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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7.06.
Nice to have you back here up north on this Monday morning, October 20th.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.
Kristen Lierly and Selena Heller joining us this morning as well as of course is as always Rob and Tigerton who joins us commenting on YouTube and says good morning from Tigerton it's clear skies 31 degrees 31 degrees
It was a great weekend Saturday.
I was busy mowing up leaves around Tigerton and I was washing my winter coats and hoodies over the weekend watch the Patrick game Today gonna mow up more leaves yesterday was friendship day.
So happy belated friendship day And another beautiful sunrise in Tigerton today So I always appreciate hearing from him and from you as well get in those comment sections on Facebook and YouTube and give us a hello as well to hear where you're listening from
I did say it's a chilly morning out there, 27 in Eagle River right now, 30 in Mosini.
The warm spots are in both Amory and Milwaukee at 43 degrees.
Oshkosh here at 39 and here in the Chippewa Valley it is 34 right now.
You can sign up for our newsletter.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and you can get the weekday version or of course on the Sunday mornings.
I put together a version that is more about Wisconsin politics, little national politics.
It includes our question of the week, which this week is, should online sports betting be legal in Wisconsin?
And did you know that using DraftKings or FanDuel, technically those are misdemeanors in Wisconsin?
Not that anybody gets pinched for them, but there's a proposal for the tribal casinos here in Wisconsin.
They have sports books, so you can go to the casino, watch sporting events and place bets on professional sports, not college sports.
But there is a proposal that would let those casinos also have online
gambling sites.
And so you're sitting at home, you got your phone and you can bet on whether you know, the next, you know, snap of the football is going to lead to a touchdown or not.
As you can tell, I have very mixed opinions on this one, but we want to know what you think.
So to be the first to respond, head to upnorthnewswi.com and sign up for our question of the week.
I sense there are no sports betters in the group here.
Maybe Parker's got a little thing going there.
He wins every time.
Just one more, one more
year.
Or the end of that afternoon, you know?
Well, exactly.
So you
If
you've got good limits, I could see that.
Yeah.
And I know somebody else who that is there, the recycling, they live in another state where they can still take their recycling in and get money for that.
And it's like, Pat, you can gamble with that.
That's
it.
You know, so it's whatever system works to keep it in check.
That's that's the important thing to know.
Packers defeated Arizona 27 to 23.
Kristen, you weren't yet.
She has her Packers sweatshirt on here.
You weren't in Arizona for that game, though.
I mean, you're you were in Mexico City, you didn't like stop in Arizona on the way back to go to the game or something like that.
I did not.
I couldn't even watch.
So I was like in this long line through customs, watching the game cast on ESPN and my kids were texting me as it was going on.
I was dying at the end of the game and that information deficit because there was so much happening.
Yes.
Oh, it was hard.
But you also missed your cue when I said, so you weren't at yesterday's game, were you?
No, but where were you going to be for the next game?
Oh, I'll be in Pittsburgh.
Yes,
you
will.
But I'm going to be there for a meeting and it just happened to be.
That the Steelers and
Aaron Rodgers.
I did not.
It's like an actual man.
So excited.
And you know what else I'm going to do?
I'm going to go visit the Mr. Rogers Memorial in Pittsburgh.
And I'm very excited about that.
You should be.
That's great.
You will, of course, be preparing a show that will air.
at noon across the Civic Media Radio Network as well, will you not?
Oh, you guys, it's so good.
We shot it a couple of weeks ago.
It's Fran Hong, assembly representative Francesca Hong, who is delightful.
She's running for Wisconsin governor and she is just her platform is so inspiring.
Just to hear her talk about how much she cares about workers and what she's planning to do as she continues to move forward with this campaign and hit every county in Wisconsin.
I love this conversation.
I think you will too.
Well, funny you should say that because I have a conversation.
with Fran Hong as well right here on my phone.
I went to she was in Eau Claire yesterday made an appearance and I interviewed her and we will be running that tomorrow morning here on the program.
