Travis Frederick

Last fall when Big Foot played Wautoma for the Division 4 championship, I zeroed in on Travis Frederick. He looked enormous, which wasn't really a surprise, and fairly mobile, but it was still hard to get a read on how his size and skills would translate to Division 1 college ball.



Pretty well, it seems. Now Frederick is being mentiond in the same breath as Cory Raymer, Bob Winckler, and Dennis Lick. Not bad company.


With John Moffitt still laid up we'll get a chance to see how good this kid is right away. I expect he'll struggle at times, but how often is that painfully obvious with a center? Unless Northern Illinois has the MAC version of Albert Haynesworth, I bet he holds his own.


With Moffitt, Bill Nagy, and Gabe Carimi all missing time this camp because of injuries, guys like Frederick and Kevin Zeitler are getting a lot of reps. That can only help the O-Line's depth, and here's the best thing: all 10 guys on the two-deep return next year. If things go right we could be looking at one of those really, really good Badger lines.

UW football and basketball books

The holiday break gave me a chance to read two other Wisconsin sports books by UW alum Dave Anderson. The books cover the Badgers' football and basketball history.

While these books will help fill out the UW section of my bookshelf, I can't in good faith recommend buying them - save the combined $30. Instead, buy The World Without Us (read it over Thanksgiving, still getting my thoughts together for a review), and download the history sections of the media guides posted at uwbadgers.com. Because that's all these books really are: a collection of team, stadium, and athlete pictures from the UW archives accompanied by redundant captions that often contain errors. There's no new analysis or historical context.

The first thing I said to Jana about them was "I can't believe this guy got paid to put these books together," and then kicked myself for not getting there first. In fairness, Anderson probably didn't set out to write a Halbertsam-esaue tome about his alma mater's athletics, and my expectations shouldn't have been to receive anything along those lines. Also, having been exposed to so many media guides over the years, I probably know more of this historical stuff than the average fan.

Anderson does make the good point that while the last 15 years or so have undeniably been a Golden Era in UW athletics, it wasn't always as bad as the preceding couple decades. In fact, UW athletics in the first three or four decades of the 20th century were pretty damn good, with plenty of conference titles, All-Americans, and even a few national titles. Then we hit a 50-year dry spell with a good season here and there.

What happened? Good question, and one that's not answered in these books. My thought is that the coaches of the times did not adapt quickly enough to changes in strategy and recruiting; the radical/turbulent nature of Madison during the '60s and '70s scared off many kids who weren't up for that kind of college experience; and a bad football team drags down everything else. Without the '93 Rose Bowl, does the Kohl Center get built?

Also took the time to read Game Day: Wisconsin Football by Athlon Sports. A much better book, it had lots of color photos and in-depth sections on players, coaches, games, rivalries, etc. If you're a true Badgers fan, you need to learn about Pat O'Dea, Pat Harder, Dave Schreiner, Crazylegs Hirsch, Alan Ameche, the Hard Rocks defense, Dan Lanphear, Ron Vander Kelen, Pat Richter the athlete, Dennis Lick, Ray Snell, Mike Webster, Tim Krumrie, Matt Vanden Boom, Al Toon, Ivy Williamson, Harry Stuhldreher, Milt Bruhn, Dave McClain, and the other men who made Badger football great in previous generations.

I recommend taking the time to learn UW athletics history. It does, in fact, predate Barry Alvarez and Dick Bennett.