When it came to success in track and field, the Bay didn’t mess around. They got very good, very quick. The Bay finished 6th at the 1934 Class B State Meet in their very first season. Sophomore Bob Burke became the first of what are now 98* Bay State individual or relay champions when he won the High Jump. He followed it up a week later by also winning at the Suburban Outdoor. Senior Myron Kasal got the Bay hurdles tradition off to a fine start by finishing fourth at State in the 120 Yard High Hurdles before then winning at the Suburban and breaking the conference record.
Bert Rietz, Chet Wangerin and Florin (Coach) Caulkett in 1940.
The Bay finished second at the State Meet in 1935 and 1936 before winning their first State championship in 1937. It would be awhile before they lost at the State Meet. 16 years. They finished second in 1953, their last year in Class B and damn it they should have won that one, too. Just about everything that could go wrong did.
1946 Hurdlers.
In several of those State Class B title years the Bay absolutely would have been competitive for the win if they had been in Class A. In the Class B years the Bay set a staggering four overall State records. They simply had a bunch of outstanding athletes.
Getting ready to leave for Wisconsin Rapids in 1954.
The Bay was immediately competitive at the state level after the bump to Class A in 1954 and would remain that way for the rest of its life in the Suburban Conference. In the 24 years from 1954 through the end of the Zamzow era in 1977, the Bay won two State team titles, had five runner-up finishes**, 13 overall team top-tens, 16 State champions and set six State records.
1956 Sprinters.
It took slightly longer for the Bay to start dominating Suburban Conference track and field. And dominate it did. In the 40 total Suburban Indoor (4), Relays (18) and Outdoor (18) championships held from 1940 to the last year of the Wangerin-Caulkett coaching era in 1957, the Bay won a stunning 32. They pitched a shutout at the Suburban Outdoor for the decade of the 1950’s. And it didn’t fall off all that much after that. In Bill Cross’s seven years as head coach from 1958 to 1964, the Bay won 11 of 21. In Earl Zamzow’s 13 years at the helm from 1965 to 1977, the Bay won 15 of 39. Those are ridiculous numbers.
1957 Distance Crew.
It became a challenge to write new headlines.
1970 State Meet Participants.
* The WIAA website says that there are 96 Bay individual and relays State champions. The WIAA website is wrong. It’s 98.
** It would be three State titles and four runner-up’s if the WIAA had displayed even an ounce of integrity, competence, sense of fair play or basic common sense during its absurd, pathetic, reprehensible and negligent administration of the 1959 State Meet.
Whitefish Bay Track and Field History 