So state representative Francesca Hong tomorrow morning on this show and then Saturday and extended interview as part of the Dr. Kristen Larley show talking about her run for governor.
Yeah,
always great to talk to.
Oh, of course food.
She's a chef.
But
there's there's nothing she can't talk about though.
Just always a good conversation with her.
Coming up in just a little while here, about 25 minutes, we will be talking to Bill Hogseth from GROW, that stands for Grass Roots Organizing Western Wisconsin, all about getting politicians to focus on making healthcare access better for all of us.
A very familiar topic to Dr. Lagerling and myself, and Celine has done stories on healthcare access as well, the rural healthcare crisis.
maybe not shutting down the government because you don't want people to have affordable health care, things like that.
And then lying to them about it.
Yeah.
Right.
Because it turns out that that gets people upset to the to the point where whether it's because of health care, or inflation, or troops in the streets, or a whole host of other reasons, you suddenly found something like seven to eight million Americans at various rallies over the weekend.
And Selena was covering the one in Eau Claire.
And what's stuck out to me, Selena, looking at all of the interviews that you sent back to me to edit, we'll be popping those up on social media throughout the next couple of days here, is yeah, it wasn't any one thing in particular.
It was a wide range.
This guy in the White House has done a lot of different things.
There's something in it for everybody to go, I don't know about this guy.
Yeah, it was pretty interesting because that's what I went up and you know why you're here today And they all had something kind of different to say it was really interesting what they came up with I wasn't really expecting that and and so it was just kind of neat to hear everybody's perspective and and what their reasoning is
Yeah, well, let's start with one of them Sharon was her name
What was her, what was her, what was her deal?
here.
Sorry.
We'll come back to it.
We'll come back to it after the break.
We can talk
signs.
Yes, please tell us about the signs.
So my favorite sign was, uh, I'd rather be home with my dogs, but I have to fight fascism.
Okay.
Like that one.
And then this one guy, I took a picture of him and he just had his eyeball peering out over his sign and he had sunglasses on and a, and a hat.
So I just have a picture of him with his eyeballs and his sign and his sign says, it's so bad.
Even the introverts are protesting.
He was really cute.
He really played his part.
Oh, it really was.
You know, like here's one that says, 13 years of Christian school and now you expect me to not love my neighbor.
There's this one, stupid callous, fragile, racist, sexist Nazi podus.
Yeah, that one was a nice thing there.
Yeah.
Oh, yes.
here's one.
First, they came for the immigrants and I spoke up because I know the rest of the damn poem.
So yeah, people were definitely showing off their chops there.
Kristen, we understand you have to run, but we will be talking to you on Friday, hopefully, before your Pittsburgh travels.
I'm going to be in Pittsburgh, but I will talk to you on Friday.
Oh, good.
Well, we will look forward to that.
Glad you made it back home for a little while before you have to go jetting off again.
I'm
a busy gal.
There's a lot to do in the world right now.
You know, saving the world takes time and sometimes takes some airfare.
Exactly.
All right.
Thank you, Kristen.
Thanks, friends.
Have a great
week.
All right.
We'll see you all later.
Let's see.
Parker, are we, you want to hold off until after the break on hearing Selena's tapes or do you have something ready to roll for us?
No, that's all right.
No, appreciate hearing about it.
We were talking about the signs and the people themselves.
And look, when I was editing this for Selena, you know, she just sends me these sound bites and says, you're stringing these together.
And so you see one woman, you know, who's very speaking very earnestly, and another person speaking very earnestly, and then a guy in a chicken suit.
And then a woman in an inflatable cow costume.
it was
But you also pre-screened them, and that included asking a series of questions.
Do you remember the series of questions, how they went?
No.
No.
Yes.
Yeah.
So they, you know, everybody was, uh,
was quizzed.
And again, you can't you can't pay 8 million people to be doing this.
