View from the cheap seats
A weekly perspective on sports
Casey Krautkramer Reporter The Record-Review
Sometimes it takes a while for talented local student athletes to get noticed by college programs, like it has for Athens senior basketball player Cameron Ford.
Cameron’s father, Terry Ford, asked me following Athens’ road win against Marathon a few weeks ago why his son wasn’t receiving any attention from men’s college basketball programs. I asked Marathon senior boys basketball player Clarke Mouw how Division 3 St. Norbert College discovered him, and Clarke responded to me the Green Knights basketball coaching staff contacted him. I witnessed Cameron have a huge game in Athens’ home loss to Auburndale on Thursday, in which he scored 36 points and hauled down 22 rebounds. Watching Cameron dominate on the basketball court reminded me of how Shaquille O’Neil once owned the paint both when he played college basketball at LSU and professional basketball mostly with the NBA’s Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers.
Terry informed me after Athens’ game on Thursday Cameron has now received interest from Division 3 men’s college basketball programs at Ripon College and the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). Cameron wants to also pursue a college degree in engineering, therefore MSOE appears to be the best fit for him both academically and athletically right now.
Local basketball fans will recall Holly Denfeld Nowak, who is currently an Edgar varsity girls basketball assistant coach, was a star women’s basketball during her college playing career at MSOE. I remember seeing Holly during a tour of the Stratford School District referendum construction project, while she was working as a summer intern at Miron Construction, which was the general building contractor. Collin Seubert of Marathon was also a star men’s basketball player for MSOE during the same time Denfeld attended the college.
Seubert has now teamed up with Cody Hanke, who is the Marathon boys basketball program’s all-time leading scorer, to play on Tony Schultz’s Stoney Acres men’s basketball team on Sunday nights in the Stratford STAR League.
I told Tony during the recent Father-Daughter Dance we both attended with our girls at St. Anthony’s Catholic School in Athens his men’s basketball team has tons of talent on it this season. Tony told me he’s the rebounding machine down low, while he lets the young studs shoot from outside.
Tony is a big Milwaukee Bucks fan, and he told me he’s going to try to have the Athens boys basketball middle and high school teams play games at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee before a Bucks game next season. I hope Tony can accomplish this feat, because it would be a neat experience.
