Football fosters trans Atlantic cross pollination between Wildcats, Wildboys
How do you define brotherhood? Is it fraternity? Marriage? Blood? The West football team defines it through a mutual love and passion for the sport. The Wildcat team is a brother to the American Football Club (AFC) Nauheim Wildboys in Germany. The partnership was kickstarted by social studies teacher John Burke.
“I received an email through Mr. Brad Jodarski that a former foreign exchange student from Germany was trying to make contact with us,” he said. “I was still coaching with the football team in 2019, the year before Covid, so he forwarded the contact to me because I tended to handle the football team’s social media.”
The foreign partnership has been a learning experience for Burke.
“I have never, in all of my years of coaching, been connected with foreign football clubs,” he said. “We’ve had a couple foreign exchange students over the years play on football teams that I’ve coached at different schools but that’s it.”
The former student, Thomas Baier, was an exchange student at West in the early ‘00s. Burke was able to get to know Baier and his situation in the process of setting up the partnership.
“He was involved with a lot of extracurriculars, and he just loved how the school got behind the sports teams and he had so much fun during the athletic contests, particularly football,” he said. “When he went back to Germany and became an adult, he got involved with American Football, which does have some club teams that they play over there.”
Communication between Burke and Baier usually takes place over the internet.
“We were back and forth on Facebook,” Burke said. “I followed his social media sites, and he followed our West social media and football. We were trying to think of ways to promote that connection internationally between the two countries.”
Baier, like Burke, has an immense passion for the sport.
“He’s coaching and administering an American football club in Germany,” he said. “The kids learn how to play American football. They have little kids, like the YMCA and flag football level, all the way up to high school.”
The program is separated and not affiliated with any supporting school. Social studies teacher Pat Bertram recognizes some curricular and cultural contrasts between the countries.
“Sports in Germany are a lot different,” he said. “It is not attached to schools and they have a lot more clubs. It's through the recreational department for most things.”
Although the program is separate from a district, their athletes come from and have connections with surrounding schools. Burke found the situation a fun coincidence.
“It just so happens that the neighboring high school is the school that sends their students here every other year,” he said. “Baier was interested in making a connection with our football program, kind of acting like brother programs.”
The short-term exchange program with Germany is currently monitored and run by Bertram.
“This has been going on since the 90s, possibly the late 80s,” he said. “The state of Hessid is a sister state with Wisconsin, so when they started all of this, Russelsheim reached out to us and just said ‘hey would you like to be our sister school?’”
Students from Russelsheim are sent to America for a duration of roughly two weeks in the fall, stopping by New York in addition to exploring Oshkosh. Bertram has previously hosted students from the program and gone to Germany himself.
“What usually happens is German students get paired up with a host student, so they go to classes for a day or two and do a few field trips,” he said. “When we go there, we spend two weeks in Russelsheim. We go to school there, do field trips, we’ve gone on a river-riding cruise and toured the ancient city of Romberg, which is really cool.”
The program, like many others, has taken a hiatus over the pandemic. Bertram has interest in expanding the program as travel slowly reopens.
“It is possible that they will be coming back next fall,” he said. “This year, I even talked with the Global Academy about doing more with them so we can work together.”
Burke, like Bertram, feels further growth and development of the club was stunted by various obstacles.
“One of the ideas that Baier came up with was to put our high school logo on their football helmets,” he said. “He took our Wildcat head and put it on top of an American flag and it said ‘Oshkosh’, and they stuck that to their helmets. He printed up a bunch of decals that have their logo on a German Flag and that say ‘Nauheim.’ We were looking to put that on our football helmets, but we ran into some problems with our changing of head coaches in the middle of the year and also some rules with the WIAA.”
Despite the difficulties, Burke stays hopeful for further expansion in the future.
“We are looking for potential ways to keep this connection going, and I think maybe that would be easier once the foreign exchange trips once again start becoming more regular when COVID dies down,” he said.
Regardless, Burke is grateful for Baier and the AFC Nauheim Wildboys and feels many lessons can be learned from the brotherhood.
“One of the things I teach in my sports and history class is the power of sports,” he said. “It brings people together. We can make connections with people and get to know one another.”
by Hannah Chung
Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue 3
November 29th, 2021