And so it really kind of, you know, people were telling them themselves, if they were saying these were just a bunch of paid instigators, you'll clear one by the way, four different routes that people marched in as we learned from Cindy Greening, because one route was wasn't enough, you'd start to clog things up.
Yeah, they they just there were so many people the last time around they had to make four routes and they kind of on Saturday they set off for different areas of the downtown area.
So all at once all these people in one area of the downtown and in another I mean it was just kind of an incredible sight for people driving around downtown and they really I mean I was out there the whole time and so people were just honking while they were driving by and then some just stood on the streets and lined the streets and that was
And then in other parts of the city, in the downtown area, people set up little bands and were singing as the marchers went by.
It was kind of a festive, really positive day for everybody.
And again, no significant issues anywhere.
People came, they peacefully protested, and that was it.
And that's how it was supposed to work out.
And then before we go here, we just want to acknowledge one of our old co-workers.
And she'll like that.
say we're going to put the emphasis on old co-worker.
Judy Clark was honored, my old co-anchor at TV 13.
Judy Clark was honored at the Upper Midwest Emmys ceremony with an induction to their silver circle.
It's an honor for broadcasters whose outstanding work expands at least 25 years.
And Judy, I believe, is approaching 35.
35 years at TV 13, which is weird because you're watching, you go, she's not that much older than 35.
Started as a baby, she says in the story here, people ask me, does it seem like it's been 35 years?
I always say no, it's gone by in an instant.
Selena and I both know that's not true.
We've had some days that were really long in that newsroom.
But she does she does say I'm grateful to have been able to work with some of the best people in the business, talented journalists, wonderful co workers, past and present people who show me every day, the importance of what we do, why local news matters and now more than ever, we have to remember that.
So keep that in mind, Selena.
She said all those nice things about you.
And pretty much everybody else who she's
Hey,
want to
guide
That's right.
All right, Selena Heller's with us and we will talk more about people who attended the No Kings rally coming up.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
We are 30 minutes away from a visit with Jimmy Koska, Civic Media Sports Director.
We've got a lot to cover.
We've got, of course, the Packers beating Arizona 27-23, rather.
We've got the Brewers losing, getting swept by the Dodgers.
We've got the Badger football team getting embarrassed yet again.
And the high school football playoff brackets have been released as well.
So a lot to cover with Jimmy.
30 minutes from now, we've got Bill Hogseth coming up.
in less than 15 minutes from grassroots organizing in western Wisconsin.
Tomorrow on the program, as I mentioned, we'll talk to State Representative Francesca Hong about her campaign for governor, also Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area, Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom, live from Washington DC with the latest on the government shutdown.
We'll have Dan Hagen from Newswatch 12 and Rhinelander, Civic Media reporter James Kelly, and we'll have Steve Bow from Farm to Power all about how wind and solar are becoming a big deal in some parts of rural Wisconsin.
good thing.
And we'll find out more from Steve coming up about that and more along the way.
But up North News reporter Selena Heller is with us now.
And again, you can see everything that she puts together on where social media sites just look for up North News WI on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
And now that we've got our technical difficulties taken care of.
to the folks you were talking to and I believe Sharon is who we are going to hear from first Selena.
Okay.
Well I'm here with my friends to continue to defend democracy.
We feel the the country is moving in the wrong direction with our president as our leader.
He's
Most important to me is impinging on our freedom of speech.
And if we don't have that, I'm not sure if our democracy will hold up like it should.
He continues to lie about things and deceive the people and not give people a chance to be represented by their elected officials like they should be.
All right, and then who do we get to next year?
I believe it is Lucy, right?
All right, let's give a listen to Lucy.
I am here because I'm a social worker and it's in our code of ethics to speak up for the needs and the rights of all people.
So I have my sign today that really touches on things that impact
everyone in our country and it's important in my profession and my personal values that we speak up and try to advance justice for everybody.
And then lastly we've got, let's see, Sandy.
Let's give a listen.
We're here to express concerns about what's happening in our country right now.
