January 2018

Brian Finnel wanted a state championship.

Middleton’s boys cross country coach got exactly that, when the Cardinals won a state title in October. Then Finnel — and Middleton’s entire program — got a little bit more.

Finnel was recently named Wisconsin’s Coach of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).

One boys’ coach and one girls’ coach from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia were honored for their successes during the fall of 2017, as selected by a committee of experts from around the nation. Dodgeland’s Barry Smanz was the girls’ winner in Wisconsin.

The winners from each state are now in consideration for the association’s National High School Cross Country Coach of the Year award. One boys coach and one girls’ coach from all of the states will be selected by a panel of experts and be announced later this month as the national winners.

Middleton boys basketball coach Kevin Bavery might have summed it up best when discussing the Cardinals’ rivalry with Madison Memorial.

“There is a curse, a ghost, a poltergeist … something,” Bavery said.

Yes, strange things most certainly happen to Middleton when it meets Memorial. And last Saturday was no different.

Middleton rallied from an 11-point, second half deficit and took a one-point lead with 59 seconds left on a pair of Alan Roden free throws. Memorial reclaimed the lead with two free throws of its own, and the Cardinals had one final chance to escape victorious.

Senior forward Davis Roquet missed a three-pointer in the closing seconds, but junior guard Sam Close grabbed the rebound and was fouled with 0.6 seconds left. The sharp-shooting Close — a 91% free throw shooter — missed both foul shots, though, and Memorial prevailed, 42-41.

With stellar play on both ends of the court, Sitori Tannin provided just the spark Middleton’s girls basketball team needed.

Down by one point late, the sophomore scored on back-to-back possessions, then blocked a shot to help the Cardinals regain control and rally for an impressive 52-45 Big Eight Conference victory over rival Madison Memorial last Friday night.

“When it’s getting intense, I’ve got to go out there do my thing and get stuff done for the team,” said Tannin, who also blocked another Memorial shot down the stretch. “When we were down by one, it was like, ‘I’ve just got to get out there and get us some baskets and get us back up again.’

“I always try to step up my defense and my offense when it gets down (toward the end), but I’m trying to keep that throughout the whole game. I know, when coach needs me, I’m going to go in there do my thing.”

It’s -3 degrees Fahrenheit in paradise today.

Paradise, in this case, being Wisconsin in the month of January.

That’s the way the Ademi family sees it, at least. Babi and Viki Ademi came to the United States from their homeland in 1984, in pursuit of the fabled “American Dream.” Babi said that growing up in Macedonia, a country steeped in poverty, he fantasized about coming to the United States.

“To us, it seemed like paradise,” Viki agrees.

There’s something quintessentially American about the Ademi family’s story. Although their tale begins far, far away.

“We suffered there,” is all Viki likes to say of the country whose shores they left. In many ways, they found what they were looking for here. They ran restaurants for years elsewhere in Wisconsin, then took on factory work, all to support a growing family they hoped, in perfect keeping with this well-worn fable, would have more opportunities than they had.