Posted: March 30, 2009 |(0) Comments

Things are different today in basketball than they were when Germantown boys basketball coach Steve Showalter was coming of age in Baraboo in the late 1980s.

Traveling teams and summer leagues had not taken over the players' offseason lives. Coaches were not immersed in the organization of area youth clubs that have the athletes starting up in third grade, if not younger.

Back then, it seemed like the season began when the coach just threw the ball out in the gym at the start of November.

But as the marvelous Ben Averkamp era comes to an end and Showalter, who just finished his ninth season, begins to ponder how he will keep the program afloat in Averkamp's absence, he looks back at a sea of people he has relied on to get it to this level.

Coaches and organizers like Dan Doedens, Lee Flasch, Nick DeGeorge and others who have worked with him to get it to this elite stage. And now Showalter and Germantown will rely on the fiercely competitive summer league and traveling team programs and the youth club that these people have helped put together to make sure there are replacements for Averkamp, Mike Minsky, Mike Laubenheimer, Evan Gillespie and the others who are departing this spring.

He knows if you want to keep up, you have to keep moving, because that's exactly what your opponents are doing.

"It's weighed on me these last few years to be picked to win game after game," Showalter said. "The favorite more often than not. Now with what we're looking at, it'll take a little pressure off the kids (being the underdog). It'll be interesting and exciting to see if we can keep the program where it's at, without that really good player."

Showalter will certainly miss Averkamp, who helped author two North Shore Conference titles and two state tournament berths.

"What he's done here is unprecedented," Showalter said. "He will be unmatched for a long, long time. He's such a smart kid, a deep thinker and he wants to get better. He always wants to improve. He's going to be a really good player (in college)."

Averkamp has committed to Loyola of Chicago, but before he leaves, he'll have one more chance to work with Showalter. Averkamp was chosen to play in the summer's Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association All-Star game, a contest Showalter will coach. Germantown's Mike Laubenheimer will be an alternate.

After that, it will all be a memory for Showalter and the spoiled fans. It'll be a very good set of memories, indeed.

"I'll think about those things (conference titles, state tournament berths) and all the effort and the energy it took to get there," Showalter said. "The kids' willingness to do all the things I've asked of them to take that extra step above and beyond. The times I told them that good things will happen and then they having faith in the way I teach and coach them."

And what did he himself take out of these last few special years?

"The joy on their faces at special moments, knowing that we had just taken another step up the hill," Showalter said. "All the little battles that we won just trying to get there. It's the trying, the effort, the hoping that things will come together because of the work we've done. That is my reward.

"I'll cherish the fact that we've been able to develop these kids. These are my boys, my guys. Families move here. I'm not going to other youth tourneys (asking families and players to move here). I want our kids to succeed. Our town."

 

Steven L. Tietz can be reached at (262) 446-6619 or stietz@cninow.com.

ONE ERA ENDS, NEW ONE BEGINS

TOP MOMENTS

2007: coach Steve Showalter cutting down nets after first conference title in over 30 years … first overflow home crowd at WIAA regional final against Watertown … playing in WIAA sectional at Al McGuire Center

2008: unbeaten conference record (14-0) … school record for victories (22) … Andy Neumann tipping a missed free throw out to center court to ensure sectional final victory over Vincent … first state tournament berth in school history

2009: routine overflow crowds … last-second wins over Menomonee Falls and Whitefish Bay in December … thrilling sectional final win over border rival Falls to return to state

JUNIOR VARSITY RECORD: 18-2

FRESHMEN RECORD: 18-2