I especially think I may be old, but I have children and grandchildren, and we have generations of people that need support, and they're not getting it from this administration.
Well, obviously, because of my age, I'm concerned about social security and Medicare.
But again, it's everyone, our people that are being ripped off the streets who are legal.
in the United States, having no voice, being 15 year olds, being chopped away for 15 days at a time.
It's just important what's happening in our country right now.
And let's see this from on the text line here from Jim and Brookfield.
My wife and I spent the weekend at our friend's cabin, their Lake Cabin near Montello.
We made signs and went to the rally at the main intersection in Montello, the only traffic light in the area.
About 250 people made it clear that these kings are not welcome.
Just about every car beeped and agreed.
And some other people have been sending us their signs from their various rallies.
Did you at any point, Selena, notice any counter protesters, Trump supporters, anything like that?
guessing we're in a college area, college students, a couple of guys across the street playing over a loud speaker.
I don't know if it was a Charlie Kirk or something like that, but they were kind of playing that the whole time, but otherwise there was nothing else happening.
Nothing.
They were counter programming, maybe?
Well, I mean, I think if it was Charlie Kirk's words, they were playing, I think it only, you know, helped the marchers own cause to know what it is that they're, you know, that they're fighting up against.
And you covered these the June ones as well, right?
rallies.
The other one was the hand, there was a hands off rally.
And I since we're not done with this yet, because we're not done with people that are making other people frustrated.
But what I got out of this, I started this by saying you, you talk to people with all sorts of different grievances.
But
The thing that's underpinning all of this is these are people that this is just not for them.
They're not in it for themselves.
They care about other people.
Like you said, people who've been abducted and people who need health care, things like that.
There's a real sense of love and service to country.
Yes, and for your neighbors kindness towards your neighbors They are looking out for people and that was a lot of the sentiment through the day is just looking out for other people I'm here for all of these other groups and representing these other groups that
aren't there today.
But yeah, it was just just the caring for other people and injustice for everybody else.
Yeah.
And on the text line now, Tiffany from River Falls says, yeah, Montello.
So glad to hear the towns around my childhood home participated with great turnouts.
River Falls estimated over 1000 marching through downtown.
So again, the perfect fall weather.
certainly didn't hurt things at all.
But you know, there are people that could have done anything else with their Saturday and decided that they wanted to do this.
So again, if you want to see more of these folks that Selena talked to and others that we talked to in Madison and elsewhere, keep an eye out on your social media feeds, just search for up North News, WI and follow off your favorite platform.
Selena Heller, thank you so much for collecting all that over the weekend.
Have a great day.
All right.
When we come back, we will be talking a little bit more about kind of some grassroots level activity and with an emphasis on Western Wisconsin, and with an emphasis on health care.
But again, all in the name of service and good policy.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
In this morning's edition of our daily newsletter, sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Gilmore Girls' Getaways, the show, which dates back 25 years now, is set in a fictional New England town of Stars Hollow, where it's everything an ideal small town should be.
A lively, walkable downtown, complete with bookshops, antique stores, bakeries, and others.
populated by a quirky cast of characters who constantly come together to celebrate festivals, holidays, and help one another.
Well, there are places in Wisconsin that that description fits perfectly.
Well, the place is not necessarily the quirky people.
So if you're looking for some weekend getaways that are right up there on par with stars hollow, learn about it in our daily newsletter, sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
All right, let's continue on with our Movement Mondays, where we talk to people from groups that are looking to make a difference and create a movement of people who increase their civic engagement about the issues that are important to them and their hometowns.
One of those groups is called Grow, and that is for grassroots organizing, Western Wisconsin.
Bill Hogseth is part of that group based in Dunn County, but throughout Western Wisconsin, where we find out about the people they're talking to and the issues that are important to them.
Bill, good morning.
how are you?
Hey, Pat, it's good to see you.
Good morning.
Yeah, good to see you as well.
For folks that might have missed our earlier visit.
Let's start by once again, describing what grow is what you know what it got started as and what grow does.
