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UW-Whitewater football team makes its championship contribution to case

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Warhawk Champs

The UW-Whitewater Warhawk football team returned to campus Sunday to celebrate its national title.

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WHITEWATER — The next major project for the UW-Whitewater athletic program may involve funding for a new trophy case.

Someone has to pay for a place to store all the national titles.

The Warhawks picked up their third NCAA Division III championship in three years Saturday night at the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl with a 31-21 win over heavily favored Mount Union College at Salem, Va.

Following national titles in baseball and women's volleyball in 2005, Whitewater is on the verge of becoming one of the most dominant Division III athletic programs.

The women's and men's basketball teams are ranked in the nation's top 15 this season, while the football team played in the national title game for the third straight year. The women's volleyball program has finished second, third and first the last three years at the Elite Eight, and the men's soccer team qualified for the NCAA tournament this fall.

UW-Whitewater athletic director Paul Plinske said it's a great time to be a Warhawk.

"We've gotten great institutional support,'' he said. "We've got outstanding facilities. Great coaches and some of the nation's finest student/athletes on our campus.

"Right now, everybody is working on the same page and rooting for one another. This was a great victory for our football program, and the entire university shares in their success."

A year ago, Plinske was in the middle of the football coaching controversy surrounding the successor to Bob Berezowitz. In the end, Plinske made the decision to hire Lance Leipold over three other finalists, including former Warhawk offensive coordinator Stan Zweifel.

Rather than gloat about the decision to hire Leipold, who led the Warhawks to the national title in his first season, Plinske remained focused on the athletic program.

"For the second time now, we've been fortunate to hire a first-year coach and win a national championship in that first year," Plinske said of Leipold and Stacy Boudreau, who coached the Warhawk women's volleyball team to the 2005 Division III title.

Whitewater also won the 2005 national championship in John Vodenlich's second season as head coach.

"That's a tribute to those programs and those teams, and what they were able to accomplish,'' Plinski said. "My hat goes off to every coach and every athlete that has helped make our entire athletic program what it is today."

As successful and stable as Warhawk athletics are at the close of 2007, the future appears even brighter.

The Perkins Stadium football field will undergo a makeover before next season as FieldTurf is added to the nation's largest Division III on-campus facility. Prucha Field, home to the baseball team, also will get FieldTurf. The turf will be installed in the infield and on the warning track in the outfield.

Both basketball teams have excellent shots at making the NCAA post-season tournament, and winning national championships or playing for those titles goes a long way toward recruiting.

"There are a lot of great reasons to attend UW-Whitewater, and athletics is one of them," Plinske said. "It is a fun time right now, but that's because everyone is pulling for each other. And winning sure feels good."

That's something the Whitewater athletic program is doing a lot of lately.