I'm Phil Ne with WRC Osports, our high school schedule pretty much went by the wayside yesterday softball at River Valley
Canceled in the the Riverdale and Iowa grant games were postponed as well today's River Valley and
Reedsburg softball game postponed until later date probably a drier day and also yesterday's track meet at Dodgeville was postponed
It was to include Richland Center and that event will not be made up our broadcast schedule resumes on
Monday of next week and the forecast does not sound all that conducive for spring sports coming up on Monday either
Bowling scores from the coffee clutch league gutter gals had an 1812 alley cat 1768 10 pins 1743
High game honors gutter gals 631 spare parts 622 holy rollers as 608
Tammy Schwingle with the top series 492 lila craska 459 Cheryl Miller 453
Judy Skelly a 194 lila craska 181 Tammy Schwingle a 173
Marlene Gary a 579 10 and Tammy Schwingle a 57 split pickup Judy Skelly picked up the 310
All star bowling week 30 of 32 last night Jones collision center took the top series
2914 turbos bar and grill and midnight repair and fabrication
2886 series and also Jones Chevrolet and Morris hitting and cooling each add a 2837
Team game honors
1056 for midnight repair and fabrication
Jones collision center a 1045 turbos bar and grill at 1034
Top series Dan Pike 165 over average and he had a 744 quite a night last night
Chris Bardoon a 710 Greg Shepp a 685 Dan Pike congratulations rolled his first 300 game so
All the best Dan and also Brady Blado was second best last night at 258
Carrie Neff had a 257 Carrie Neff bold a 639 123 over average Eric Engman bold a 543 102 over average
and Fred Kepler with a 631 97 over average in action from last night's all star bowling league
Well the viewers were off on Thursday they'll send Chad Patrick to the mound
in the first game of a weekend series against the Kansas City Royals on Friday
and the box made the game close near the end on Wednesday night but wound up losing to Houston
They'll bounce back into action tonight against the Celtics
Wisconsin football announced recently the hiring of Wisconsin alum Brady Ewing the Richland
Center native Ewing joined the W staff as director of football alumni relations and will also
lead an effort for the Badgers to deepen the connection between the program and the alumni who
have built its tradition we'll talk sports coming up with Brady Ewing about his new post
in just a moment when sports continues joining us is Brady Ewing former Badger NFL player who
now has a new position with the university Brady congratulations on this higher this has to
be exciting for you and your family thanks really yeah it is certainly is something that place
as in the university Wisconsin the football program has meant a great deal to me in my life and
helping shape and mold me into the who I am today and facilitated a ton of relationships
and people that have had a big impact on my life so to be back with the program and trying to
help connect alumni and folks with the program with each other is just getting roll on here but
going to be super super rewarding until you've already has been here last week and a half
I had a little premonition of this last fall when you were an honorary captain and you and I were
talking and you said you know they you're trying to mend some fences with the alumni and things
like that and I thought boy you'd be a good man for the job and evidently somebody else must have
thought that too well you must have spoken into existence then but yeah that was really the
the start of it I think indirectly was that was the first time that I had been reconnected with
the program and got a chance to get on get on facility for practice and for the game and start to
meet you know coaches and support staff and just get a feel for the current program and that's
something I hadn't been able to take the time to do the previous years to that and then yeah this
really transpired this winter having more and more conversations with some folks around campus and
I think it's a great fit and definitely an opportunity right now to engage alumni and make sure
that they know that they're welcome and creating different events and engagement opportunities for
them to help and support the program too so they actually created this this is not a position that
existed before was it yeah so it was it was one that was had been vacant for a while I guess so
Alex James who was a former player a few years back had filled this role for a little while it was
a bit different he was doing some player personnel stuff supporting the current players
and also doing the alumni relations in some of the high school coaching supporting them as well so
this is something that you know the way I think communicated to me that they are they wanted to get
back having somebody waking up every day and focusing on alumni and the relationships that
alumni have at the program and and ensuring that they feel welcome supported and involved and
as a former alumni myself I think that's really exciting because a lot of these coaches and staff
don't have those Wisconsin ties and those roots and so to have somebody like myself that they
felt like could leave the charge there that has some connections and from the state of Wisconsin played
at Wisconsin I just feel super honored to be captain of the shoulder to help leave the charge.
