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KNIGHT TO REMEMBER: John Heineke headed into BMHS Athletic Hall
BELOIT — John Heineke won his share of hardware over a playing career that saw him rise from Wisconsin Dells multi-sport prep to the University of Wisconsin and a 35-year high school football coaching career, the final 33 at Beloit Memorial High School.
He retired 28 years ago, but will add another honor when he is inducted into the 2025 BMHS inaugural Athletic Hall of Fame class.
Coaching honors and individual milestones have always taken a backseat to Heineke, who appreciates even more the friendships with his coaching peers and former players.
“I can’t walk down the street more than a few feet downtown without someone knowing me,” Heineke said.
At 90 years old, Heineke has slowed down a bit. Of course he had a trace of a limp when he came to Beloit in 1965 and over the years he became an authority on knee and hip replacements.
But he’s not complaining. He still greets everyone who says “It’s nice to see you John,” with a quick, “It’s nice to be seen.”
He says he attends too many funerals these days, of coaching peers as well as some older players. Most recently, he attended the funeral of Jerry Stalcup in Rockford. They were teammates at the University of Wisconsin.
“I had six roommates during my college years and they’ve all passed,” he said.
Heineke was born in Portage May 30, 1935, the son of Gustave “Monk” and Helen Heineke. He was a prep star in Wisconsin Dells, competing in football, basketball, baseball and track, earning 10 varsity letters. He was all-conference in football and basketball and earned All-State recognition in the former.
He followed his older brother Jim to Madison after graduation from high school and attended the UW from 1953-58, lettering in football in 1957. He won the team’s Ivy Williamson Sportsmanship Award that year when he was also honorable mention on the Scholastic All-American team. He graduated in 1958 with a bachelor of science degree in physical education.
A stint in the U.S. Army followed from 1958-60 and he served as player-coach for the 1959 Brooke Army Medical Center service champions. He also coached Fort Sam Houston (Texas) to the 4th Army basketball championship in 1959-60 before receiving an honorable discharge as a Captain in 1960.
Heineke started his prep coaching career as an assistant football coach at Moline (Ill.) Senior High from 1960-62. He also served as swimming coach. He was named head football coach at Manitowoc Lincoln from 1963-64 and went 8-8-1 there.
“I didn’t exactly leave the cupboard bare there,” Heineke said. “They had back-to-back No. 1-ranked teams after I left. But Wayne Kelliher, the coach at Madison East, was a dear friend and he told me I should get down to where football was really played.”
In 1965, BMHS needed a successor to Bill Myers, who had resigned after six seasons to become head coach at Marinette. Heineke beat out 43 other applicants.
“Clare Eddy was on the search committee and he really wanted a Wisconsin graduate,” Heineke said. “I filled the bill. I never regretted the decision to come here.”
Over his 33 seasons in Beloit, Heineke won seven Big Eight championships and posted a record of 172-132-4. His teams appeared in 10 WIAA playoffs with a string of eight straight snapped in 1995, but with appearances in 1996 and 1997.
Heineke coached some tremendous individuals who went on to Division 1 college careers, including future NFL head coach Jim Caldwell, who was a standout defensive back at Iowa. Others included Vince Lamia at Wisconsin, Terry Harrell at Northwestern, Gene Van Galder and Jeff Hanson at Richmond, Tim Wofford at Western Illinois, Jeff Stovall at Northern Iowa and Chris Foy and Darius Jones at Wisconsin.
Heineke said he originally had an opponent on the faculty in Bernie Barkin, who didn’t want his basketball players risking injury playing football.
“I think when I got divorced and lived with Bernie for two years that helped,” Heineke said with a chuckle. “We came to an understanding and I had a lot of basketball players play football, including (6-foot-8) Bob Grady.”
Heineke saved the best season — at least record-wide — for last. His 1997 team reached the state semifinals before losing to Oak Creek in Janesville.
“I had some great teams, but I think the best I had was that 1997 team,” Heineke said. “We finally got beat by Oak Creek by a fumblerooskie play that was outlawed the following year. Looking back, maybe I should have stayed on for two more years with Darius (Jones).”
There’s also a special place in his heart for his first squad in 1965.
“We didn’t have many guys back who had played a lot the year before,” he said. “We only had 16 letterwinners and we had 10 guys playing both ways. It was a great team that wasn’t supposed to do anything in 1965 and it ended up winning the championship.”
That 1965 team finished 6-0-1 (tying Rockford West in its opener) behind running back Steve Hanaman, who rushed for 1,641 yards during his career and scored a then-school record 172 points, Big Eight Player of the Year Gene Van Galder, Bill Goetzke, Jim Hertenstein, Doug Wilson and Harold Stanford. They were all all-conference selections.
