I grew up on Wisconsin sports cloud nine. Badger football was good. Badger basketball was very good. The Brewers were competitive. The Packers were great. But Whitewater football was untouchable.
My dad first took me to a Whitewater football game on October 9, 2010. I was a 7 year old kid who hated big crowds and loud noises. My dad wanted to get me used to them so I could get comfortable and eventually go to Badger games. So off we went to his alma mater.
He knew that that game against Stout was targeting my fears as much as imaginable, but I'm not sure he knew how it would go.
Perkins Stadium filled up with at the time a record breaking crowd of over 12,000 fans. Whitewater won 30-7, which meant the cannon fired about as many times as I could count.
But somehow I fell in love with it. From that day forward I was a Warhawk.
We went to every game we could. I can count on one hand how many home games I've missed. We began going to the road games at Oshkosh, Platteville, even Stevens Point to see family up there. By the time I graduated from high school we planned on getting to every WIAC stadium, unfortunately the pandemic threw a wrench in that.
I have been at the 14 highest attendance games in UWW football history and the four highest attendance on campus Division III games ever. I became probably the loudest fan in the stadium. My dad certainly got me used to crowds and loud spaces.
We watched four national championship teams, nine WIAC championship teams and eleven playoff teams. Whitewater has certainly provided plenty to cheer for over the years. By my count, my dad and I - often along with my uncle - have been to 114 Warhawk football games.
Whitewater football has provided some of the highlights of my sports life. The comeback playoff win against Wartburg the week Lance Leipold took the Buffalo job. Getting revenge against Oshkosh in the 2015 quarterfinals. The 2019 semifinal victory against St. John's may be the single greatest game I've ever seen. The 2022 Mary Hardin-Baylor game when the Warhawks drove 99 yards to win it after a four play goal line stance.
I'll even throw in the greatest moment I can remember: The Eureka running back who waged his finger at the UWW defense as he ran out of bounds, a great example of don't poke the bear as his next three touches went fumble, no gain, fumble.
When college rolled around I didn't want to attend Whitewater. For lack of a better explanation, it seemed too fitting. Ultimately, I was wait listed and rejected from the school I wanted to go to and my feelings about attending Oshkosh washed away. It was time to go to the college I'd known since I was a boy.
My relationship with Warhawk football went from fan to journalist.
In the fall of 2021 I joined UW-Whitewater's student newspaper, the Royal Purple. In true freshman fashion, I missed my first meeting. And in true group project fashion, I did all the work on my first story that I had a co-byline on.
Somehow, exactly one week before the 11th anniversary of my first UWW game I got to cover my first Warhawk football game. Somehow, UWW played the same team they played 11 years before. Somehow, Whitewater beat Stout by nearly the same score as they had 11 years before.
I've written just seven football game recaps for the Royal Purple, but my UWW football record book goes well before those games.
I don't usually admit how much I know about the program, but when I discuss the team with friends I often end up explaining how Matt Behrendt and Matt Blanchard took care of the ball better than Aaron Rodgers. How incredible Levell Coppage, Jordan Ratliffe and Alex Peete were, not to mention Jake Kumerow or the defensive studs like Brady Grayvold.
For four years I've gotten to write about the football team I know the most about. Covering them through the newspaper, social media, radio guest appearances and more has been one of the most exciting experiences of my life.
It certainly was an adjustment, I went from cheering in the stands to sitting quietly in the press box. Getting to cover this team and it's evolving landscape over the last four years has been a journey unlike any other.
I owe a lot to Warhawk football. It offered me a lot of fun as a kid and as a college student they offered me a platform to improve in my field of study. I'm not leaving, I'll be watching, I'll probably be cheering, maybe I'll even be reporting.