New Edgar hoops coaches

Longtime boys assistants retire

By Casey Krautkramer

Jim Steinke, Edgar schools athletic director, has announced that Edgar natives Chris Trawicki and Zach Paul will serve as co-head Wildcats varsity boys basketball coaches in the 2023-24 high school winter sports season.

The duo replaces Dave Huss, who resigned as Edgar varsity boys basketball head coach so he could spend more time with his young family and leave his Edgar teaching position to take a new job working outside the school district. Huss tallied a 155-91 record during his 10 years as Edgar varsity boys basketball head coach. He led Edgar to the 2021 state tournament.

Edgar’s longtime assistant varsity boys basketball coaches, Jim Heidmann and Tom Bauman, have retired from coaching. Heidmann spent 35 years in Edgar High School’s boys basketball program as a varsity assistant coach for 24 years and as the varsity head coach for 11 years.

Heidmann was the Wildcats boys varsity head basketball coach between the Dean Wucherer and Dave Huss head coaching tenures. Heidmann also played for Wucherer on Edgar’s 1980 Class C state runners-up team. Bauman was an Edgar varsity boys basketball assistant coach for 21 years.

Trawicki coached Edgar High School’s JV2 boys basketball team last season and Paul coached the Edgar Middle School’s sixth grade boys basketball squad last season.

Trawicki graduated from Edgar High School in 1997. He was a member of the Wildcats 1997 varsity boys basketball team’s WIAA Division 4 state championship team. The 1996-97 squad is the only boys basketball team in Edgar school history to win a state championship. Trawicki works as Edgar School District’s technology coordinator.

Paul graduated from Edgar High School in 2002, and he played for the Wildcats. Paul was also Edgar’s starting quarterback on the 2001 Division 5 state championship football team.

Edgar’s varsity boys basketball teams have made five state tournament appearances in 1936, 1937, 1980, 1997 and 2021.

New girls basketball coach

Nicole (Borchardt) Nowak is the new Edgar High School girls basketball varsity head coach. She replaces Tom McCarty who resigned as Wildcats head coach to spend more time with his young family.

McCarty tallied a 56-24 head coaching record in his three seasons in Edgar. He guided the Wildcats to regional championships in each of his three seasons at the helm. Edgar made it to the sectional championship this past season.

McCarty has left his job as Edgar middle/high school principal to become Mosinee High School’s assistant principal.

Nowak graduated from Marathon High School. McCarty said she served as Edgar High School’s JV girls basketball coach the past two seasons. He said prior to her moving back to Wisconsin, she was an assistant girls basketball coach at Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota.

Steinke said Wildcats varsity girls basketball assistant coach, Edgar native Holly (Denfeld) Nowak, will return this season.