Written by Tim Petermann, former UWEC Athletics Sports Information Director
EAU CLAIRE, WI (blugolds.com) – In a year in which the UW-Eau Claire athletics program is celebrating the 50th anniversary of women's athletics, five women are among the six individuals who will be inducted into the Blugold Hall of Fame in the Class of 2021.
The new class includes golfer Maggie (Loney) Green, gymnast Lynn (Morris) Nordin, track athlete Jennifer (Stafslien) Reimer, volleyball-basketball-track standout Brooke (Wozniak) Schmidt, football-track athlete Bob Schmidt and long-time athletics administrative assistant Nancy Hendricks.
This 32nd class of women's inductees and 45th class of men's inductees brings the number of athletes, coaches and administrators who have been honored to 247.
The class will be inducted during Homecoming weekend with a banquet on Friday, October 15 and introduction at the football game versus UW-River Falls on Saturday, October 16. The group will also ride in the Homecoming parade Saturday morning.
The Blugold Hall of Fame was established 48 years ago in 1973 to pay tribute, to give deserved recognition and to enhance school tradition by honoring former athletic letterwinners, coaches or administrators who demonstrated distinctive, unique or exceptional ability while on the campus at Eau Claire and have distinguished themselves in their profession or personally since leaving the institution.
There must be a lapse of 15 years from their final season of eligibility before an athlete can be considered for induction.
The induction of Brooke and Bob Schmidt represents the first husband-wife combination to be recognized. There have been three brother combinations (John and Paul Christopher, Tim and Mike Blair, and Alex and Mark Hicks) and one father-daughter combination (Tryg Pedersen and Joan Pedersen Bachmeier).
The five athletes being recognized this year all competed between the fall of 1998 and the spring of 2006. Nancy Hendricks had a 43-year tenure from 1977 until she retired in 2020.
Maggie Loney was a four-time All-Conference golfer and two-time first team WGCA All-American. Lynn Morris was a national champion on the balance beam and an eight-time gymnastics All-American. Jen Stafslien earned nine track and field All-American honors, specializing in the hurdles and jumps, and won seven conference championships. Brooke Wozniak was a first-team All-American in volleyball, first team All-Conference in basketball and three-time NCAA national qualifier in track and field. Bob Schmidt was a freshman contributor on the Blugolds' 1998 NCAA football playoff team and a senior All-American on the Blugolds' 2001 conference championship squad.
MAGGIE LONEY GREEN
Maggie (Loney) Green, the 2001 Big Rivers Conference Player of the Year at River Falls High School, was the WIAC Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005 as the Blugolds won conference golf championships.
Green finished fourth individually as the Blugolds achieved their highest finish ever with a third-place tie in the 2005 NCAA Division III Championships. She placed among the top 20 individuals in all four of her NCAA Championships and the Blugolds never finished lower than sixth as a team. Green received national accolades in each of her four seasons. She was the WGCA Freshman of the Year in 2003, honorable mention All-American as a sophomore and first team All-American as a junior and senior.
In addition to capturing first place in two conference tournaments, Green was the meet medalist in eight other invitationals during her Blugold career. In winning the Whitewater Invitational in 2005, she set a course record with a 66 on her final round at the Prairie Woods Golf Course in Avalon.
Green was named to the WIAC's All-Centennial team for golf in 2013 and also was selected as the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram's Female Athlete of the Year for 2005, the same year in which she qualified for the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship.
John Rawdon, who coached Green her first three and a half seasons as a Blugold, said "Maggie had a burning desire to become better." He added that "her ability to create the team atmosphere in an individual sport was a pure joy to watch," as was her "ability to be humble, kind, honest, demanding and unselfish." He pointed out that "her ability to bring others to her level is without question her biggest asset."
John Means, who coached Green her final semester, said "As a change in coaches can be difficult for an established player, Maggie welcomed me and embraced the training, putting her teammates always before herself." He added that "Maggie often asked me what else she could do to get better and worked on those aspects of the game every practice." She also "kept the team together at practice and at the golf house that several of the players lived in."
After receiving her Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a marketing major and mass communications-advertising minor, Green continued her career in golf. She is a certified PGA of America-Class A PGA Professional. She has worked at the Desert Mountain Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona since 2008 and became the Head Golf Professional & Retail Manager of the Chiricahua Golf Course at Desert Mountain in 2014. She was part of the retail team at Desert Mountain Club that received the Association of Golf Merchandiser's Platinum Award this year and won the Cashman Award for Visual Excellence from the AGM in 2020. She was a volunteer at the 2011 British Open and also the 2012 U.S. Open in the merchandise tents.