Yeah, yeah.
So we are a homegrown grassroots organization.
We started in Pierce County, a few neighbors outside of River Falls got together around the kitchen table.
And they decided they wanted more power to shape things in their community, and that was back in 2020.
And the organization has grown since then, but we've really stayed true to, like, we are grassroots, we're about regular people taking action together.
And we now cover seven counties in western Wisconsin, so Polk, Barron, St.
Croix, Dunn, Pierce, Patheon.
Buffalo are where we where we cover and we really are a very locally focused organization.
So we have a couple of campaigns one of them is we're Working to mitigate the impacts of big corporate farms Another one is we're working on housing and trying to make things better for tenants and menominee We also have a whole campaign that's trying to help people get elected to their local governments so they can have more of a voice there and
Yeah, I could go on and on.
Is that
good?
That's a very good start.
Now, when you say a campaign,
when you
engage in campaigns, what is that campaign made up of?
What is it that you're ultimately looking to accomplish or gather?
Yeah, awesome question.
Because Pat, I think last time I was on was like last summer.
And our members were getting ready to knock a bunch of doors in the nominee.
because there was housing issues and monomony so we knocked on 500 doors and we had conversations with people about what they were experiencing on housing and it was from those conversations that a campaign emerged.
So we didn't just come in and say hey we're going to do this campaign because we think we've got all the answers.
We heard from people what was the issue that was really biting into their lives.
And what we discovered was that it was around people's rental conditions.
So after that summer, we had a set of meetings in our community and we started doing research and we decided to move forward and try and to like pass an ordinance in the city of Menominee to bring back proactive rental inspections because those were removed from
from cities can no longer do proactive rental inspections because the state passed a law in 2017.
So long story short pad is like we start with listening and then we have a set of meetings where we engage the community and invite people in to take leadership and now our leaders are actually at the point they've had a public meeting with the building inspector they had a forum at the Mabel Tainter about this issue they've done tons of one-to-one meetings and they're now working with the
the housing committee in the city of Menominee to pass an ordinance that's going to restore rental inspections.
And they did a bunch of research.
They found that Eau Claire's done this, Racine's done this, Oshkosh, and they're working to find something that's going to work in Menominee.
But this issue's been brought forward by our leaders and pushed by our leaders.
And it looks like it's really close to happening.
We're talking to Bill Hogseth from Grow Grassroots, organizing Western Wisconsin.
And that might be the most fascinating, impactful example of civic engagement that I've heard yet talk about on this program.
Because we say affordable housing like it's some kind of a buzzword, and it is a very, very real problem.
But so often, you know, you just say, Well, we just need to, you know, quote unquote, throw money at it, make, make,
make
rent, make rent more affordable, make it easier for landlords to bring in people with, you know,
lower incomes.
But none of that matters if these places are falling apart.
And so as you're digging into the issue, you're finding out about the need for better inspections, which by the way, a legislature filled with mostly Republicans who are landlords have so altered the landscape to be anti renter pro landlord that you go and look for these local solutions.
Yeah, I mean,
the point you bring about the state legislature is really important because the bill that got passed Act 317 was the result of hundreds of thousands of dollars of lobbying done by the Wisconsin Realistries Association and then the one in five of the legislators that voted for that bill were landlords themselves.
So it really matters who is in power and that's kind of like why we organize the way we do it's because
when people are organized, regular people can be at the table.
And right now, it's our leaders who are working with the housing committee and the nominee who are helping to craft this ordinance.
Now, you're also working on the topic of health care, which gets a lot of attention right now because
That is the main reason that the federal government is shut down right now is this ongoing fight to avoid a massive spike in health insurance premiums.
But at a local level, again, is it as big an issue as national leaders are making it out to be?
In other words, are they right to dig in their heels and say, this health care affordability issue is important enough to force this fight in Congress right now?
Yeah, I mean, we definitely see that it is cutting at the local level.
