PREPS ALCOVE

'Walk-On This Way' comprehensively details Wisconsin's unique football legacy

JR Radcliffe
jr.radcliffe@jrn.com

In a year when the Wisconsin Badgers football team has perhaps the best shot it has ever had getting into the national-championship conversation, “Walk-On This Way” couldn’t arrive at a better time. Players on the current team -- including Jack Cichy, Troy Fumagalli and Dare Ogunbowale -- have continued the program’s mind-boggling tradition of turning walk-ons into some of the program’s most important players, and the KCI Publishing offering from co-authors Joel Nellis and Jake Kocorowski explores the legacy with a treasure trove of anecdotes.

Nellis, himself a former walk-on at Wisconsin and a current teacher and assistant football coach at Brookfield Central High School, and Kocorowski, a writer for Bucky’s 5th Quarter, obviously have kept a close eye on the program for a while. Virtually all the stories focus on the Barry Alvarez era, beginning with the 1994 Rose Bowl victory and extending to the current crop, showcasing how integral walk-ons have been to bolstering the program's ascent.

I suspected the book would devote chapters to each key walk-on –- a Jim Leonhard chapter, a JJ Watt, a Joe Schobert –- and was surprised that it elected to take a more thematic approach, even though that’s really just a framework to meander from walk-on to walk-on. But that wound up being a smart call, as many of these walk-ons share similar stories, and the setup allowed the book to avoid repetition and instead tell broader tales, such as the success of Wisconsin walk-ons in the NFL, the role they played on those first Rose Bowl teams and a particularly amusing segment on the walk-on specialists (including Arrowhead's Drew Meyer, who quietly shares the record for most games played in a UW uniform).

Leonhard, Nellis’ former roommate in college, plays an understandably prominent role as perhaps the prototypical Wisconsin walk-on, an undersized overachiever who nonetheless possessed a rare athletic talent and translated that into an NFL career.

Maybe “overachiever” is the wrong word.

“I was always the overachiever, the walk-on,” Leonhard is quoted as saying in the book. “I felt like it kind of slighted what I had done. First of all, I was an All-American as a sophomore; that was not the path of Rudy at Notre Dame. He played a handful of snaps in his last game. To get that comparison brought up in every interview, it felt like a slap in the face.”

The book explores the methodology behind bringing in quality walk-ons –- perhaps more calculated than you’d think –- in interviews with Alvarez.

The stories are so numerous and a perfect recent history for fans of the Badgers program, especially those who follow high-school football in the state or like to root for an underdog story. Vignettes describe how a conversation at the Kentucky Derby brought Mark Tauscher back to Madison, how a scripted trick play between a couple walk-on specialists might have been one of the worst-kept secrets in Madison and some of the best moment-in-the-sun occasions in Badgers history. That includes the recovered blocked kick in the end zone by Ben Strickland (Brookfield Central) that helped the Badgers stun Minnesota in 2005 or a punt return for touchdown by Josh Hunt (Homestead) in 2000 in the wake of the Shoe Box scandal that sidelined many teammates.

Some players, such as future NFL lineman Joe Panos (Brookfield East) and UW fan favorite Matt Unertl (Sussex Hamilton) matriculated to Madison after starting their careers at Division III state schools, prequels to the plight of current Badgers left tackle Ryan Ramczyk. And, of course, there are the high-visibility walk-ons such as Schobert (Waukesha West) and Watt (Pewaukee), both of whom have traveled paths chronicled many times over, and some new details can be found here. Ricky Wagner (West Allis Hale), Joel Stave (Whitnall), Chris Maragos and Alex Erickson also collect NFL paychecks today after starting their careers as walk-ons.

Ultimately, the book proves how staggering Wisconsin’s success with walk-ons has been. So many of the names we remember in recent UW history began their careers humbly, and even those who never saw the field have played a role in bringing the Badgers program from a Big Ten also-ran into one a perennial member of the national rankings. As you ponder gifts for the holiday season, or if you’re looking for some Badgers content as the football team gets closer to a pretty big season-ending payoff, check this one out.