By Ron Holzhueter

     And now for some real news from Mad-Town. There are three important dates for our 56er alumni and each should be fun!

First, I must apologize to a large group of people which would include names like: Alan Graves, Amadou Diagne, Andy Henderson, Andy Rectenwal, Ben Witt, Bill Reddan, Billy Blackwell, Brad Black, Brad Nordeng, Bram Dorresteyn, Carl Murray, Chris Fiore, Chris Korger, Chris Lay, Chris Martinelli, Chris Metcalf, Chris Wentz, Chuck Billings, Craig Carlson, Craig Webb, Dan Peppler, Danny Van Mol, Darrell Duerst, Dave Fine, Dave Finnerud, Dave Irwin, Dave Jaworski, Dave Wermuth, David Hayhurst, Dean Duerst, Dean Groth, Deb Gawin, Don Middleton, Drew Watson, Duan Damron, Ed & Trish Ornes, Eric Nordeng, Eric Senn, Fritz Grutzner, Gerard Averill, Greg Bell, Harlan Werla, Howard Reddan, Ian Barker, Ian Davies, Ian Popkewitz, etc. And that's just a fraction of the (A-I) names. My e-mail address was pirated this past fall to solicit money from my contacts. The story was that I was stranded in London and needed money for hotel costs and a trip home! The story had some relevance as I was in London one weekend a little over a year ago and took in a couple of Premier League games with some friends. (Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and Tottenham at White Hart Lane.) Needless to say, stranded was not the case! I did appreciate the concern of the many people that checked in with me and I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused any of you. I haven't received any bills so I am assuming that nobody sent any money to the pirates. I am back into my e-mail box.

And now for some real news from Mad-Town. There are three important dates for our 56er alumni and each should be fun! The first one is on February 20th. On that evening at the Bavarian Inn the Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association (WSCA) will induct four coaches into their Hall of Fame [See accompanying story in this newsletter]. This is different than the Wisconsin Soccer Association (WSA) Hall of Fame in at least two ways. First, it only recognizes coaches, where the WSA also honors players, referees, and administrators. And second, the WSCA recognizes all soccer in our state, not just the affiliated teams. So the WSCA will honor outstanding high school and college coaches of successful programs, and affiliation with the WSA is not one of the criteria. Three of the four inductees are from Madison and have deep 56er roots. They are Bill Reddan, Jim Launder, and Ron Holzhueter. The fourth is Bob Gansler. I assume you will know the first three. Bob Gansler is from Milwaukee and is a formercCaptain of our U.S. Olympic team and a former college and professional coach who guided our National Team in the 1990 World Cup. The night will be filled with local and state soccer history! I've asked Craig Webb to present me on this special night and he has agreed to return to Wisconsin for the weekend. Craig Webb has made a lot of soccer history himself. To my knowledge, he is the first high school player out of Madison to earn a college scholarship when he went to UW-Milwaukee in 1977. After graduation, Craig returned to Madison to become the UW's first head coach for their Varsity Women's Soccer program. He is presently a faculty member at Colorado State University in Greeley.

The second event our 56er alumni need to get on the calendar is March 20th. On that night, the Wisconsin Soccer Association will induct two of Madison's finest into their Hall of Fame at Serb Hall in Milwaukee. The first is Dean Duerst. Dean was an outstanding player at all levels and led our 56ers to several state championships and a National Championship in 1992. Dean was a Madison Memorial grad who went to UW-Madison via Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA. Dean's coaching career started with youth teams and soccer camps and was still going strong today when I caught up with him while working with the U-23 Women's National Team at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA. The former Women's Head Coach for our UW-Madison is now working with Greg Ryan at the University of Michigan. Our second Hall of Famer is Jim Launder. Jim came to Madison from UW-Milwaukee to be the assistant for Bill Reddan at UW-Madison in 1979. As we all know, this UW-Madison Men's program continued to improve and in 1995, was crowned NCAA Champions!! The UW administration then released Jim and they haven't seen a NCAA bid since! But don't worry, Jim can and is still coaching! He is our state's Coaching Director and has done an excellent job with our National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) 56er team as they have been very competitive each of these past five years.

Dean Duerst, left, now coaches players at the University of Michigan for head coach Greg Ryan. Dean played on the 1992 Men's 56ers National Championship team.

The third date to attach is Friday, July 9th. That's the date for this year's 56er annual golf outing. Get your foursomes ready or just show up and we will get you a great group. We always have a great time and the door prizes are worth the price of admission! Ask Jason Brown, as he won two tickets to the Badger men's basketball game and saw the Badgers beat Ohio State. The list goes on and on but none gets better than the luck of Dean Groth a year ago. The first two prizes were two free tickets to UW football and his number was pulled out for each of them! At least Dean was nice enough to share one with me that fall.

In other news, Larry Friedrich reports that he still plays in a couple of leagues. One is an over-45 league and the other is a men's open. Larry doesn't practice, just games and beers! Pete Fisher is in southern CA and now has son, Zev, in preschool. Another CA boy is Alan Graves who is now a lawyer in San Diego. He is still playing on Sundays along side Brian Dawson and Brendan Ozanne. Dave Fine is still in Denver and still playing -- keep it up, Dave! Andy Henderson in out in the Boston area and apparently has the best playing situation yet! ! First off, Andy has two of his own boys playing soccer and other sports. Andy sometimes has the opportunity to play on a team that travels and plays the ex-professions of clubs around the world in an attempt to bring a Veterans World Cup to the USA. Teams like Club America, Cruz Azul, Hamburg, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, etc Andy also plays on a local team with another ex-Madison man, Pap Sarr. We miss Pap's great left foot here in Madison!

Besides having two boys that play soccer, Andy still plays on a team that travels the world and plays ex-professionals in clubs in an attempt to bring a Veterans World Cup to the USA: teams like Club America, Cruz Azul, Hamburg, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, etc Andy also plays on a team with another ex-Madison man, Pap Sarr. We miss Pap's great left foot here in Madison!

On a sad note, the 56er lost a couple of German stalwarts this past year. Klaus Lukas was one of the originals. Wow, that's 54 years ago! One would see Klaus as a regular at our NPSL games and we missed him this past summer. Willie Brendal was a great friend and club supporter who really loved life. Willie did it his way right to the end as he instructed his family not to have a public funeral as he didn't want anyone to cry over him, but to have a public party sometime well after his passing. Needless to say, we honored Willie and fun was had by all! I'm happy to report that Enzo Fuschino continues to recover from a heart attack suffered this past summer. Enzo has helped Jim with our NPSL program in the past and is presently the head coach for the UW-Platteville men's and women's program.

In closing, we should give a big "Thanks" to all those who have worked so hard at making our NPSL men's program go. There are many to thank, but it would not happen without the efforts of board members Chuck Billings and Janet Hohlbein and our player connection with Coach Jim Launder. There is information elsewhere in this newsletter about our women's WPSL commitment for this spring and summer. John Reddan will coach this team and we want to wish the best to him and this team. It's great the see the Madison 56ers building its adult program!

I hope to see many of you out at our upcoming events. Please send us your news so we can pass it along to others!