler. During the breaks, we're going to be showing the home schedules for each of the schools, and then we'll also show our broadcast schedule for the high school portion of our season. We'll also talk a little bit about Lakeland football at the end, and in our last segment, we'll also talk a little bit about the predictions we made last year and what's coming up for this year. When we come back from a break, I'll be interviewing Matt Savatta, so stay tuned. If you have diabetes, become a red strider at the American Diabetes Association Step Out Walk to Fight Diabetes. Sign up today at diabetes.org slash red strider. Joining me is Matt Savatta from Sheboygan Lutheran, Kohler, and Christian, and Matt, you're entering your third years as a head coach. How did the first two years go, and what are your impressions of the program? Are you moving forward? Yeah, the first couple years, I think were a time for our team to learn, and I brought a whole new system into the school. First year there, we had one win last year. We had three. This year we're really hoping to make playoffs. That's our goal right now. We started a youth program last season. That was a goal of mine to get started. We had right around 60 in the program. This year we have 70 kids signed up, grades 5 through 8 with all the grade schools. So I think as far as our program moving forward, we're doing that, and good things are happening with us. Now one of the things you mentioned, of course, the youth program is gaining in numbers. How about translation into the program itself at the high school level? How are your numbers there? And breaking down school to school to school, Lutheran, Christian, and Kohler, how are the numbers there? This year our numbers are looking at about 37, 38 kids, and we're up right around 10 more than we had last year. Freshman class is the first class I had went through our youth program, so we have a good healthy freshman class with kids with some experience at the youth level. The majority of our kids are still from Lutheran with Kohler right in the middle, and this year we have seven kids from Christian, which last year we had three or four, so we're gaining numbers there too. Now, when we were talking before we came on, you had mentioned you'd lost one key player from last year, and he was from Christian. Why don't you talk a little bit about that individual? Yeah, Lee Velkamp, he was our tight end outside linebacker. He had some all-conference honors. He led our team receiving, and also our tackles for loss. Real good athlete. But we have some returning players. We have a lot of returning players. We have nine on offense and ten on defense, so there's a lot of experience with our team this year. Talk a little bit about the defense, because I know the times we saw you last year, it seemed like the offense could generate some yardage and move the ball a little bit, but the defense just seemed at times to really struggle. Yeah, and again, we're experienced. So we have ten returning guys that have experienced. We have a lot of guys. This will be their third year starting. We had a lot of sophomores starting with my first year, and they've really excelled and become some athletes. I've got Michael Krieger, one of I believe the premier defensive tackles in our conference. He's 6'2", 2'10", runs a 4'8", 40", and he's solid. I got my own middle linebacker, Zach Webster, Conor Ducco, and other seniors, defensive end, all solid kids. And Alan Rodriguez, he had all conference honors last year at corner. He's back. So there's a lot of experience in defense, and I think those guys this year are starting to click, and at least with our practices that we've had, they have been clicking. Any big hitters? Oh, you know, there's always those guys that they're eager to get at, and right now they're fired up for that first game, and they want to hit. Let's move on to the offense a little bit. You said you have nine guys returning on offense. Talk a little bit about the skill positions first. Sure. Our entire backfield's back. Jake Kanz, our quarterback from last season, he returns. So this will be his second year at the quarterback spot, and he's getting better every day. And last year was a great learning experience for him. Brings a lot of experience there. Alan Rodriguez are starting tailback. He's a color kid, right? He's a color kid, and he's fast. He's got a 4-6-40, and he's shifty. 250-pound fullback. Zach Webster also our middle linebacker. He's our fullback, and I rotate Michael Krieger in there too. So those guys, and there's times we may go a heavy set with two fullbacks in there. So it's a low. Yardage bring in Krieger. Sure. We'll get the ball moving. The offensive line, I got four returning starting offensive linemen. So can we call Webster or Frigerator Perry? Hey, go right ahead. Krieger, I mean. Krieger, all those good, both those guys, the big kids, they're solid. They're good athletes. It seems like whenever we go out and watch you guys play, somebody on your side is returning a kickoff back for a touchdown. So special teams obviously have been fairly successful, I would think, over the course of your tenure. Well, yeah. In fact, the last two years, we've had at least one touchdown taken back for special teams each year. So we do have, we've got some speed. It's just whether or not we get the holes open for those guys and everybody does their assignment and then we're good. That was maybe a little bit over a week ago. I was out at Culler, the shops at Culler actually, and I noticed the field ripped up pretty much. No bleachers were set up. What is your situation for a field this year? I just got word today that we'll have lights for our first