Green Bay Not An Exciting City For WIAA Games
Over the decades I have known a variety of young people, and their parents along with a fan base who have come to Madison for a WIAA weekend. The stories recounting the fun they had in this city can be multiplied untold times every year at tournament time.
I did not participate in high school sports, and so never attended any WIAA events in Madison. I did, however, go to State Forensics twice, and know the excitement that comes with having some free time in Madison as a teenager. I think every kid should have such an opprotunity to explore Madison a bit when in high school, and there is no better time to do that than on a WIAA weekend.
My second time to state was with a small cast of friends for the play “The Silent Alarm”. We had a grand time walking down State Street and visiting the small shops. There were also lots of eye-appealing college students to look at as we strolled around the campus! For guys from small town Wisconsin a trip to Madison remains a real fun trip, and one that should not be denied others by forcing them to head off to Green Bay.
It has been so amazing to hear those in Green Bay try to spin their city as a place students and parents want to stay for a weekend. I have spent time in Green Bay when working in radio in northeast Wisconsin. Unless one wants to hang out at the bars where one might spot a Packer player there is nothing to be offered for entertainment. Looking at Lambeau Field can not possible take in a whole weekend. And how many fish fries can one consume?
No one can say that Green Bay is a destination type city that anyone in March wants to head off to for a weekend. But there are countless views and places that make Madison charming and electrifying for the WIAA season.
Madison has a cosmopolitan feel, college students in the tens of thousands study here, state government is located on the ishtmus, there is a true smorgasbord of restaurants with a world flavor. Green Bay can not compete with the Nepal, African, Indonesian, and Caribbean flavors that Madison offers. There is no way that Green Bay can compete with the Memorial Union Terrace, Babcock ice-cream, the art museums, and electic flair that resonates around the city.
Green Bay might be the place to tail-gate before a Packer game, and a city to drive through when heading to Door County, but it has nothing to offer the public who want to enjoy a truly fun-filled WIAA weekend.
Students from Rice Lake or Racine will have a much better time in Madison, and their parents know that too!
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As a long-time Boy’s State Tourney visitor (since the early ’80s), i believe that Green Bay is not the place to consider moving this event to. Try moving the Girl’s Tourney there as a “test case”. I do agree that Milwaukee would be my second choice (if Madison is not available due to Badger Hockey).
Green Bay has nothing (other than the Packers) to offer visitors to such an event. Someone should check tha attendance for thr Girl’s Volleyball Tournament the last few years.
A History Museum? Please!
Madison is a vibrant, fun, exciting city that most high schoolers (and basketball fans) look forward to visiting each March.
Actually, Milwaukee would be a great venue. The Milwaukee Arena (technically the US Cellular Arena) is downtown close to hotels and many interesting sites and sounds, and holds around 11,500, which is perfect for the WIAA. Plus even though it was built in 1950 if’s a very warm, campus-like facility with good seating. Supposedly, though, the priority for UWM Panthers basketball team and Milwaukee Wave pro soccer team, both of which call the Arena home, would create scheduling problems. However, UWM is planning to move many or all of its games to an on-campus fieldhouse. And there’s always the Bradley Center a block away, too. I don’t get the WIAA’s reticence about Milwaukee, except perhaps an upstate concern that teens attending the tourney there would get kidnapped or raped or shot or something. And I’m not exaggerating.
Come on. Green Bay is an industrial town. Nothing more and nothing less.
And what else could sink this city for a WIAA booking?
Which ever place is cheaper for the fans.
It ought to be the fans who pick. Not some back room deal and a wink, wink.
Food, lodging, parking, congestion, limit the cost.
And for those traveling up, stop at the Harry Houdini Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin.
It’s going to take more than magic to have the WIAA in Green Bay. It’s a political decision, screw the fans.
skip.
