A BADGER FOOTBALL TRADITION
The youth athletes that support the team
Badger youth football players Cody Braden and Owen O'Grady watch the varsity team from the sidelines as ball boys during an away game against Kenosha Bradford.
The three Badger Youth Football players that dedicate their Friday nights to football from the sidelines of the high school team. From left to right: Layne Geissler, Owen O'Grady, and Cody Braden.
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
If you have ever attended a Badger Football game, you might have noticed several younger players in the end zone.
This year, just like in years past, three of those players are getting the chance to get an even closer look at what it means to be a high school football player and watch from the team bench.
Owen O'Grady and Layne Geissler are eighth graders and Cody Braden, a seventh grader, have been a part of the team for the past several seasons.
The young athletes had not only been Badger Youth Football players but also have family members on the high school field to look up to.
O'Grady and Braden have older brothers taking the field and Geissler's father is a coach on the junior varsity and varsity teams.
Every game these three are prepped with footballs, kicking tees, and energy to help the older athletes do their best on game day.
"I just saw my brothers playing, and they were ball boys for the team when I was way younger, and I'm like, oh, I kind of want to do that," Braden said. "So, I asked the varsity coach when they got too old, and he said, Yeah, that'd be awesome.Come out and play."
Braden then invited O'Grady to also help out the team along with himself and Geissler around the time they were in sixth grade.
"You got to be paying attention," Braden said about the group learning the responsibilities it takes to be on the sidelines. "You actually got to do your job. You can't just be goofing off with your friends back there; you have to just be on the ball."
The trio said that this tradition will help them further their abilities on the youth field, including talking with coaches, being able to gain courage to go up to some of the high school players and get tips and tricks, and overall, just learning how to uphold responsibility.
"These seasons watching will help a ton when we get to high school because we're on the sidelines, seeing how the coaches are talking to players, the plays, how the plays are working out, what's going wrong, what's going right, and we're right here learning that," O'Grady said.
Braden added that being able to watch the high schoolers that play his position really helps to see what they can look forward to when they get to the high school level.
The group travels to all games, home and away, with the team throughout the season, a tradition Badger head coach Matt Hensler says is something the team has done for too many years to count.
"We have a lot of history of just asking kids who are youth football players who come help us on the sideline, and, fortunately, we've had a long history of our kids that are that are super into it and do a great job on the sideline for us," Hensler said.
Many of the kids that started out helping on the sidelines had moved to take big roles when they finally got onto the varsity team, according to Hensler.
"Just to be around the level of excitement and intensity is pretty eye opening when you're not used to it, and it's good for them to see that," Hensler said.
While it will be a few years until the younger O'Grady, Braden, or Geissler athletes take the Badger field, they will be learning from the best on the sidelines.
