Hitmen make their mark: Ex-Warriors seize chance to revive, sustain football passion
- By Mark Hutchinson
- Muskego Sun
- Published: 11/18/2004
Many a football player has been told by his coach to play every game as if it is his last.
Those players who have never needed this motivational boost feel a profound sense of loss after that last game comes and goes.
Jason Huckstorf, who played his last game as a Muskego Warrior in 1997, remembers the experience all too well.
"I never played college football," Huckstorf said. "My senior year of high school, I blew out my shoulder, so after my last high school game at Beloit Memorial, I thought I would never play again.
Emotions ran high as the final seconds of the play clock went to zero. It felt like I had just lost my best friend …a very empty feeling. I remember pulling blades of grass from the field and keeping them in my locker for the remainder of my senior year, just so I would never forget the smell of it."
One year later, Nick Seliger felt Huckstorf's pain when his Muskego team bowed out of the WIAA playoffs.
"I thought at the time that my last game would have been with the Muskego Warriors, in the playoffs in 1998 against Cudahy, which had a quarterback by the name of John Navarre (now with the Arizona Cardinals),"Seliger said. "When we lost, I was about as heartbroken as I had ever been, because I thought, "this is it. I'll never see another organized game of football again.'"
Tyler Hunt's final game in a Muskego uniform did not arrive until three years later, but the sting was much the same for him.
"After the last game of my senior year against Kenosha Tremper when we lost in the third round of the playoffs, I never thought I would play football again," Hunt said. "On the bus ride home that day, the feeling inside me was horrible knowing that my days as a Warrior football player were over and so was football."
To even begin to understand how devastating these moments were for Huckstorf, Seliger, Hunt – and many Warriors who preceded and proceeded them – one must realize that their passion for football ran far beyond a few years' worth of Friday night lights.
Hunt played his first organized football in the Muskego Athletic Association's flag leagues for 9- 12-year-olds. He remembers winning the most valuable player award in his final year.
One of Hunt's MAA rivals was Brandon Blawat.
"I can remember playing MAA with the likes of Tyler Hunt, Jerry Zaboklicki and Paul Meinen back in fifth and sixth grade," Blawat said. "I was never on the same team as them, but we knew each other pretty well, so when we played each other, it was always fun to talk trash about who was going to win and who was better."
The next rung on the ladder of Muskego football was – and still is – the All-American Youth Football League.
"I started playing football in fifth grade," Huckstorf said. "I had the opportunity of playing with guys like Dustin Daley and Scott Tamillo back with the Chargers (now Junior Warriors) organization.
"Back then, Dustin and I anchored the offensive line as a center and guard and defensively as a nose tackle and a defensive tackle. Scott ran tailback. I still remember as a Charger the cold day where our defensive stand at Mukwonago put us into first place in the AAYFL."
More than a decade later – and seven years since he and his classmates figured they ad played their last organized football – Huckstorf is playing middle linebacker. When he looks to one side, he sees Tamillo at cornerback. Several yards behind him is Daley at strong safety.
"To play with these guys again has been a dream come true," Huckstorf said. "To get out on to that field again and knock heads brings me back to the days of high school.
"If I could have two words to describe my football days at Muskego, they would be "my life', because that's what football was back then and what it still is today. It meant the world to me to get out on the field and play football with my friends and teammates."
The renaissance was made possible nine years ago with the formation of the Ironman Football League. It was designed as a semi-pro league that would provide a window of opportunity for football players to continue in their sport after their prep and/or college careers.
Huckstorf and his cousin Seliger got on board three years ago, playing for a team called the West Milwaukee Mean Machine. Within a year, they had lit up the telephone lines and formed the Muskego Hitmen.
"We won one game that first year (with the Mean Machine),
and it was a big disappointment because Jason and I had never
been on a losing team," Seliger said. "So we kicked
the idea around in our heads of starting our own team.
"It has been a lot of hard work and a lot of sleepless
nights. The first year was really tough because we did a lot
of the recruiting and administrative things ourselves. This
year it is a totally different story. A lot of the guys on the
team stepped forward and helped out."
The Hitmen won the league's National Conference championship last season and lost to the New Berlin Lunatics in Iron Bowl VII.
This season, the squad took the next step, defending its conference title before downing the previously undefeated Milwaukee Bulldogs, 14-0, in Iron Bowl VIII Nov. 14.
"At first, I was very hesitant to join because I thought it would be kind of a rag-tag, bush league," said defensive end Jason Henneberry, a '98 Muskego grad and a four-year letterman at UW-Platteville. "After last year, I realized that it was somewhat organized and it was a good thing to join.
"This year, we've taken it a step further. The league is progressing in the right direction."
Much of the credit for that should go to the Hitmen, who "I can safely say without the leadership and precise preparation of head coach Jason Blawat (a tailback on Muskego's 1994 state runner-up team), the Hitmen would not be as successful as they have been," Huckstorf said. "He has been a tremendous asset to the team, and that is the main reason why the Muskego Hitmen have received the IFL's Franchise of the Year Award!
Seliger agreed.
"The main reason we are where we are is because of our head coach, Jason Blawat," he said. "He has come forward and pulled this group of rowdy football players together and turned us into a well-oiled machine. He also has help from his assistant coaches, Jason Janas and Carl Hunt."
Blawat is glad eh came aboard as coach.
"Coaching is my passion," he said. "Whether it's working with kids (Muskego Junior Warriors) or the adults (the Hitmen), being able to work with others, build relationships, identify goals, organize, work to achieve them, and succeed is very fulfilling and satisfying."
The common thread that has tied the team together is the Muskego football tradition, which for most of the Hitmen meant playing for either Dennis Johnson or John Sterner at Muskego High School.
"It was an honor to play under a Hall-of-Fame coach in Dennis Johnson," Henneberry said. "Coming into high school, the football program's tradition spoke for itself. I'm glad that I was able to continue the rich history."
"Two-a-day practices and Friday night games defined my high school years I played at Muskego," Huckstorf said. "Not a day goes by that I don't miss Coach Johnson yelling from the sidelines or Coach "Domo' (Rob Domenosky) hurling a helmet after on of his favorite halftime speeches.
"It was my life."
"To play football for Dennis Johnson at Muskego was a dream come true," Seliger said.
"I grew un playing for the Muskego Chargers, watching Muskego High School win conference championship after championship. I always looked forward to seeing what we could do on the varsity level."
The younger Hitmen were at MHS when Sterner succeeded Johnson as coach, and they have seen the tradition carried on.
"I was on of the players who was there during the Johnson/Sterner change," Brandon Blawat said. "At times it was frustrating and hard with the whole new offense and defense, but I think it turned out to be better for us in the long run.
"We (the Hitmen) actually run the same offense and defense that Coach Sterner put in back in '99. Coach Sterner and his staff really stressed family and togetherness, but mostly overcoming adversity.
We had a motto which remains today, "H3', which meant Heart, Hustle, Humility.
"We are executing his teachings, his strategies, his view of the game, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Don't fix what isn't broken, right?"
Co-owners Huckstorf and Seliger have committed themselves to
sustaining this tradition with the Hitmen.
"I look forward every week to seeing these guys on the
playing field," Seliger said.
"They are not only my teammates, but have grown to be my brothers.
"Our fan bas is incredible. It is a huge rush to play in front of such a huge crowd of people. Jason and I don't see an end in sight when it comes to the Hitmen organization.
"I know that "100 years' down the road, when it is time to hang up our cleats, we will continue with the team an do our best to keep the Hitmen alive."
Mark Hutchinson may be contacted via e-mail at mbutchinson@jcpgroup.com or by phone at (262) 317-8583.