Most ‘kids’ in Wesconsin don”t have a clue about trains lore and like the Gov. could not care less(witness the rfusal of high spd.funds)As a teen in Madcty pretty cool,to be, number of changes make that,now, not so true… NOT to mention the general chaos(with gov. ect.)You might say the Town outgrew the State B-Ball tourney,since Badg Football became THE biggest stage(State and Country) its no necessary?Besides Green Bay doesn”t really have much for Sports per Se(OK they have bowlalleys aplenty) and Madison doesn”t really need the money anyway and “their time is not “our” time and our time is not their time.
Time of the signs (for changin’)
There is nothing elitist about recognizing that Green Bay is a crappy, polluted town with little to offer the families of athletes after the game. Sure they can check out the dioxin-contaminated bay or they can watch the poisons flow out of sewers. And yes, they can sit in one of the bars with the alcoholics and join in the alcohol-induced bonhomie that escalates until someone starts a fight.
Other than the packers, green bay has nothing to set if apart from any other post-industrial hell hole town in the midwest. Yuck.
Your lack of sports knowledge reflects in this post. These kids are not eggheads, they go to state for one thing to play basketball, to win games, once they are done they are back on the bus and out of town. DO you think they care about small shops or Nepal restaurants. Get off your elitist high horse and reach for a dose of reality.
I would have mentioned Elvis’ rollercoaster had the WIAA been held in a warm month.
My post might seem elist–butI did not mean it that way. Just stated things as I see them.
I thought you were a rail, civil rights and history buff. There’s the National Railroad Museum in Ashwaubenon (Greater Green Bay)
Pullman Porters: From Service to Civil Rights, is at the nexus of three central historical narratives: railroads in United States History, and the labor and civil rights movements of the 20th century. Using the latest digital technology as well as
the most current methods of museum exhibition, the exhibit, Museum staff have developed a compelling exhibit that tells the story of a group of men who worked America’s rail lines for nearly 100 years.
The exhibit features a restored 1920s 10-1-2, Pullman sleeper car, the Lake Mitchell, supported by interpretive elements in and around the car. Exhibit elements include a computer generated porter with interactive capabilities inside the car, original artifacts, touch screen computer kiosk offering curriculum relevant materials such as oral histories, and period music that illustrate the cultural, political and racial climate of the time.
View the Pullman Porters: From Service to Civil Rights video Starting in 1909, Pullman porters tried unsuccessfully to organize a labor union. Their break finally came in 1925, when A. Philip Randolph helped form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph and the BSCP were met with strong opposition from the Pullman Company but ultimately succeeded in forming the first all-black labor union in 1937. Soon after winning the labor battle, Randolph and the porters shifted their attention to the struggle for civil rights, and remained at the forefront through the 1960s.
The story of the Pullman porters is quintessentially American, and it reminds us of the towering efforts of ordinary men and women who helped shape our nation’s history.
Sit in the cab of the world’s largest steam locomotive, the Union Pacific Big Boy. Examine Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s World War II command. Ponder the futuristic Aerotrain from 1950s.
As one of the oldest railroad museums in the country, the National Railroad Museum exhibits a large collection of locomotives and railcars spanning more than a century of railroading.
View the interactive slideshow of exhibits by clicking here!
That’s right! Get a taste of what our museum has to offer by checking out our slideshow of exhibits. We’ll take you on a quick photo tour of some of our hottest exhibits, including: •The Bauer Drumheads
•The Big Boy
•Dwight D. Eisenhower
•And much, much more!
Heritage Hill, the Neville Public Museum which highlights history in this state when Madison was a wetland, highschoolers could check out UWGB which had fantastic success in men and women’s basketball and soccer when UW-Madison sucked, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I actually don’t disagree with the premise of your post, I think once again Fat Barry and the UW Athletic System proved to be pompous asses, and Mayor Smuglin and the business community didn’t think they had anything to worry about, and they could gouge as usual with no competion.
I just wanted to yank your chain on your elitist post. By the way, Green Bay has plenty of bowling alleys too.