The 2026 Wisconsin high school football season begins this week. Coming off back-to-back playoff berths, the Cardinals and Head Coach Jordan Hansen are eyeing a top half finish in the always tough Middle Border Conference. Prescott will participate in a four-team scrimmage in Osceola on Friday, Aug. 14 with the action beginning at 10 am. The day-long scrimmage is open to the public. 

Head Girls Golf Coach Chad Salay and his charges begin practice next week. The Cardinals open the 2026 season on Thursday, Aug. 13 at the 10-team Reedsburg Golf Invitational with the first tee time scheduled for 10 a.m. The competing field includes Baraboo, DeForest, Waunakee and Wisconsin Dells. 

Head Girls Volleyball Coach Geoffrey Snyder and his team will begin the 2026 practices on Aug. 17 and will open their season on Tuesday, Aug. 25 in a four-team invitational tournament hosted by Osceola. 

The WIAA has identified four points of emphasis on the gridiron for the 2026 season: helping the runner, sideline management and control, identification of the NFHS authenticating mark on game balls, and—surprise, surprise—unsportsmanlike conduct. At this point, I'm ready to place a wager on Polymarket that unsportsmanlike conduct will also be a point of emphasis in 2027, 2028, 2029, and every season after that. It just never ends. After years of reminders, meetings, videos, pre-game announcements, pre-game videos, and pre-season memos, you'd think we'd see some improvement. Instead, here we are again. Is it because some coaches and players still can't control their emotions? Is it because some adults in the stands continue to set a poor example? Or is it because officials aren't consistently throwing flags when they should? Whatever the reason, it's embarrassing. Sportsmanship shouldn't be an annual "point of emphasis;” it should simply be expected. Until everyone involved decides enough is enough, don't be surprised when we're reading the exact same bulletin next August.

Speaking of football, every football season, there are a few voices that sound like they're broadcasting from 1978. "Back in my day, we hit every day." "If you didn't throw up at practice, Coach wasn't doing his job." "You've got to beat each other up all week to be ready for Friday night." It's almost as if the only acceptable practice ended with half the team spending time with the trainer and the other half wondering what day it was. Fortunately, football has evolved, and not because players have become softer. It's because we've become smarter. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) now recommends eliminating practice drills that create unnecessary high-speed, helmet-to-helmet collisions. Research has shown that repeated head impacts, especially the ones that happen hundreds of times during practice, carry real risks without making players any better on Friday nights. That means moving away from drills that have players charging at each other from long distances, eliminating outdated favorites like Bull in the Ring, Oklahoma Drill, and Board Drills, and replacing them with controlled teaching periods that emphasize technique, leverage, body position and player safety. The goal of the NFHS isn't to eliminate physical football; it's to eliminate unnecessary physical punishment. I am quite confident many coaches today are willing to admit that "because we've always done it that way" wasn’t or isn’t a coaching philosophy. You still block. You still tackle. You still play a very physical game. You just don't spend the week giving your own teammates concussions to prepare for Friday. Turns out, keeping your players healthy is a pretty good game plan.

University of St. Thomas Offensive Lineman David Regnier begins his second season with the Tommies. An All State and All Conference selection his senior season in high school, Regnier is a 2025 Prescott graduate and appeared in five games for St. Thomas last season. The 6’4” Regnier will wear #76 for the Tommies. 

From the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: The DNR reminds the public that anyone can become a community scientist by participating in Operation Deer Watch and the Game Bird Survey. These surveys are designed to measure the reproductive status of deer and game birds by establishing ratios of adults to juveniles, which help assess the productivity of Wisconsin’s deer and game bird populations. Along with harvest information, these data provide DNR scientists with key elements needed to make knowledgeable management decisions for game species. For Operation Deer Watch members of the public can report location, age, sex and the number of deer seen from dawn to dusk during the summer months. This information helps to determine the fawn-to-doe ratio and, ultimately, deer population estimates. The deadline to submit observations is Sept. 30. For Game Bird Survey, Members of the public can collect information on the types and numbers of game birds they observe during the summer months. This information is the basis for monitoring the reproduction of game birds for that breeding year. The deadline to submit observations is Aug. 31.

Headshaker of the Week: Somewhere in a corporate boardroom, I picture this conversation. "Should we keep putting statistics on baseball cards?" "Nah." "But...they're baseball cards." "People have phones." Meeting adjourned. I bought my nephew two packs of baseball cards the other day. He's caught the baseball bug and watching him open them reminded me why collecting cards was such a big deal growing up. Then I looked at the back. No statistics. None. It was like a cookbook without recipes, a road map without roads, or a dictionary without definitions. Sure, I know the argument. Today's fans can look up every statistic imaginable online. They can also stream every baseball game ever played. That doesn't mean the cards should become oversized business cards containing a glamour shot and a paragraph. Half the fun of collecting was reading those numbers. We'd compare batting averages until the corners wore off the cards. We'd memorize career totals. We'd argue with our buddies with who had the best card. Now the card basically tells you the player likes dogs and tacos but leaves out whether he hit .310 or .210. Makes perfect sense...if your goal is to make baseball cards less about baseball. Mission accomplished. Now that’s a headshaker.