She and her husband Josh, an account manager for Waste Management, are the parents of three children: Kelly, age 5; Zoey, age 3; and Jaxon, age 1.
LYNN MORRIS NORDIN
Lynn (Morris) Nordin, a level 10 gymnast and three-time USAG state bar champion during her high school years at Twin Lakes High School in Monticello, Indiana, was a four-time balance beam NCGA All-American for the Blugolds, winning the national championship when the Blugolds hosted the NGCA Championships her freshman season of 2003. She also earned All-American honors twice on the uneven bars and twice as an All-Around.
"Indy", as she was known to her teammates because of her affiliation to the Hoosier state, helped the Blugolds to four consecutive second-place finishes in the WIAC behind perennial power UW-La Crosse between 2003 and 2006. The Blugolds have not finished as high as second since. The Blugolds also qualified for the NCGA Championships all four years she was a member of the team. The Blugolds have only qualified as a team three times since.
Nordin was the Division 3 West Region Gymnast of the Year in 2006, the same year she served as a team captain. She was the Blugold team MVP in both 2004 and 2006 and earned the team's Most Balanced Award in 2004.
A four-time WIAC gymnast of the week, Nordin was second on the balance beam twice in the conference meet and second in all-around once. She has two of the top three balance beam scores in school history, two of the top 10 all-around scores and one top 10 uneven bars score.
Jean DeLisle, who coached Nordin her final three seasons as a Blugold, called Nordin "a coach's dream come true." She said, "Indy was always ready for the task at hand, whether it be practice or competition." She added that "Indy is one of those athletes that challenges a coach to become better." She described her as "powerful, strong and steady" and said "every day she walked into the gym was a good day. Her teammates followed her determination to do better and want more."
Nordin graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in kinesiology. For 10 years, she was a team coach and education coordinator for TAGS (Thompson Academy of Gymnastics) Gymnastics. She also served five years as a USA Gymnastics Judge. She is currently a stay-at-home mother of four, living in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. She and her husband Pete are parents of Mason, age 5; Hailey, age 4; Kelsey, age 2; and Luke, age 5 months.
JENNIFER STAFSLIEN REIMER
Jennifer (Stafslien) (STAFS lean) Reimer (RHYME er), the 2001 Athlete of the Year at West Salem High School, won seven conference titles and earned 10 All-American honors as a versatile athlete on the Blugold track team for three years. She transferred to UWEC in 2002 after spending her freshman season at UW-La Crosse.
Reimer was the premier hurdler in the WIAC from 2002 through 2005 with two firsts and two seconds in the indoor 55-meter hurdles and one second and three firsts in the outdoor 100-meter high hurdles. She set the conference and school records in the indoor hurdles as a junior and the conference and school records in the outdoor hurdles as a senior.
Reimer also excelled in the jumps, winning the conference indoor long jump twice and placing in the top four outdoors three times. She placed in the top four of both the indoor and outdoor triple jump all three seasons as a Blugold. She set school records in the indoor and outdoor triple as well as the indoor long jump. She still shares the record in the indoor triple jump.
Reimer was the WIAC track co-Athlete-of-the-Meet at the 2005 outdoor championships. Her speed allowed her to help the Blugold 4x400 relay team finish second in both the indoor and outdoor races and the 4x100 relay finish runner-up outdoors.
In national competition, Reimer was the runner-up in the outdoor long jump as a senior and third in the indoor long jump as a junior. She was also third in the outdoor 100-meter hurdles as a junior with fourths in the indoor 55-meter hurdles as both a junior and senior. She also earned a fifth (100mHH), three sevenths (triple jump, long jump, 4x400 relay) and an eighth (100mHH) in national competition.
Tracy Yengo was Reimer's Blugold coach. She said "Jen's hurdle form was innately proficient and she worked relentlessly to fine-tune her starts and approach to and off each hurdle." She added that "her quiet and humble demeanor made her approachable and well-liked by her teammates."
A 2005 UWEC nursing graduate, Reimer was a Blugold Super Six Award winner in 2005. Since then, she has earned a Family Nurse Practitioner Master's Degree. She is currently an Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioner with the Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire.
Reimer has had a variety of nursing experiences since graduation, starting as a registered nurse at UW Hospital. She was a travel nurse from 2008-10 and started her career as a Family Nurse Practitioner working in the Emergency Department in West Union, Iowa. She then transitioned to Eau Claire's Sacred Heart Hospital Emergency Department for two years. The following five years, she was an independent provider working in the rural Emergency Departments in the Northwest Region for Mayo. For the past four years, she has been working in the psychiatry and psychology outpatient clinic at Mayo in Eau Claire.
