View from the cheap seats

A weekly perspective on sports

Casey Krautkramer Reporter The Record-Review

I am sad to discover both Edgar varsity head girls basketball coach Betty Urmanski and Stratford varsity head wrestling coach Joe Schwabe decided this week to retire from coaching.

My plan is to have in an-depth story on Urmanski’s 17-year girls basketball coaching career in Edgar.

Schwabe told me Tuesday it’s not about him but instead the high school students he’s coached in the Stratford wrestling practice room for the past 28 years. I might need to talk with Schwabe’s past wrestlers to have them share their memories competing for him in state individual and team championship matches.

I received a friendly reminder from

Julie Kuck of Athens in response to my column on April 1 that former Athens boys basketball players Chuck and Andy Braun, and most notably NewsChannel 7 all-star Ken Felzkowski, were also great basketball players back in their day.

There was no way I was interested in doing the Jump Around, which is played at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison between the third and fourth quarters during Wisconsin Badgers football games, due to battling a recent bout with pneumonia.

I am glad to hear local people such as Rhonda Stange of Athens and Hayley Cramer of Marathon have been particpating in the statewide Jump Around, which is played at 3 p.m. every Saturday on radio stations 95.5 WIFC and 101.9 WDEZ to get Wisconsin residents to get off their couches and Jump Around during the Safer at Home restrictions.

Before the Safer at Home restrictions took place in Wisconsin to restrict groups of people gathering during the coronavirus pandemic, I quickly filled up seven visits of eight gallons of gasoline apiece at Telschow Quick Mart in Stratford toward earning three free Milwaukee Brewers tickets through the BP cmonback club.

I would recommend to anyone who has never visited Telschow Quick Mart in Stratford to do so, because brother owners Gordy and Leon Telschow are very friendly people who have been small business owners for several years.

This week I thought about mailing in my gasoline receipts for my free Milwaukee Brewers tickets, just because I’m excited to watch baseball again, but realistically it’s not worth it to obtain free tickets when I don’t know when the season will begin.