We are a very locally focused organization, but there are times like this where we cannot ignore what's happening at the federal level because it is hitting so hard in the lives of our people and our members.
decided to host a press action about two weeks ago on this very issue, calling on our member of Congress, Derek Van Orden, to break the political gridlock in Washington, D.C.
because of how this is impacting our lives.
Like, Phil Virges, one of our founding members, is a soybean farmer in Spring Valley, and he was doing the math while he was combining soybeans and realized he was gonna lose 80, he's losing $85 an acre.
this year.
And then he's also realizing that he's going to lose the tax credits that are available to him through the ACA that makes his premiums affordable.
And so he's doing the math about what this is all going to cost him.
And he's realizing he's on the edge of financial precarity.
So what's happening right now federally is
really, really consequential for everybody in Western Wisconsin.
Even if you don't use Medicaid or ACA, this is like has the potential to destabilize healthcare locally.
I mean, we've already saw like in the nominee, you can't childbirth services aren't available.
So it's like the reduction of services, the reduction of staffing, people are gonna have to go to ERs to get care, those weights are gonna increase.
So this is really affecting everybody.
And it's all emanating from what that bill that was passed in July 4th, HR1, that was, I mean, it's not only cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid and terminating the tax credits, but it's also pushing a bunch of wealth upward and giving handouts to billionaires.
So it's a massive redistribution of wealth.
And it's really important that people know that.
Bill Hogseth is our guest from GROW, Grass Roots Organizing Western Wisconsin.
You can learn more at gro-ww.org.
And another one of the areas that you've mentioned is factory farming.
And you had a win recently in where Pierce County, town of Isabel
with our
local ordinance.
Tell us more about that.
Yeah, so what's happening there is this was all instigated by
a dairy KFO that was wanting to expand in the town of Salem.
It's called the Ridge Breeze Dairy.
And neighbors were really concerned.
Neighbors who were already experiencing contaminated wells and unable to drink their own water coming out of their faucet, they wanted to do something about it.
So the organizing that's happened then has been incredibly locally focused because the state DNR regulates
only from a water quality perspective.
And often these CAFOs just kind of get rubber stamped by the agency.
So what we've decided, what we've seen that needs to happen is passing ordinances at the town board level.
And we have an ordinance that's called the operations ordinance that says if it doesn't ban CAFOs, but it says if you want to operate a CAFO in our township, there's these set of conditions that you need to show that you can mitigate everything from bio hazards to road damage to air quality.
and all those factors.
And it just says, if you're gonna do that, you're gonna need to show those plans, and you're also gonna have to have some financial assurity to show that like if there's a spill, for example, that the liability can be handled by the operator of that farm.
So we've been working township by township, and Main Rock Township was the first place where this was passed in Pierce County, now Isabelle, and there's others that are working on it, so we expect many more to come.
And it happens in all sorts of areas.
There's a great article in the Wisconsin Examiner about this fight and the work that you're doing.
Pointing out, for example, five years ago, leaders at a dairy falsely told Polk County supervisors they'd be committing a felony if they voted for a moratorium on factory farm expansions.
That's not true.
But again, without groups like yours essentially acting as watchdogs, the big lobbying groups will steamroll some of these small areas.
Yeah, and one thing I want to say about that, Pat, is that oftentimes in our organizing on this issue, we're painted as anti-farmer, which is not the case.
We have many farmers who are organizing with us, and often the opposition to these ordinances, like you said, are coming from these big lobbying groups, industry groups that are super well-funded, that have their own interests around profit at stake.
And so they do things like, yeah, send a letter like that that you mentioned in Pope County.
And often at these public meetings in these little townships, they're really the only ones showing up in opposition.
Now, again, for folks that are listening elsewhere around the state, you can learn more by going to grassroots organizing Western Wisconsin.
That's G-R-O-W-W.org.
But Bill, in conclusion, for people in other parts of the state that may not know if there's a group like yours where they are, what suggestions do you have or advice would you give them?