Do you have an office there? I do yeah I'm not overlooking not not the corner office by any mean
but overlooking can't bring them up by the the football offices so it's been it's been fun it's been
fun I've only been here a week and a half but fun to get back on campus and get to know people
even more and get to know the current players and a lot of great memories in in camperanol stadiums
so it's fun to reminisce about some of those but also just be back around a place that I spent a
lot of time put a lot of energy and alongside a lot of other former players as well so it's pretty
pretty neat. So you're recruiting the alumni to be involved I'm guessing donations come into play
too right? So not fortunately at least for now that's that hasn't been much of the focus at all
it's really about relationships and connecting with folks you know we were talking before we even
get on here like certainly you know money in college athletics right now is very important but
that really has not been the focus of this role at all it's trying to connect connect with alumni
to make sure that they feel welcome to make sure that they're supported and that we can keep
them involved in a breath to what's going on in the program and eventually down the road
that you know in more of the phase two and phase three we'd love to utilize the experiences
and the expertise that the alumni have to help support the current players that are in the program
and the things that they're doing whether it be a career they want to pursue a certain thing
that they're interested in maybe there's a connection because of where they're from in the country
you know finding different avenues to help alumni give back to the current program but first and
foremost it's just about creating those connections and making sure that they feel welcome and
or want to come back to a place like Wisconsin so that's that's really the main focus
fortunately not money at this point okay and you're not tied to Luke fickle's program or any other
coach right yeah so this is part of the football program but yes they want this position to
remain consistent you know through any different coaching areas I guess whether that be you know
like in the past or in the future anything that might happen just having that consistency having
that person that the former players can count on the reach out to to be that conduit to the current
program that's that's definitely how they see this role which is exciting you and I've talked
before about how the game has changed since you played with name and image and likeness but I
think you don't even me as a fan it's a little harder to get fired up because you don't have those
four and five year guys that you can you know get tied to and be a fan of and a lot of them are
just you know one and done Brady it is yeah so it's it's definitely different and it's been
fascinating to you know after practice they you know there's been they're on spring break now but
had some practices last week and getting a chance to sit at lunch and get to know some of the
current players learn about their stories where they came from you know where they transferred from
what were they went to high school just learning about them what makes them tick what led them to
Wisconsin it's fascinating and into your point a lot of I think this coming year this coming
fall there's in the 52 or 50-ish new players on the team that's counting incoming freshmen that's
counting transfers that came into the program so yeah there's it's not college athletics and in
college football in general it's just totally different from when I played and prior to that where
you could see somebody play as a freshman or sophomore play some special teams and then all
the sudden a year or two years later they're contributing on offense or defense and you
feel that connection to them certainly it's it's a little bit different right now talking with
the coaching staff you know there's definitely going to be that balance going forward of how do
you recruit you know high school folks and the use the transfer portal to supplement that
as far just like you see in the NFL in different professional programs and some people might not
like to hear that but every program takes a little bit of different approach on how they're going
to develop talent and use you know free agency and I think that is the same thing you'll
continue to see in college athletics is each program will find their niche you know you look at
the Milwaukee Brewers they take a little bit different strategy based on their market size based
on how they want to develop talent how they want to draft talent then say an LA Dodgers might take
the approach and they're programming it I think you'll see Wisconsin and other college schools
starting to settle into their niche on how they want to find that balance of development of talent
keeping and retaining talent but also supplementing with the outside and I don't know exactly what
that looks like just yet but certainly there's a big push right now to invest at Wisconsin
to be able to compete this next year and that's very active in the transfer portal so you'll see
even more new faces but a lot of excitement even at practice to see in talent that's out there the
energy attitude their brain practice has been really really fun to watch so long-winded
answer to your question Phil but just want to provide some context there I saw a photo view I believe
was on X but you were at a practice and you were standing over the couple of other X players