She and her husband Robert Reimer, a Physician Assistant for Mayo, are parents of two children: Danica, age 6 and Keaton, age 4.
BROOKE WOZNIAK SCHMIDT
Brooke (Wozniak) Schmidt, a high school standout at Stanley-Boyd, ranks as one of the best three-sport athletes in Blugold history with 12 letters in volleyball, basketball and track and field. She earned first team AVCA All-American honors in volleyball, one of only five to do so in Blugold volleyball history. She was a starter on the Blugolds' 2003 basketball team that finished third in the NCAA Division III national championships and set a school record with 32 wins. She was also an NCAA qualifier in the discus and shot put with the Blugold track and field team.
The 6-foot Schmidt went from team Rookie of the Year in 2000 to honorable mention All-Conference as a sophomore to a two-time All-Conference selection in volleyball. She was named to 11 All-Tournament teams throughout her career and was selected team co-MVP as a senior.
She ranks among the top seven Blugold players in career kills (1,298), attack percentage (.315), total blocks (367) and blocking assists (309). The Blugolds produced a 91-40 record during her career, winning at least 21 matches every season.
Lisa Herb, her Blugold volleyball coach, called Schmidt "a dominant force at the net. She was a hard hitter looking to score every time she was set." She added that "Brooke was the go-to hitter when the team needed to score." She said that while "she was intimidating as a hitter, she also was as a blocker." She called her competitive nature "contagious" with teammates.
As a basketball player, Schmidt was a force on defense and also on the boards, leading the WIAC in rebounding both her junior and season seasons when she averaged 10.3 and 12.3 rebounds per game and was named to the WIAC All-Defensive team. She once grabbed 23 rebounds in a game against La Crosse and 21 versus Stout during her senior season. She still holds the single season rebound records for both total (350) and average (12.3) set during her junior and senior seasons, respectively.
Schmidt earned All-Conference first team and D3hoops.com All-Region second team honors as a senior and was the team's Most Improved Player in both 2002 and 2003 and Defensive Player of the Year in 2004. The Blugolds won conference regular season and conference tournament titles in her freshman and junior seasons, advancing to the NCAA tournament both years. She was named MVP of the California Lutheran tournament that the Blugolds won her senior season.
The Blugolds were 95-21 during her four seasons on the team with a 50-14 conference mark.
Tonja Englund, the Blugold women's basketball coach, said "Brooke's relentless rebounding and strong defensive presence in the paint played a major role in the success of our 32-2 Final Four team in 2002-03." She added that "her rebounds that season gave our team countless second, third and sometimes fourth chances offensively." Englund stated that "Brooke simply out-worked, out-willed and out-powered her opponents when it came to rebounding."
Schmidt was a thrower and jumper on the Blugold track and field team. She qualified for the NCAA national championship meets in the discus and/or shot in 2002, 2003 and 2006. She placed seven times in those two events in conference meets. Her best conference performances were a second in the discus and a fourth in the shot put in 2006 when she came back for her final track season after being married to football standout Bob Schmidt and giving birth to their first child.
Track coach Tracy Yengo described Schmidt as "having a kind demeanor" but being "a fierce competitor."
Schmidt was a two-time Blugold Super Six Award winner.
Since her UWEC graduation in 2006, she has been a math teacher at Rice Lake High School. She has been the Rice Lake head girls' track and field coach for 12 years and assistant varsity girls' basketball coach for the past three years. She has also coached the varsity girls' cross country team, middle school volleyball and basketball teams, along with an AAU basketball team. Her track teams have won five regional championships and this past season placed fourth at the WIAA Division 2 State meet which included a sixth-place finish by her daughter Isabelle in the shot put.
In addition to Isabelle who is 16, the Schmidts have three other children: Addison, age 12; Brennan, age 10 and Colton, age 6.
BOB SCHMIDT
Bob Schmidt, a four-year football letterman, played offensive tackle, checking in at 6-foot-4, 290 pounds as a senior. During his four years as a Blugold, Schmidt became one of the most decorated offensive linemen in school history. He was a member of two Blugold conference championship teams in 1998 and 2001.