Yeah, we do partner with other groups like ours that really That share the belief that organized people is the way that we can build power And so some of those groups are active in other parts of the state I'd say go talk to citizen action go talk to common ground in Milwaukee go talk to all the different affiliates of wisdom or if you're in western, Wisconsin come talk to us because
I mean, at the end of the day, this is not about which party is in power.
This is about whether regular people have a seat at the table.
And the way that we do that is by getting organized and acting as a collective.
I'm really glad you mentioned that because at no point, I mean, I mentioned Republicans in the legislature, but the issues themselves are designed to be nonpartisan.
I think of all of those county boards that voted for resolutions over the past many years endorsing fair maps.
That was not, you know, fair maps should not be a partisan thing.
And likewise, all these issues should be, you know, what is the right policy?
What is the right thing to do for your area?
And Bill Hawks said,
does that as part of grow in Western Wisconsin.
Bill, we appreciate your time so very much.
Thank you.
Hope you have a great day.
Hey, thanks, Pat.
Have a great day.
All right.
Talk to you later.
When we come back, we're going to be talking to Civic Media Sports Director Jimmy Cusca.
It's been a very busy weekend here.
It was a good weekend for Packers eventually against Arizona.
Some other teams a little less so.
Well, Jimmy will tell us all about that and upcoming high school football playoffs start this week.
We'll be back.
You're
up north.
All right, let's jump into Monday Morning Sports here with Civic Media Sports Director Jimmy Cusca.
We can at least start.
We're going to start this time with the good news.
It took me forever to get to the Packers because we were talking Badger football and Brewers Dodgers and everything else.
So let's start with the good stuff.
Jimmy, good morning.
What was the best takeaway from the Packers beating the Arizona Cardinals yesterday?
I think the best takeaway is that the Packers players themselves recognized that it was underwhelming in a lot of aspects that they expected that they should have not had to fight and claw their way to a victory the way they did in the fourth quarter.
I thought those comments were certainly reflective of how a lot of the fan base feels.
That being said, a win is a win in the NFL.
There's a lot of games or 17 games.
Dick wins anyway.
You can get them.
And I think just from just from multiple aspects that just being able to get it done is is good news for a lot.
reasons for the Packers.
Yeah, I definitely heard that in some of the post game comments.
And thank goodness.
I mean, none of this diva stuff like we won, you know, and they cashed the checks like they know they can win better than that.
Exactly.
And seeing Micah Parsons after the Cardinals for whatever reason, they decided to guard him one on one, block him one on one.
Just a bold strategy choice.
But seeing him finally put up some stats to shut people off to is also good news.
And then seeing the substitute.
teacher substitute kick his way.
He's now 10 for 10.
I mean, that is wonderful too for the Packers to have him come out of nowhere and contribute in a huge way at a game like this.
Set a Packers record for the longest made field goal.
Just awesome things for the Packers to get that kind of contribution.
Who does not love a good walk on story?
I mean, and that's where you typically see it is with football, which is very cool.
And we need that because college football,
Look, the Badgers were big winners over the weekend by losing by only 34 points instead of 37 points the weekend before.
You know, I was in attendance this weekend for a top college football matchup in division three, that is with lacrosse and flat field.
So I got to watch some good college football this weekend.
Badgers are not playing a good brand of college football.
When your only highlight is, is a fake punt, which is a special teams coordinator.
I definitely enjoy it.
But when that's your highlight, there are some things to miss.
And the reward for all of this now is getting to play a night game at Oregon on Saturday, where things will continue probably not to go well.
They haven't scored in.
two weeks, and that's a problem.
I think that the student section let it be known this last weekend when that's happening, when people are that vocal, when people aren't showing up, when the wallets start getting impacted in the athletic department, I think that's when you start to see the potential for change.
Well, that's when you hear that it might cost $25 million to buy out Luke Fickle and fire him, where the question invariably is asked, are we
Are we losing more than $25 million if we keep this guy?