that presume they were alumni do you know what photo I'm talking about yeah so I was the
title Jefferson I know in one he came to one of my very first practices when it's since I started
the role and then I think that picture we were with Marcus Sudbury who is the assistant
athletic director and the general manager for the football team so it's been awesome to connect
with guys like Kyle of you know Bill Maggie former work colleague and former teammate of mine
and others are coming to practice and and that's really you know here in this window as many
people as we can get back and reconnect with personally introduce them to some of the current
players coaches just to start creating those personal ties that's the big push over the next
couple weeks yeah so you know about the job for a little bit but that's that's one of the goals
I know you have anything else you'd like to talk about in terms of goals or things you'd like
the implement here in the coming months yeah have a strategy and a plan that I've outlined
been working with the team on and understanding what you know whether it's coach fickle you know
Marcus and in other stakeholders you're on the department you know what has worked well in the past
what what they would like to see continued and some of the ideas that I'm bringing but I think
first and foremost how that phase one is yeah I've been on the phone here all day talking with alumni
text and alumni messaging alumni and it's really just making sure that they know I'm a point of
contact and a resource going forward making sure that they know that they're welcome around the
program and spring practice is a great great opportunity to do that but I have a few other
opportunities in the works as to kick things off get guys involved not only with the program but
with each other to continue to facilitate that camaraderie and I'm going to need help from support
from some of those alumni to do that there's so many a football alumni which is awesome it's just
you know using and finding some ambassadors across these different eras that can help me spread the
word will be really really important as different events as different things come up different
updates within the program that we're trying to share going to take a village as it always does
and already talking to some guys about that well you be one of the ones that organizes like alumni
events for instance you know being a captain or showing up at a special dinner or anything like
that that's right yep so the honorary guest captain that'll that'll be an initiative that I
take lead on helping to communicate with those guys make their experience when they are
at the game or bringing their families to the game making sure that that experience is
is a great one for them and yeah there's typically a reunion tailgate each year
for former players so I'll be taking lead on events like that and getting the word out on it
doing some of the back end organization again making sure that the atmosphere is set up for
guys to reconnect with each other reconnect with the program and make sure that that's as useful as
possible and memorable as possible for them so excited for things like that we have some really
cool you know Notre Dame game up in Green Bay this year so I'm sure there'll be different alumni
coming in for that I'm doing some cool stuff around there and then also just recently had one
but a zoom call with Coach Pickle with alumni we're all football alumni we're invited to hear
the current state of the program to ask any questions that the alumni might have and certainly
opportunity to grow that and focus on that through the transition of different phases of the football
year so we did one pre-spring as before I had started but claim to do on here leading into the fall
and then after postseason as well just again update on the programs being able to ask those questions
to get some knowledge and some perspective on what's going on in the program and help spread
that word among the alumni base all right so you're still going to be located in Richland Center
but commuting once in a while that's right yep I'll be getting down to Madison I know there's
others that do that commute I've talked to and I've been I've been drafted off their tailgate
heading down to Madison here but yes gonna find a nice balance of being on site to develop
relationships know what's going on with the program but also keeping home based in Richland Center
that's awesome love the community here and you know Rachel and I's families are are in town and
that means this place means a great deal to us and definitely with something that talked about
your interview process with UW that we wanted to stay in Richland Center and continue to raise our
family here and be a part of this community as well well that's really good to hear and
congratulations on now this this big job for you we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us
and we'll be in touch thanks a lot Brady yeah it's my pleasure thanks everybody for all there
we've been so much support whether it be from youthville and the station but just people from the
community super excited for me and our family and I've been a lot of messages and conversations
that have been a Walmart or you know around kids practices so just thank you to everybody for all
the support and excited to be back part of the program and something that means a great deal to
all the people across the state and in Richland Center especially so thanks for all the support
you bet Brady Ewing joining us talking sports here on WRCO
