Published: March 19, 2015
Slinger: 1977
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
When the final buzzer sounded in Slinger’s victory over East
Troy in a WIAA sectional final in 1977, it was a moment of celebration for the
Owls’ boys basketball team and the community that supported it.
The Owls were off to the state tournament for the first time
in school history.
It was also redemption for two players on the team — Dale
and Bobby Scherr.
Eight years earlier, the brothers’ older brother, Rick, was
on Slinger’s team in the 1968-69 season. Dale Scherr was 10 years old at the
time.
In 1969, Rick Scherr and the Owls lost to Nicolet in the
sectional — a team Dale Scherr said was much better than the Owls team of
1976-77.
“It was a pretty remarkable season,” Dale Scherr said.
This team won games in impressive fashion at times. They
averaged more than 70 points per game, scoring more than 80 points twice and
more than 90 points twice, including winning the sectional final, 92-57. All
that offense came in an era that wouldn’t see the 3-point line be introduced
for another decade.
There was a reason for that.
“Back then, if you were open, you shot,” Scherr said. “There
wasn’t structure. Our press was tough. We got a lot of points off steals; the
defense was so aggressive.”
Just about everybody on the team knew how to score.
Greg Jonas (16.6 points per game) and Robb Schulz (12.1)
were the leading scorers.
Jeff Wolf and Al Konrath were good long-range shooters and
Bobby Scherr led the way as the point guard. Dale Scherr was the first player
off the bench.
Dale Scherr went on to score more than 750 points in three
years and played in the state’s first All-Star game in 1978. He averaged 22
points per game his senior season.
The 1976-77 team was coached by Doug Potter. The Owls went
21-3, losing 74-72 to Prairie du Chien in the Class B state semifinal.
Slinger looked a lot like the team coached by Bob Knight at
Indiana University, running a four-corners offense.
Assistant coach Doug Riesop loved the Owls’ persona.
“It was a bunch of guys who were good athletes, but they had
that edge to them where they didn’t back down to anybody,” he said. “If they
were challenged, they thrived on that. They backed down to nobody. They did not
like to lose.”
Their first test of the postseason was against No. 2-ranked
Columbus in the Slinger Sub-Regional. Riesop said to this day, the atmosphere
inside the old gym at Slinger is the best he’s ever seen for a Slinger boys
basketball game. “It was a heck of a basketball game,” Riesop said. “The gym
was packed full early and there was a lot of noise. It’s fun when you have that
kind of electricity in the game.”
Having a persona was something the Owls’ boys basketball
program had been lacking.
“It gave Slinger an identity, which they may not have had in
the past,” Riesop said. “For being the first team to get to state in
basketball, it was a nice feather in the cap for the community.
“We were a farm community, playing second fiddle to West
Bend and Hartford.”
“It’s good for the community because people still talk about
it,” he added. “... It’s something people still connect with.”
Dale Scherr still remembers the atmosphere for the Columbus
game, saying the gym was electric.
“We were a pretty close-knit team,” Scherr said. “We played
basketball together in the gym. We’d play basketball for hours. We did
everything together.”
They had a swagger to them.
“We had enough arrogance and confidence to win games,”
Scherr said. “That was key. Coach Potter was pretty intense himself. But he let
us play our game.”
Riesop was on the staff as a first-year assistant. He went
on to work in the district for more than 30 years, including 15 as the athletic
director. He retired in 2008.
“(Potter) was a good guy to take my first job under and I
learned a lot from him,” Riesop said.
He remembered when the game was on the line, there’d be
arguments in the huddle as to who would take the big shot.
“They were confident and they were very good,” he said.
That attitude continued in the years after the state
tournament appearance.
“Bobby and Dale were two kids that when I played softball
with and against them, they were kids you hated playing against them, but you
also wanted them on your team,” Riesop said.
“When it got down to the end, there was a chance they were
going to lose, you knew they were going to do something,” he said about the
team’s competitive spirit. “These kids were really competitors. That’s what
made them good.”
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