game. We're probably not going to have the bleachers set for the first game, but most likely our next home game. So we're getting a brand new bleachers, brand new nice press box over there that are really making the facilities outstanding. So we're going to be put up in style? Oh, you guys will be enjoying yourselves up there, this new one, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the conference. Last year, I'm not saying they surprised everybody, but I think they did surprise a lot of people and how far they went in the tournament in that Cedar Grove, Belgium. How do you see the league, Central Lakes are shaking out this year, and how do you see Lutheran football in there? Right. Cedar Grove is going to be a good team. Ousberg is always a good team. They have great programs going on. Howard's Grove is well coached. Random Lake is well coached. All those schools have excellent coaches and excellent athletes. I see them being maybe the top. I see us competing for that, one of those playoff spots this year, and I can honestly say that that is our goal, and it's a very realistic goal for us. Now we have you twice this year. We catch you about the middle of the season against Cedar Grove, Belgium, and we know that's going to be a tough game, and you had mentioned before we came on that you're hoping to be 4-0 at that point. Talk a little bit about the games leading up to the Cedar Grove, Belgium. Yeah, you know, we have Hope School week 1 who has really come on to start being our program, and they're no slouch. They're a good talent on that team, and it should be a good game for us. Fall River week 2, I don't know much about them. This will be the first time we've played them, but I think two non-conference games that are really good for our program to get us set. Going into conference play, I really like opening up against Random Lake week 1. I think that will be a good test for us, and if we get a victory out of that game, they'll set the tone for our conference play. And then our week 2 at Lake would be our week 4 game. Again, they've had some success too, so I like the way our conference plays out. I like our schedule. Last game of the year, I believe it's the last game, is Stock Ridge, and we get to see you play them. Now, over the years you've had pretty good success against them. I would think you're suspecting that's going to be the case again this year. Yeah, you know, I know last year their numbers were low. This year they're probably low too, and I know how tough that can be. Again, I'd like to see success against every conference school. But I won't count them out. Alright, Matt, thanks a lot for coming in. Really appreciate it. When we come back, Ed Thompson, first-year head coach for Sheboygan North, we'll be talking North football. Joining me is first-year head coach Ed Thompson. First of all, congratulations on being named the head coach at North. Tell me a little bit about your coaching philosophy since you are brand new, not brand new to the coaching game obviously, but first-year head coach at North. Well, anybody who's in coaching doesn't do it for the money. I'm sure you've heard people say that before. You have to enjoy working with kids, and that's what's kept me doing it for when I played in high school and college, I've been involved in football ever since then. And never as a head coach like this before though. But when you have athletes that have trouble figuring out a skill or a technique or something like that, you take them and you work with them. You put them back in and they maybe do it and maybe can't. Then you work with them more and eventually they get it and it clicks and you see them have success. That's what keeps you in coaching. That's what keeps you wanting to come back year after year. And all the camaraderie, they always say it's not the wins and losses, it's the journey of a season and that's true. And for this group of kids we have, this journey seems like it started back at Christmas time because right around there, a big nucleus of our team got in the weight room and got going and attitudes started changing and they've been doing a real good job ever since. One thing I would think that would help you in terms of taking over the head job is that you have been coaching at North. You've got some experience with these kids so they know you know them. Yeah, I have them in weight training class or before I even taught that I had them in the regular gym classes. And you're right, I've been assistant coach there ever since I've been it for 15 years and so you know them as they come up and you get to learn their abilities, their skill levels and stuff and it makes it kind of easy. Turn the page a little bit and talk about maybe what's not so enjoyable about head coaching. What are some of the things that make it difficult? Well I've worked with other head coaches for years and I know all the stuff they have to do, scheduling and the equipment and booster club stuff and this and that but now that I've had to do it this last summer, I think it was maybe one day this summer where I didn't have to come into school to get something done. It's like every day there was something and usually it was just our lifting and our plyometrics and stuff. I wanted to be there but almost every day there's something that you have to order or get this printed up or that and there's so much of that busy work stuff it's like you don't really have time to coach. The TV guy calling. Yeah, TV guy wanting an interview. Let's talk a little bit about the team now in talking before we went on you mentioned you were in charge of the offense for the last couple of years and so obviously probably things won't change too much this