Prescott High School Athletic Director Andrew Caudill attended last week’s 56th annual Wisconsin Athletic Directors Conference in Wisconsin Dells. Among the hot button items discussed included football conference alignment and playoff expansion and, as expected, debate and analysis connected to the WIAA competitive balance tournament placement proposal.

The defending Middle Border Conference boys basketball team began practice this week. The Cardinals have won or shared eight of the last nine conference championships and are picked to win the title again this year. Entering his 12th year as head coach, Nick Johnson has an overall record of 22551.

Prescott alumnus Bella Lenz came off the bench last Saturday to score 19 points as the Michigan Tech Huskies defeated Lewis University in overtime by a score of 95-83. The day before, Lenz and the Huskies throttled William Jewell University by a score of 6332. Lenz scored 12 points in the lopsided victory for a Michigan Tech team that will travel to Minnesota this week to play Southwest State on Thursday and Minnesota-Crookston on Friday. UW-Stout forward Haylee Yeager scored nine points and pulled down a game seven rebounds as the Blue Devils opened their season with a 72-53 non-conference loss to Gustavus-Adolphus. Stout will travel to Decorah, Iowa to take on Iowa Luther this Friday and will open the conference season at home against UW-Superior next Tuesday.

UW-River Falls offensive lineman Austin Fox and defensive lineman Jack Olson and the rest of the Falcon football team closed out the regular season with a 35-34 victory over UW-Stout. The Falcons are ranked #24 in Division III finishing with a conference record of 4-3 and 6-4 overall. Depending on NCAA Division III bracket selections, the Falcons may earn a spot in the second annual Culver’s Isthmus Bowl, which will feature one team from the WIAC and the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) on Saturday, Nov. 19 in Sun Prairie, Wis. The Falcons won the inaugural Isthmus Bowl last season, defeating Washington University-St. Louis 48-27. Fox and Olson graduated from Prescott High School in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Two teams from the same conference have advanced to the WIAA Football Title games at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wis. From the Coulee Conference La Crosse Aquinas in Division 5 and West Salem in Division 4 will play for a state championship. And from the Cloverbelt tiny Regis High School and former Dunn-St. Croix Conference member Mondovi will play for the title in Division 7 and Division 6 respectively. Incidentally, minuscule Newman High School won its second consecutive eight-man state title. Very impressive for a school with such a wee enrollment.

My guess is area hunters are chomping at the big to hit the woods this weekend for the traditional opener of the Wisconsin nineday deer gun season. The 171-year history includes a world-record whitetail shot in Burnett County in 1914, closed or buck-only seasons during times of public concern about deer numbers and a state-record gun kill of 528,494 deer in 2000. The number of licenses peaked in the 1990’s, however there has been a small yet steady decline of those in blaze orange hitting the woods over the past 30 years. The Department of Natural Resources expects about 550,000 licenses to be sold for the annual hunt. Remember hunters, all harvested deer must be registered by 5 p.m. the day after the animal is recovered. Good luck and be safe.

When it comes to records, Wisconsin has more whitetail trophies than any other state, according to records kept by the Boone and Crockett Club. Wisconsin is the top-ranked state with 1,822 total entries as well as six counties in the top 20 U.S. counties. Illinois is second with 1,445 entries. Among counties in the U.S., Buffalo County is first with 150 entries in the Boone and Crockett record book, Crawford County ranks No. 9 with 58 entries, Trempealeau County ranks No. 11 with 55 entries, Vernon County ranks No. 14 with 54 entries, Richland County ranks No. 18 with 48 entries and Sauk County ranks No. 19 with 47 entries. In addition, the Jordan Buck, a massive whitetail shot in 1914 in Burnett County by James Jordan, held the world record from 1978 to 1993. It is now third in Boone and Crockett’s world rankings. Prescott High School Dean of Students and Rhinelander High School alumnus Rick Montreal was beaming from ear to ear and had a skip in his step last week as Scorebook Live, a national high school sports news website, named the Rhinelander Hodag as the “Best High School Mascot in America.” Well over a quarter million votes were cast in a contest where the Rhinelander mascot faced off against 11 other high schools throughout the country and ultimately received 183,455 votes. The Shelly Russets of Wyoming came in second place with 72,502 votes. According to several sources, a hodag is a mythical creature that was allegedly first spotted in the Wisconsin Northwoods in the 1800s. Some historians noted the Hodag resembles pictographs found near Lake Superior that depict Mishipeshu, the Ojibwe water panther.

Headshaker of the week. This week it begins … the high school basketball season. Gyms filled with the sounds of raucous pep bands and high school lobbies fraught with the smell of popcorn return Tuesday and Friday nights all over the Badger State.

Unfortunately, present too will be the overthe- top celebratory gestures and gyrations on the floor and in the stands after a player drains a three-pointer from well beyond the arc. Also returning will be the player eye rolls and the palms up reaction to referees calling fouls or violations. Finally, welcome back to angry, red-faced, neck vein showing adults whose bellows are directed at officials. It’s the yin and the yang of high school basketball. The yin is the headshaker.