Kimberly vs D.C. Everest
WAUSAU, WI (EVERYTHING EVERGREENS-93.9FM THE GAME) The Pittsburgh Pirates were once a great team. They were World Series champions in 1960, winning on Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off home run against the Yankees. Roberto Clemente led the team to another title in 1971, as did Willie Stargell in 1979. The Pirates won back-to-back division titles in 1990 and 1991 before losing Barry Bonds to free agency. And all of that seems far, far in the past. The Pirates of today are a mere shadow of themselves. Their heros of the past are dead or have long since retired.
There are many high school football programs that are like the Pirates. Even Wausau East, which today can’t even get enough young men to come out for football to field a team, has a championship banner from years past that hangs in their gymnasium. The alumni from those teams are old men now.
The glory days of the D.C. Everest football team are not that far in the past. But memories fade, and glories from years gone by are harder to recall. Everest’s last state championship was 2003. Seniors on this year’s football team were born that year. Perhaps their fathers or uncles played on the championship teams of ’89 or ’83. Those who won the state championship in 1981 are nearing retirement age; many from the Class of 1971 are no longer with us.
It feels, to me, that the passing of Coach Wayne Steffenhagen last February marked the end of era. His achievements cast a long shadow over the Everest football program. It’s a standard that no one, players or coaches, have been able to equal.
This year’s team had a good level of talent. They played competitive football throughout the regular season. They could have easily been better than 4-4. Three of their losses were by less than one score, and each of those games were decided in the fourth quarter. Last year’s team, which won the division title, was also a nice group of players. They beat up on division rivals that weren’t very good, and lost to better teams from other parts of the state.
In my ten years broadcasting Everest football, the teams have been up and down — but never elite. During my decade, the Evergreens have won only two playoff games. They’ve never won more than 6 games in a season; they’ve been below .500 three times.
Kimberly, the team that ended Everest’s season with a 40-0 beat down, is the new elite football program in Wisconsin. Today they are what Everest once was. And the people who can remember when the roles were reversed are fewer and fewer, as those time drift further
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