year. I don't know for sure but talk a little bit about offense and how you see that shaken out for your ball club. Well I haven't really been in charge of the offense. Carl Nienis is the one that has all the knowledge. He's the one who is the main push behind what we do and I help him out as much as I can but we're still going to run the wing tee. It's just that we don't run it the old traditional way. We found out that we can't just go up and run straight wing tee plays and adopted the offense to the personnel. The wing tee if you run it traditional is more of a power to the offense. And so we've had to spread things out. So we get people in motion and we spread it out so that the defense can't have so many people in the box and the last couple of years it started to work a little bit better. One of the things that I would think would really help your offense is the fact that you have a junior quarterback coming back. Derek Van Caligan is going to be a senior this year. Talk a little bit about him and his skills and I would think the way you're setting up the offense really would help him. Derek and Jake Stengel both did a great job for us last year and both of them have improved vastly since last year. Derek went to Dan Yiddish's quarterback camp and had good reviews that he was one of the better quarterbacks there. Jake's worked hard all year in the weight room and plows and everything and he's gone to many camps too. Badger camps and other colleges where they run you through the grind and see what abilities you have and stuff and they both worked hard. Things now are going very well. They work well together along with a couple other juniors that we have that are doing a good job with some of the other seniors that are on the offense too. You have a couple of kids coming back. Reid Conter and Kevin Rivera in the back field. Talk a little bit about your depth on offense in terms of skill players and let's move then to the offensive line. Well, Reid played last year and Kivan did also. He played last year. Thank you for helping. I didn't want him to get mad when he heard that. He wasn't an every play guy but he played quite a bit and he's one of those guys where we can put in at almost any one of the positions. As a matter of fact we aren't real deep and so our backs almost every one of them could get put in any one of the three positions and if somebody goes down and they'd be able to fill in. Well, as we look at the offense over the years North always seems to be there. What seems to hold the team back has been the defense and at times they've really struggled what are we going to do this year to try and shore up the defensive side of the ball? Well at the beginning of the year we have two main goals. One of them is to be able to run the ball on offense and the other one is to tackle better. We haven't just said this is going to be our goal and expect it to happen. We work on it every day at practice. We have a session where the whole team works on blocking and we have a session where the whole team works on tackling. It's hard to tell it's going to take a while but you can tell already that things are starting to change a little bit and you know I don't really agree that the defense hasn't done well because Coach Tagle has had them exactly where they should be for the last couple of years. I got to be careful what I see because Kevin and I play basketball he might just put me up against the wall for it. Yeah, there can be some games where he can call out what the next play is. He can say they're going to do this, they're going to do that and our kids will be there but they can't make the tackle and a lot of that is the weight room. We stress that last spring and kids have responded and they've been in the weight room. This is program wide. The incoming freshman and the JVs and everyone we had large numbers all summer long which is a positive thing for the program and they've done a good job and we're hoping it'll translate into now when he has them where they belong and they can make the tackle better. Let's talk a little bit about the conference. We've got about a minute left. I see the conference shaking out this year and where do you see North fitting in? Well, I see the schools that have systems and programs that are traditionally year after year competitive in the conference. I don't see that change you much. You know Bayport will be up there, Notre Dame and Eshwabinon and Manitwok those schools. Lasky really surprised a lot of people making a run in the tournament. Yeah, Lasky too last year, yeah. I think that they're going to be to the top of the conference I think our kids have made huge strides and I think we could end up anywhere in the conference. Right now with their attitudes and how hard they're working and the way things are going, we should do well. But it's all going to come down to them focusing and not making mistakes and we should do well. Ed, thanks a lot for stopping in great interview and we wish you all the best and we'll be seeing you against Manitwok. When we come back, Chris Wright will be talking to Chris Hine from South. I know they never make me play with these guys but why do they make me train like them? Training hard is important and for professional athletes, it's their job. But kids aren't professionals and shouldn't train at that level. Keep kids safe on the playing field and out of the operating room. Become an advocate for sport safety. Visit StopSportsInjuries.org We're back here with Coach Hine from Sheboygan, South. Coach, you've been practicing for a week now. How's it been going? It's been good. We survived last week. I think it was the biggest thing with the heat and humidity. Our kids