3 receive Jirschele awards

Three former Clintonville High School athletes and a Green Bay Packers running back were honored May 10 at the 22nd annual Doug Jirschele Memorial Sports Award Banquet at Clintonville Lanes. The charity banquet is sponsored by the Clintonville American Legion Post 63 to benefit the Clintonville American Legion baseball team and other youth baseball activities. The banquet is dedicated to Doug Jirschele in honor of his contributions to sports in the community. Brian Dunlavy, Jeni Yaeger and James Peters were presented with Doug Jirschele Sports Awards, given to people with local ties who have achieved success in the world of sports. Dunlavy grew up on a farm just outside of Clintonville, graduated from Clintonville High School in 1971 and attended the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where he played baseball and football. He played baseball for the Clintonville A’s from 1972-1986. He began his teaching career in Clintonville, where he coached sports year round. He was head football coach from 1998-2009, leading his team to the playoffs seven times. He coached Legion baseball from 2001-05, going to state in 2002. He is now retired. Yaeger graduated from Clintonville High School and then from Ripon College in 2009. She played volleyball and basketball all four years in high school, where she earned many honors. She continued to play both sports at Ripon, where she was named Academic All-Conference three years. She is employed at GreenStone Farm Credit Services. While attending Clintonville High School, Peters participated in football, basketball and track. He graduated from Michigan College of Mining and Technology in Houghton with a degree in civil engineering in 1958. While in college, he played football and basketball. He was a licensed professional engineer in Michigan and New Mexico and helped or was the project manager in the construction of many notable projects, including the addition to the former AAL building in Appleton, Wausau Hospital, Neenah Senior High School and others. He is retired. Green Bay Packers running back Eddie Lacy earned the Nice Guy Award. After being drafted by the Packers in the second round in 2013, Lacy became the NFL’s rookie of the year while setting several rookie franchise regular season records. He was named second-team All-Pro by The Associated Press and earned a bid to the Pro Bowl. Lacy was the first Packer to earn rookie of the year honors since John Brockington in 1971. Jodi Behnke earned the Forgotten Person Award for being active with the Little League baseball teams and helping with putting on the banquet. Retired Ripon College men’s basketball coach Bob Gillespie was the guest speaker for the banquet. In 31 years under his guidance, the men’s basketball program had just four losing seasons. The basketball ball court at the Storzer Center is named after the coach. He also became Ripon’s all-time winningest baseball coach. Character and values is what matters in life, Gillespie told the audience. He told his players to “respect the game, give your absolute best, nothing else, never show negative emotion, never talk back to the umpires, play with class, don’t be boastful, conduct your life the right way.” WBAY-TV new anchor Bill “Schmidt” Jartz, a Clintonville High School graduate, served as master of ceremonies.