Thinclads

Track and field came late to the Southern Lakes Conference. It wasn’t until 1954 that schools officially recognized the world’s most popular sport. Wisconsin high school track competition dates to the late 1800s and boasts the nation’s first official state track championship in 1895. Milwaukee schools dominated early years, but teams from Madison, Appleton, Green Bay, and Kenosha also captured state titles.

Elkhorn tucked away near the Illinois border in Walworth County did not have an interscholastic track and field program. No high school in the county had a “thinclad” team. The term seems quaint today but was popular in the early to mid-1900s. During the 1920s, the county sponsored meets that drew youngsters from across its townships, but small-town teams didn’t venture to Madison’s Camp Randall Stadium to test their talents against the big-city boys.

The seeds of Elkhorn’s sports are sowed on its open lawns and fields where kids make up football contests, on sandlots where baseball diamonds are created, and in the driveways of homes where basketball hoops hang on garages. The original gymnasium, built in 1906, was a bandbox facility where any youngster with a decent stroke could make a set shot from center court. Players dribbled on to the court from the basement level, while fans entered from the main floor on to a balcony that circled about 10 feet overhead. Players shooting from the corners sometimes found the trajectory of the ball interrupted by the balcony overhang. This changed in 1938 when a new high school was built adjacent to the old building on Jackson Street.

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Thanks to the Roosevelt Administration, the new school was part of the Works Project Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression to revive the U.S. economy. It was a state-of-the-art structure designed to accommodate 300 students during the late 1930s and war years of the forties. The showpiece of the school was the spacious gymnasium located on its northeast corner.

The fascination of economics is in being both logical and counterintuitive. Elkhorn benefited from this paradox in the waning years of the Great Depression. It was only logical for individuals and households to reduce spending at the time. In fact, they had no other choice when unemployed or underemployed. Yet, what’s true for the individual is not necessarily true for people collectively. When all cut back, it is detrimental to the economy, as aggregate demand sharply declines.

Enter the counterintuitive where government injects a fiscal stimulus, such as the WPA and other projects of the 1930s and The Reinvestment and Recovery Act in 2009. People are inclined to prescribe what’s good for the individual to government. This, however, would be damaging. If government doesn’t intervene to rejuvenate spending and stimulate the economy, the recession will deepen. And yes, this creates budget deficits—which are a bad thing in normal times but actually a good thing when the economy slumps.

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The Elkhorn sports scene would change in 1954 when Jon Dahle, science teacher and varsity football coach, was encouraged by two of his players, Mike Paddock and Dick Grimm, to start a track program. To say that Elkhorn track had an inauspicious beginning would be an understatement. Dahle had little knowledge of track and field, and the boys had no running track, no uniforms, little equipment, but they were a determined group of youngsters. What Elk runners had was a training road for the race horses boarded in the fairground stables, which they were allowed to use when the pacers and trotters weren’t being trained.

Track members wore purple gym shorts, white basketball jerseys (with yellow numbers) that had been in storage for several years, gray sweats, and tennis shoes. Paddock and Grimm graded the track, built hurdles dug up jumping pits and filled them with saw dust obtained from a neighboring town. The team didn’t win a single meet the first season.

Next year brought the same. As the 1955 spring drew to a close, Coach Dahle convinced the baseball coach to lend him a few players. Dahle knew that the fastest athletes in school could be found on the diamond swinging bats, running bases, and chasing fly balls. The heart of the 1955 baseball team was senior Jim Platts, a hard-throwing pitcher, and three underclassmen: sophomores Bill Riese and Dick Van Scotter along with freshman Roger Van Scotter. The ball players went to the track for the final meet, and the Elks notched their first victory. In doing so, the 880-yard relay, with the baseball players running various legs, set the school record.

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The spring of 1956 would be historic. The track season opened in a winning way with both Van Scotter brothers leaping over 20 feet. A few weeks later when the state track and field rankings were published, Roger Van had the top Class B performances in the broad jump (21’3”) and 220-yard dash (22.0). Track and field aficionados took notice of the swift sophomore. Riese and the Van Scotter brothers now were joined by senior Bill Ward on the relay team.

Saturday, May 25, 1956 was a beautiful day in Madison. As the Elkhorn boys walked on to the cinder track of the huge stadium, shot put and discus action was underway in the infield. The Class A throwers looked especially big to kids from Elkhorn. None of this appeared to impress unflappable Roger Van as he set sail in his qualifying round of the 220-yard dash. With the sound of the gun resonating, Van took charge of the race and came out of the turn with a sizable lead cruising to victory with a new Class B record.

In the finals of the 220-yard dash, Roger would go against defending champion Alan Schoonover from Boscobel, a town of about 2,500 residents in the southwestern corner of the state. Schoonover was a 6’3’ senior and football star headed for the Badgers’ gridiron that fall. Fans, focused on the big running back, were stunned when the 5’8” Elk sophomore left the Boscobel flash, peering through flying cinders at his purple shorts and fading basketball numerals. Roger Van recorded the first of six state track “golds” to be won over the next three seasons.

Soon thereafter, the Elk foursome made their way down the stadium to the infield, where they would lace-up the well-worn spikes and prepare for the relay event. The youngsters were about to show why they would become track champions as well as the fastest football backfield in the state over the next two years—running in their hand-me-down basketball jerseys.