haven't had that in a while. Last summer was so mild that I think all of us realize the air conditioning has been full goal all summer. It went well. The kids' spirit and attitude was great for the weather and humidity, the heat and humidity we had to deal with. I know you mentioned the summer a little bit. Some things people just think about, everything is placed during the school year and it's always on Friday nights. But you do a lot during the summer too. Would you like to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, I think in this day and age, all high school programs, the off seasons become critical because if you're not doing anything, somebody else is. Everybody else is in your conference. So we lift four days a week in the summer and run four days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. And for those eight weeks we had this summer, it's absolutely critical that they're getting stronger. Not only so they're competitive on the field but for safety reasons too. Do you see big changes over the summer and from year to year with your summer programs? Yeah, you do. I mean you see big changes in the kids. Hopefully is what you want to see the biggest change in. In that eight week period you're really looking for them to progress. Become stronger, become quicker, become faster, be conditioned so when two days do come around like last week that they're prepared for it and they're not just jumping into it cold. Now the last two seasons I think one of the biggest things that's really hit you is the injury bug. It's just two years in a row and so many kids injured. Hopefully this conditioning stuff will help. Yeah, absolutely. At the end of last season I sat down with our trainer who's excellent, Maggie Bauer. She's worked with some of the best programs in the state. Green Bay Notre Dame, Appleton North, the arena team up in Green Bay. I just said, what are we doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? She said it's just been bad luck. We've just run into the last two years. We've run into really bad luck and injuries that just really don't seem to be avoided. Kids are just hit from behind as they're running down the field. Doven in their knees. We've had broken ankles in warmups last year. We're running through plays and our starting tight end gets his ankle rolled up on and breaks it in two minutes before kickoff against Manti. It's just things like this that it just seems like it's been a run of bad luck. Obviously we're trying to deal with it in our off season conditioning and workout program and trying to do lifts that are going to hopefully prevent that but if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and hit at the wrong angle, there's really nothing that can be done. Hopefully we'll get some luck this year with injuries. With that, do you have good numbers? They're a little down. Our last two freshman classes have been small. We saw coming. Two years ago we had 24 kids in our freshman class last year. We had 17. Our numbers are down. We all know we were aware of it. We knew it was going to be here. That makes it even more critical that we stay healthy this year. It's going to be a challenge in a nine week season in our league. It's a physical. It's a good league. We'll see how it goes. Let's talk a little bit of positive. I think you got a great one-two punch there in Ethan Berlin and Riley Tudus. We definitely love our athletes. Riley was led the league last year in receiving yards. Led the league in receiving touchstones. Ethan, because of an injury, Jake Rissy was having a great year in week five. He got hurt against a peer. Ethan came in. He played both ways for us last year. It was all conference at corner. As a playmaker on offense, we're really excited about those two. We're excited about some or other athletes. Josh Grinke, we're excited about. He was a great baseball player on the south side of town. He's playing football this year. He's just got great speed. He's got unbelievable speed. Thomas Murray from the JV team. Brady Calhann back at tight end. We just feel really good about skilled kids and really good about the athletes that we're going to have on the field this year. Let's talk about something you're familiar with on the defensive side of the ball. Defensively, we're very excited. Obviously, the one tough part is Coach Edis. As everybody read in the paper last Sunday, he moved to Homestead with his son. He thought it was best for his son's future and I have no problem at all with the decision he made, but he was our de-corner last year. We're going back to the things that we did in the past. We're going back to the defenses that we ran when we won the conference. We're first in our league two years in a row and third in our league the year after. Getting kind of back to that. The kids are disappointed that Coach Edis isn't with us. They're excited to get back to some of the things that we did at South and we're successful with in the past. The good news is we have nine kids that started three games or more on defense for us back. We haven't had that in a long time. We should be confident in our strong chances here. Do you have some coaches to replace Coach Edis? I mean, you don't replace Hall of Fame. Coaches. But we definitely have some coaches that have been here a long time. Been at South, Coach Berlin's been at South much longer than I've been there. Coach Rank's been there with as long as I've been there. We have Coach Roberson, a new coach, played at Lakeland, coached at Lakeland on the defensive side. That is great now to defense that we're really excited about. Everybody's just got to step it up a little bit and I think Coach Tudas, Coach Goodman, we're all