JANESVILLE — The midnight oil Dave Wedeward burned while working at ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ would fill a few barges.
Wedeward spent 46 years covering local sports. Readers anticipated his weekly “High Notes†columns, game stories and his predicted outcomes of that nightÃÛèÖÊÓƵ games.
Dave Wedeward
Coaches knew they were expected to phone or fax in the scores and statistics of their home games. If they didn’t, their house phone likely would ring at 11:50 at night with him or a Gazette sportswriter on the other end asking for the result.
Wedeward was an institution among high school coaches, fans and players, who knew their victories would be covered in the local paper with the attention professional teams received in large metropolitan papers.
Going the extra mile
The 81-year-old Wedeward died Wednesday less than two weeks before his 82nd birthday.
Local and area coaches and players remember Wedeward as someone whose interest and dedication matched, or exceeded, their own.
Bob Suter is one. The 88-year-old Janesville native coached baseball for 37 years at Craig High. He coached football at Craig for 18 seasons. He was a basketball coach for 23 seasons and has been a volunteer assistant since 2009 when he retired.
Suter saw and spoke to Wedeward countless times over the sportswriterÃÛèÖÊÓƵ 46 years at ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ.
“The coverage of Janesville athletics, the athletes and programs, could not have been better,†Suter said. “I’m sure all those articles were clipped out by grandpas and grandmas, by moms and dads for scrapbooks.â€
‘Weedee’ and his state tournament streak
Wedeward — or “Weedee†to his friends and associates — grew up a sports fan in Edgerton.
His father, James, took Dave to his first Edgerton High basketball game when the youngster was 9. A few years later, they went to the WIAA boys state tournament.
Dave never stopped going to the UW Fieldhouse, and then the Kohl Center when that facility became the home of the state tournament in 1998, each March.
Wedeward attended 64 straight boys tournaments until his legs could not handle the walking a few years ago. When he was sports editor, he would file a daily column and feature story, highlighting a player or story he felt deserved coverage, even if a school or athlete was outside ÃÛèÖÊÓƵÃÛèÖÊÓƵ circulation area.
‘Bled crimson’
Wedeward was a fan of high school sports. No school topped his alma mater, however.
“He bled crimson,†said Mike Gregory, who just completed his 44th season with the Edgerton High School baseball team, the last 38 as the head coach. “He was impartial, but boy, he certainly bled crimson.â€
Edgerton HighÃÛèÖÊÓƵ star graduate, Steve Stricker, was covered throughout his high school, college and then pro golf career.
Steve might have received special treatment early on because Wedeward graduated from Edgerton High School with StrickerÃÛèÖÊÓƵ other, Caroline.
Stricker said he was saddened to hear of WedewardÃÛèÖÊÓƵ death, but had fond memories of those high school days.
“Remembering Dave puts a smile on my face,†Stricker said in a text message Thursday. “Brings me back to my childhood days. He was a great man.â€
“He treated me fairly, and I had a lot of respect for him on how he did his job.â€
Book to highlight career
Two years ago, Wedeward decided to write a book about his sportswriting career and being a fan. He just completed the 10-chapter book and was in the process of proofreading his manuscript.
The book, “From Oxen to Jet,†a reference to the typewriter he used at the start of his career to the press used to print the papers, will be published at a later date. He writes about the early days at ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ, being sports editors and his favorite stories, the 64 straight WIAA state basketball tournaments he attended, the 40 years of writing UW football columns including five Rose Bowl trips, his take on school nicknames and his personal life away from the newspaper business.
That includes meeting his wife, Letha, who was working at the Comeback Inn in Edgerton, when they met. They were married on November 28, 1987.
Janesville Sports Hall of Fame was his “baby.â€
Founded Janesville Hall of Fame
In the late 1980s, Wedeward began working on creating a Janesville Sports Hall of Fame. Bigger cities had them, and Wedeward believed there were enough deserving Janesville athletes to begin one here.
The first class was inducted in 1990. This May, the 35th class was inducted.
Dave Wedeward was part of the 2012 induction class, months after his November 2011 retirement after 39 years as sports editor.
Wedeward also was honored when the Janesville City Council voted unanimously in 2016 to rename the press box at Monterey Stadium the Wedeward-Fagerli Press Box in honor of the longtime Gazette sports editor and the longtime sports director at WCLO 1230 AM radio, Al Fagerli.
To the time of his retirement, Wedeward demanded his staff give the same effort he did in covering local sports. His many 60-hour-plus weeks led the way.
“All those years, it didn’t matter what sport I was coaching, our coverage was just outstanding,†Suter said. “He never let anything stand in his way to give good coverage.â€
“Everyone you talk to will say the same thing,†Suter said. “I’m confident of that. No matter what level you were in — Little League, high school or whatever — and it didn’t matter what sport, he loved the whole thing.â€
Bob Johnson was a beneficiary of WedewardÃÛèÖÊÓƵ goal of covering all sports. Johnson took over as Milton HighÃÛèÖÊÓƵ wrestling coach in 1990. Three years later, the then-Redmen were contending for a Southern Lakes Conference championship.
But they weren’t getting many write-ups in ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ. Johnson called Wedeward, who explained getting results from the eight Eastern Division teams in the 16-team conference such as Wilmot, Salem Central, Badger and Burlington was not happening.
Johnson made phone calls to the coaches at those schools. Results for Western Division matches soon rolled through ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ fax machines on Friday nights.
“Each and every week, they were posted in ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ,†Johnson said. “We appreciated that. We really did.â€
“His heart was into it above and beyond expectations,†Johnson said, of Wedeward. “He not only was a good writer but a good and well-respected guy.â€
“ItÃÛèÖÊÓƵ a by-gone era,†Gregory said. “His ‘High Notes’ column, you lived for that each week. And his prediction column (Prediction Machine)? There was nothing more important than seeing Dave WedewardÃÛèÖÊÓƵ predicted scores, especially if he picked against us.
“That was the ultimate motivation.â€
And many Thursday nights in the fall, Wedeward finalized the Prediction Machine well past midnight.
That is why if you drove past the downtown Gazette building at 1 a.m. and saw a light on in the corner of the second floor, Dave Wedeward likely was putting the final touches on his predicted score of the Elkhorn-Delavan-Darien football game for the morning sports section.
The readers deserved that.
“I’ve told my wife that, when I die, if people don’t remember anything else about me, I hope they remember that I always cared about people,†Wedeward said in 1996 when he was inducted into the Wisconsin Football Coaches Hall of Fame.
He cared about people. And coaches, athletes and everyone associated with high school sports noticed that for more than 40 years.
“Dave meant the world to us,†Gregory said.
That world lost a great sportswriter Wednesday.