At right tackle, Schmidt anchored an offensive line that paved the way for the Blugolds and their dominant offense. He was a freshman contributor to Bob Nielson's 1998 team that was the first squad in school history to make the NCAA playoffs, advancing to the semifinals, and finishing with a school-record 10-3 mark. As a sophomore he earned All-Conference honorable mention and both his junior and senior seasons he was a unanimous first team All-Conference selection. During his senior season under Todd Hoffner, the Blugolds were ranked as high as No. 6 in the country and finished the season 8-2.
Schmidt was a Football Gazette All-Region first team pick in both 2000 and 2001. Following his junior season in 2000 he was named to the USA Football All-American second team and was a Football Gazette honorable mention All-American. As a senior in 2001, he was named to the Football Gazette All-American third team and the D3football.com All-American second team.
Being an offensive lineman doesn't generate a lot of stats. However, Schmidt's effectiveness can be measured by the fact that Blugold Hall of Famer Darrell Souhrada, the school's all-time rushing and rushing TD leader, ran behind the blocks of Schmidt for four seasons.
Todd Hoffner, the Blugold head coach for Schmidt's final three seasons, called Bob "a great student, but a better person and excellent leader." He pointed out that while Bob was quiet, he had "a demeanor about him that was to be modeled by all. He anchored our offensive line and helped our dominant offense lead to a championship."
In two seasons of track, Schmidt placed three times in the WIAC shot put including a pair of thirds and qualified for the NCAA outdoor meet one season.
Schmidt also became one of five Blugolds all-time to win the WIAC Scholar-Athlete Award for football. And like his wife, Schmidt was a Blugold Super Six Award winner. Both Schmidt and his wife earned CoSIDA Academic All-District first team honors.
Schmidt was a three-sport standout at Eau Claire Memorial. He was an All-Northwest first team football player, at the time set a school record for pins in a season and career in wrestling, and set school records in the shot put and discus. His shot put record still stands today.
Schmidt earned his bachelor's degree in kinesiology with an emphasis in K-12 physical education in 2003 and has been teaching Elementary Physical Education in the Rice Lake Area School District since. During his tenure at Rice Lake, he has been an assistant football and wrestling coach and is currently an assistant track and field throwing coach. He has also obtained his master's degree in Educational Leadership & Change.
Schmidt and his wife, Brooke, are parents of Isabelle, age 16; Addison, age 12; Brennan, age 10; and Colton, age 6.
NANCY PERRY HENDRICKS
Nancy (Perry) Hendricks has witnessed nearly 40 percent of UW-Eau Claire's 105-year athletics history, including eight different Directors of Athletics (two interim) and 108 different head coaches.
She was the behind-the-scenes glue that connected a vast program that grew to 25 intercollegiate sports during her tenure and encompassed between 600-800 athletes and over 400 events per year.
The tools of her trade as the department's lone full-time secretary changed significantly over the years. When she started, documents were typed on dittos and mistakes were corrected with a razor blade or retyped. Several innovations that improved her job included liquid paper, offset printing, self-correcting typewriters and eventually computers in 1984. She was the face of the department as the department receptionist, directing visitors, media and recruits to coaches in a building that did not feature a central office area for the entire staff.
When she started, the only copying capabilities in the office were carbon copies or ditto machines. For the first 37 years of her tenure, the athletic offices were located on the upper campus and printing services was on lower campus. With no delivery or pickup service available, anything that needed immediate printing required a trip down and up the 165-step staircase through Putnam Park that divides the university's upper and lower campus. Eventually, the department obtained copy machines and with technology, those eventually included duplexing, collating and stapling capabilities which in her early years was done by hand. In addition, printing orders could be emailed and the finished products were delivered later in her career.
At one time, the university maintained a fleet of vehicles and Hendricks worked with coaches to schedule vans for travel to away meets or games and practices in some cases. When the university eliminated its fleet, Hendricks was then responsible for scheduling buses or vans from outside agencies.
Until recent years when the technology existed for coaches to do recruiting through social media, Hendricks would often have to send out recruiting letters to all of the coaches in Wisconsin and Minnesota plus some select states beyond in various sports.
She would work with coaches and the admissions office to track athletes as they were admitted and with the housing office as athletes were scheduled into the allotted rooms once they were admitted.
In the years preceding email and the internet, the sports information department's press releases were mailed out weekly to local, state and hometown media.
As all athletes are required to have a physical exam and complete numerous forms before they can practice, Hendricks would have to help schedule physicals and checklist the forms for every sport.
She assisted in the eligibility process, particularly with distributing eligibility documents or sending out tracers for every athlete that transferred in.
In advance of every sport, Hendricks would develop schedules and contracts for game personnel other than officials assigned by the conference office for home events.