“Bill Goetzke told me years later that during a win against Madison West we ran the same running play to Hanaman 13 times in a row,” Heineke said. “He should know because he was a pulling guard on the play.”
His 1972 team is also one of his favorites. They were unbeaten and allowed only 1,207 yards in conference play. Lamia was named Big Eight Player of the Year after starring at fullback and linebacker, but there were plenty of other standouts: Caldwell, Sam Eddy, Eddie Smith, Gary Hubka (who would be drafted by the Texas Rangers, injure his arm and go on to score over 1,000 points in basketball at Northern Michigan) and Tony Brizzolara (who would pitch for the Atlanta Braves).
“I can’t believe the quality of athletes we had on that team,” Heineke said.
Hubka caught one of the most memorable passes in school history. His touchdown reception from Eddy beat previously unbeaten Madison La Follette.
“Hubka did a little 10-yard out pattern and the kid from La Follette stepped in front of him,” Heineke remembers. “Hubka went over the top and took the pass from Eddy 73 yards for a touchdown right in front of (La Follette coach) Otto Breitenbach.”
Heineke’s 1980 team is also one of his favorites. Led by another Player of the Year, John Mauermann, the Knights went 7-2 with a defense labeled “the Purple Crush.” The offense included quarterback Matt Mabie, who would walk-on at Wisconsin and the “Thunder and Lightning” combination of Fred Lockhart and Wofford. Beloit rushed for 1,993 yards.
“We had some real good hard-working kids,” Heineke said. “Every lineman on the line of scrimmage could bench 300 pounds. They had pride in each other. We won the title three weeks before the season was over.”
Unfortunately, an early-season non-conference loss to Thomas More (the WISAA champion) kept Beloit out of the limited WIAA playoffs at that time.
Perhaps Heineke’s most surprising team came in 1989.
“We had to move our fullback, Chris Whitt, to guard because we didn’t have enough linemen,” Heineke said. “Whitt was outstanding. He had 29 tackles in one playoff game. But we had a lot of other guys you never expected to do things who contributed.”
The Knights became well-known for their rugged Wing-T offense and a busload of outstanding running backs. Hanaman, Stovall, Wofford, Duane Jenkins, Jim Boatner, Jeremy Kelsey, Mike Lewis and Jones, to name more than a few.
There really was no prototype. There were bruisers like Hanaman, Jenkins and Kelsey, but also speedsters like Lewis and the shifty, diminutive Boatner, who rushed for 1,525 yards when the 1992 Knights rushed for 3,258 yards.
There are all sorts of memorable games, starting in 1965 when Beloit pulled off a title-clinching 21-14 win over Madison West and future Badger and Minnesota Viking Stu Voigt.
Heineke remembers a 1991 game when quarterback Kirk Owens fumbled into the end zone on the final play and Beloit recovered in the end zone for the winning score against Sun Prairie.
Or how about 1994’s 2-0 win over Middleton, preserved when Big Eight Player of the Year Pat Brickson stopped the Cardinals’ top running back just short of the goal line to preserve the lead?
In 1972, Lamia similarly intercepted a pass at the 1-yard line to preserve a 20-13 win over Janesville Craig. In 1974, Rick Whitley rushed for 316 yards against Parker.
While the Wing-T remains close to his heart, Heineke kept up with the sophisticated intricacies of the game — the different styles of passing, blocking and formations on both sides of the ball.
He said he “modified” his style ver the years rather than “mellowed.”
“The old days of facemask grabbing and butt-chewing have gone by the wayside,” he said. “I’m not sure I ever totally gave it up. I remember Greg Jensen made a mistake and I yelled at him to come over. I grabbed him by the facemask and said, ‘Greg, you are too good a football player to make a mistake like that.’ I was at a party a couple of weeks ago and I saw Greg and he told me he sure remembered that game. He said that really straightened him out.”
His longtime assistant, Mark Anderson, who replaced him in 1998, said Heineke was always in step with the times. He took a college approach by finding a talented staff and allowing them to do their jobs with supervision, but not micromanaging. He was a superb football administrator.
In 1999, Heineke was inducted into the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“It’s the greatest honor I could possibly receive being recognized by my peers,” Heineke said. “It shows that you were appreciated for your contributions to football in the state.”
After he left, Beloit had two solid seasons under Anderson, but hasn’t posted a winning season in the past 26 years.
“People ask me what is going on,” Heineke said. “I know kids have more to do now than play football. The atmosphere at the high school isn’t the same, either. I think that was important. I think the administration recognized it, too. A lot of the problems in the halls were negated by the success of the athletic teams. Ken Currier, Jim Fitzpatrick, Bill Decker, Fran Fruzen and Steve Ferger were all so positive with athletics.”
