Farewell To "Wisconsin Royalty"

 The news that Cherry Starr, 89, passed away following a long battle with cancer last week saddened me. I consider her and her late husband, Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr, to be the closest thing we had to royalty here in Wisconsin.

Bart, who died in 2019, may have enhanced his reputation with five NFL championships in seven seasons for those great Vince Lombardi teams, but Cherry was just as instrumental as she "quarterbacked" giving back to the Wisconsin community in a big way.

In the 1960s, the Starrs help found the Rawhide Boys Ranch to help at-risk and troubled youth. It still thrives today. We've donated cars to Rawhide over the years, and I know others who have as well.

The Starrs were beloved in Wisconsin for many reasons, and loved the Green Bay Packers. For years, Bart would phone (on his own) the players the team had drafted, to welcome them to "the family". I've heard that Cherry was doing the same after Bart's passing. They were proud members of the Green & Gold.

Many times, NFL teams will honor fallen members of the organization with their initials on a helmet or jersey throughout the season. If anyone deserves that honor, it's Cherry Starr. There are currently 147 members of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, and I can't think of non-player more deserving of that honor than Cherry Starr.

RIP Cherry. You and Bart were one of a kind, and real ambassadors for the Green & Gold and the state of Wisconsin.

Caitlin Clark is doing the right thing, passing up on a fifth season at Iowa to turn pro. Beyond padding her stats and possibly chasing a national championship, what else does the leading scorer in NCAA women's basketball history have to accomplish? Glad to see that, as a purist, her scoring record will be established in four years of college ball.

Learned this week that here NIL (Name-Image-Likeness) money has been negotiated for her by an agent and is not coming from the Iowa collective. Most colleges has a collective that is paying NIL to it's athletes, and those contracts terminate when the player leaves the school.

For Clark, that's a different story. Her NIL money will follow her to the WNBA, where her rookie contract is limited to $70,000 a season. She'll make a LOT more than that in endorsements alone, and will make that money up on her next contract. She's a Larry Bird-esque talent and a great draw for the WNBA.

She also passed Pistol Pete Maravich as the all-time leading scorer in NCAA basketball history, though the marvelous scorer from LSU will remain the men's leader. Maravich did his damage in just 83 games, while thus far Clark has played in 130.

It's a darn shame that the top three teams in Wisconsin girls basketball for Division 1, Verona, Hartland Arrowhead and Oregon, all were funneled into the same WIAA sectional.

For Oregon, a team that won 27 games in a row, the marvelous season ended with a loss to Arrowhead. That's still an historic season here, despite not finishing with a trip to Green Bay for the girls' state tournament.

Just seems like maybe the WIAA powers that be could have figured out a better system.

Although, if a recent piece in the Wisconsin State Journal is accurate, they did so on the boys' side, moving several teams over to the Madison Sectional, freeing up a path for Wisconsin Lutheran -- what gives with that, WIAA?