Hendricks would be responsible for typing up the final nomination forms for athletes who were nominated for all-conference, all-region, All-American, all-academic and other team awards as well as all the bid paperwork necessary for hosting post-season events.
When coaching positions opened up, Hendricks worked with the Directors of Athletics and the human resources office to schedule interviews and arrange the necessary lodging for candidates. In later years, all job searches started and ended with her.
Hendricks was also a key cog as the department ran regular golf outings as fundraisers and other fundraisers such as the Final Four Fun Fest.
While some sports enjoyed more success than others, there was plenty of work involved for everyone when a sport hosted post-season competition. That included the 1984 NAIA men's ice hockey Final Four, the 1986 NAIA women's Gymnastics Championship, the 2003 and 2011 NCGA gymnastics nationals, the 1994 NCAA Division III women's basketball Final Four, the 2004 NCAA Division III men's and women's cross country championships and six NCAA Division III softball national championships (1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2010 and 2013). The latter were major events that involved eight teams and competition spread out over four or five days. All of the national events also involved hosting a pre-meet banquet for which Hendricks did a lot of the planning.
In addition, during Hendricks' tenure, the university hosted six NCAA softball regionals, a volleyball regional, two cross country regionals, a soccer regional, two women's basketball sectionals and a baseball area tournament. The Blugolds were also hosts for many single regional or NAIA District 14 games in the team sports.
Many post-season events involved late selection and administrative pressure to pull them off in a condensed timeline and Hendricks could be found working after hours to help with the preparations.
Her position also included the routine duties of scheduling meetings and appointments, maintaining files, ordering and maintaining an inventory of supplies for a staff that numbered upwards of 60 individuals. In her later years, the job also included the cash management duties of counting receipts, invoicing and paying invoices.
With the support of many colleagues, Hendricks received the university's Classified Staff Excellence in Performance in 2009.
Marilyn Skrivseth, who worked alongside Hendricks for over 30 years, said that she "was the heart and glue that kept things going smoothly during transition after transition with personnel." She said that the thing she will always remember was her "unending kindness and helpfulness towards everyone who came in contact with her. Never once did I ever hear her say 'It's not my job.'" Skrivseth pointed out that while a lot of people have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, "I can't think of a single person who had a greater positive impact on more students, coaches and administrators than Nancy. She is the definition of an MVP, an All-Star and now a well-deserved Hall of Famer."
Scott Kilgallon, the Blugold Athletics Director from 2004-14, said "The great successes of our coaches, student-athletes and myself during my time at UWEC would not have occurred without the hard work, dedication and athletics knowledge by Nancy. I often said Nancy had the equivalent of a PhD in Athletics Administration, particularly when it came to the planning and successful hosting of many NCAA Regional and National Championships."
Dan Schumacher, who became AD in 2014 and subsequently moved the athletics administrative offices, including Hendricks, into Brewer Hall on lower campus, said "You will find nobody more kind, patient and knowledgeable than Nancy when its Blugolds athletics and the university. Her guidance and knowledge allowed me to navigate my first years of my tenure as AD."
Tim Petermann, who worked alongside Hendricks for most of her Blugold tenure as sports information director, assistant to the AD and two years as interim AD, said "I am amazed at the calm and even-tempered disposition that Nancy displayed over the years, considering how many coaches thought she was their personal secretary and how many different personalities she encountered between coaches, student-athletes, recruits, game personnel, officials and fans. There was nothing she couldn't handle and handle well."
During the course of her Blugold tenure, Hendricks married one of the student sports information workers in Marty Hendricks, and the couple had two children, Chad and Ashley, and two grandchildren. Chad ended up being a Blugold tennis player and currently works for Amazon in Seattle while Ashley works for Mayo Clinic in Eau Claire. Nancy's husband, Marty, is a senior account executive for Fox 25/48 television in Eau Claire and covers the Green Bay Packers for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Packer Plus.
Acronyms
WIAC = Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
(current conference for men's and women's sports, combined in 1996)
NCAA = National Collegiate Athletic Association (current national organization which UWEC joined provisionally in 1986-87)
NAIA = National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (national organization to which UWEC belonged until 1995)
WGCA – Women's Golf Coaches of America
PGA – Professional Golfers of America
AVCA – American Volleyball Coaches of America
USAG = United States of America Gymnastics
NCGA = National Collegiate Gymnastics Association
WIAA = Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association
CoSIDA = College Sports Information Directors of American
D3football.com – a national Division III football media outlet
Blugold Super Six Award – highest award given to a Blugold student athlete, based on athletics and academics, three men and three women selected annually.
