View from the cheap seats
A weekly perspective on sports
Casey Krautkramer Reporter The Record-Review
On Saturday, I partook in the unique experience of standing on soccer fields constructed on top of a former garbage dump in the City of Wausau.
I was watching my youngest daughter Madison, 8, play for the Marshfield 10U travel soccer team at the Marathon County Sports Complex, located on Kent Street just two blocks east of Grand Avenue.
As I drove to the soccer fields, I wondered what the gas coming from a smoke stack was on the edge of the complex across the street from the Wausau Curling Club’s building.
I spoke to the groundskeeper of the soccer fields and he told me the garbage continues to decompose underneath the soccer fields, which was the former Holtz-Krause landfill. Therefore, methane gas from the garbage decomposition is constantly being emitted from the smoke stack on the property.
It’s neat 15 soccer fields were constructed on top of nearly 60 acres of a garbage landfill. I joked to one of the other soccer parents it’s no wonder there was lush green grass on the soccer fields, because they were built on a clay layer of soil on top of the garbage dump.
After my daughter’s soccer games ended, I took my kids to Jo Jo’s Jungle on Stettin Drive in Wausau for the first time. Jo Jo’s Jungle, which is touted as a state-of-the-art all inclusive playground destination, definitely lived up to its hype and I would recommend parents take their children here.
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Marathon’s varsity football team finds itself in the same position Abbotsford was last Friday night.
The Red Raiders will play their first game this season, after ending their COVID-19 quarantine, at 7 p.m. this Friday against the undefeated Colby Hornets in Colby.
Last Friday, the Abbotsford Falcons played their first football game this season, after also ending a COVID-19 quarantine, against the unbeaten and No. 1 ranked Division 7 Edgar Wildcats. I expected the game to be a blowout win for Edgar and I was correct.
Terri Skrzypchak, mother of Edgar varsity football star running back and linebacker Austin Dahlke, has started an online petition on Facebook to tell the WIAA it should reinstate the 2020 state football championships. She argues other sports like cross country, volleyball, soccer, tennis and swimming are still having state championships, therefore football should too.
Skryzpchak states in her petition there are plenty of locations, aside from Madison, where the state championships football games could be played. She said since there are less football teams playing this fall, the WIAA could maybe only have five or six divisions instead of seven. Her goal is to obtain 500 online signatures from people to Wade Labecki from the WIAA.