going to step it up on our side of the ball. Anybody on the special teams looking sharp for you? Yeah, we love our kicking game. Jake Plant was a sophomore last year. Kick for us. Thomas Murray punted as a sophomore last year. So both our kickers are juniors. We're really excited. We don't want to wear our punter out. That's for sure this year. I mean, that's never good. But when we do have to punt we think we got one of the best ones in the conference. When we line up to kick a field goal we know Jake feels very confident. So yeah, we're excited about our special teams. We are just under a minute here. Coach, anything else to look forward to for the Red Wings this year? I just hope the fans come out. I think we're going to have an exciting team. I tell the kids that all the time. We've got athletes. We've got speed. We've got to utilize it. We've got to play fast. We've got to defense that I think familiar to fans that were here five years ago. And hopefully we're going to see defense flying around, making plays like we have in the past. So I'm excited. I hope the fans are excited. I hope they're still going to come out. We had a tough season last year. There's no doubt about that. But this is a new team. It's a new season. And we're going to give it the best we can. And we always look forward to that concession stand too. Thanks so much coach for coming in. And when we return, Mike and I will finish up the show. Talk to me about sex. Tell me to wait. Tell me what you want. I can handle it. Can you? Tell your kids you want them to wait till they're married to have sex. They'll have a better chance at success. Come on dad. Speak up mom. You can do it. Hey Chris, great job with Chris Hyen. We want to thank all the coaches for coming in without their help. Of course this show wouldn't be possible. I do want to talk a little bit about Ed Thompson because when he was leaving today he felt bad that he wasn't able to mention the names of some linemen on offense and defense. We ran short of time and so he did feel some concern about that and sometimes those things happen. Let's talk a little bit about our schedule this year. We open up with Manets Walk at North and we end up with the North South game. But what are some of the key games you see on our schedule? Well I'm really excited to see Sheboygan, Newton-Colar, Christian play again. They struggled so much last year and Coach Savada seems very excited about his squad. I'm really looking forward to seeing him. We have them twice this year. Obviously opening day and a couple weeks on September 10th, our Manets Walk North game. As usual the North South game, we're going to finish up with that so that's a big highlight. We missed Lakeland last year so I'm excited to get out there. We got Lakeland at the end of the schedule. They're going to play Benedictine and I think I read in the paper not too long ago. They're picked for second in their conference so hopefully that will be a good game. Last year we did our predicting and we're going to go through that right now and I think I Two years in a row Coach. I think you did that. Kick some butt that's what we're talking about. Anyway last year I picked Bayport and they did win conference at 7-1. You had Notre Dame a really good pick and they were one game out of the mix at 6-2. Green Bay Southwest along with Manets Walk all finished at 6-2 and the conference seemed pretty top heavy last year. Yes it did and this year it seems like a lot of the big stars from last year of graduate. Ashwabran, Notre Dame, Bayport all these schools lost a lot of big stud players from their team so it's going to be a really wide open issue. And we didn't even mention the surprise team of the tournament and that was Pulaski because they went three games deep into the tournament and in our pre-season predictions that we got off the internet they're picked to take versus here. But how do you see North and South fitting in? I think North and South are going to struggle a little bit again. They're going to have to catch some breaks and obviously I think on the advantage I think is that their division is a little weaker than the other division. So if they can you know make up some you know win some games in their in their league which doesn't seem as strong as the Ashwabranans and the Bayports and those who have to pound on each other hopefully they'll get some wins. Who do you see taking to the conference? I'm going to go with Notre Dame. I know they lost their big back this year but their tradition and they had a great field. If you've never been up there you should go up and see that field. I'm going to pick Pulaski so we're going to have to write that down. We're running short of time. Last year I had Plymouth in the eastern Wisconsin. You had Qoscom finished in second, six and one. Plymouth was seven and oh who do you see winning that. I'm going to take Plymouth. Okay I'll go with Plymouth too. Just to make sure I win next year. In the central lake shore you picked Howard's Grove and they finished with only a four and three record. Cedar Grove I don't want to say they came out of nowhere but boy they were tough last year making it into the playoffs with a seven and oh record and then moving along very far. Yeah two years ago they got to the state finals. Last year they won it again. I'm going to go through Spurt. Okay and I'm going to go with Cedar Grove again. With that we're going to have Lakeland at the end of the year against Benedictine. We want to thank the coaches again for coming in. Chris great job and thanks a lot for helping and we're looking forward to doing the season and we want to thank you for watching and with that we'll see you down the road everybody.