And I know that sounds like a lot of money, but I think that's a fair question to ask.
Yeah.
And I think that if you're rooting your future potential and future earnings, I think that's, you know, if you're just strictly looking at this as a bean counter, you know that if that's what the decision comes down to, it's just straight up money.
If it was just football, I think that a change would have been maybe made by now.
But if it's strictly about money and they're waiting to figure that part of it out, maybe they're waiting for the bye week to come up.
Maybe it's that.
They just need time to install somebody else.
But that being said, here's the other thing.
It's not just in a vacuum with the Badgers.
There could be almost two dozen.
openings in major college football.
So the talent pool for coaching is also going to be extremely competitive.
Florida just fired their coach.
There's been a lot of head coaching changes in college football.
That's the context you need in this, is that there's going to be a lot of competition for head coaches this offseason.
That's true.
I mean, whatever we end up paying for a buyout, you're now going to have to turn around and hire somebody.
And yeah, the rates aren't going down.
for good coaching.
That's for sure.
So you corrected the record properly during the break, reminding me that eight man college or high school football playoffs are already underway.
And then 11 Man begins this Friday.
That's a whole lot of schools that are in.
So rather than go through them all, I'm going to put up a question on the text line from Roger and Stevens Point.
Can you tell us why Spash five and four Stevens Point is out of the playoffs while Laconia at two and seven is in the
playoffs?
Well, I could answer that.
And first of all, the answer to your question on how many teams are in the playoffs is that 32 and eight player 224 and 11 player are in an eight player last weekend and went very chalky, including the top seeded in the entire bracket.
Flamboyle Falcons getting a shutout victory in level one.
I just had to get that in there.
Go Falcons.
A beloved player starts this weekend.
The reason is that this year the high school football playoff selection qualification and bracketing is now done basically automated.
It's a points formula based on the teams that you beat.
So you need to win and you also need to defeat good teams.
So SPASH and Iowa Grant are two examples of teams that were five and four in the regular season that did not make it.
And then there are teams that were two and seven, but maybe one of their victories was an upset win.
over somebody who had a lot of victories.
So you earn points based on who you beat and you are incredibly rewarded for beating good teams.
So if your team and your wins are over teams that maybe have zero, one, maybe two wins and there are only other victories are over.
other teams who have maybe zero or one wins, you're not getting as many points as you would if you beat somebody that's got five or six victories.
There was a scenario for even us here at basketball where had we won on Friday, there was a decent chance that we would have been in at one and eight because the team we were playing with six and two, it had some, some wins over teams that had racked up quite a few victories this season.
So the new formula rewards wins, it rewards winning over good teams.
And all of that math and all that explanation is on the WIA website.
if you really want to dive into the weeds on it, but to boil it down if you beat teams that are good.
you're going to get into the playoffs.
I feel like we're trying to decipher the algorithm that decides what comes up in my Facebook feed here.
Yeah, exactly.
And the thing is, is that's very transparent though, but you can do the math yourself and see how it, what it would take.
So that's the nice thing about this.
This is in previous years, if they use a computer formula, whether it was basketball or another sport, nobody knew what balanced into that.
Is it, is it, is it a victory thing?
Is it a strength of schedule thing?
Nobody knew.
And now for football, at least the math is right on the table and you can figure it out yourself.
Maybe
I
can't I would I would need a lot more crayons to do that.
But
all right, I'm gonna put you on the spot.
Instant answers on the brewers here.
The best thing you're taking away from this season and your biggest worry that we might lose somebody.
The Brewers are great at developing players in their organization.
That was something that was turned around under Matt Arnold when he came over from Houston.
They have definitely developed that talent.
I think that the worry is valid that the Brewers can't afford to keep a lot of these people in place.
There you go, Civic Media Sports Director Jimmy Koska.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
See you on Wednesday.
Our friends from Madison, John and Gordy are coming up next from our Civic Media station there.
And Laura Bird will talk to us about book fairs as well.
I'm Pat Whitelow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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