Rebels without a team

What has become a youth gridiron institution in Saukville won’t field a team this fall for the first time since 1961 and is at risk of being lost forever.

The Rebels football program didn’t attract enough players to field a team this year.

Saukville Rebels President Kevin Thate had 18 players last year on a combined seventh and eighth-grade squad, but despite last-ditch efforts only six players signed up this year.

“We’ve been seeing it for years. The numbers have been dwindling. It was just a matter of time before we ran out of kids to play,” he said.

Numbers began to slip in 2016 with the formation of the Port Washington Buccaneers youth football program. Port High School coaches and the Rebels disagreed on philosophies, which ultimately led to the start of the Buccaneers, who have the backing of the Port Gridiron Club.

Thate said discussions of a merger between the two teams didn’t go anywhere.

“We’re not blaming anybody at this point. It is what it is,” Thate said.

If what is becomes what was, the Rebels had a 61-year run that included becoming one of four charter members of the Wisconsin All-American Youth Football League in 1977 — which grew into the largest youth football program in the state — and winning state titles in 1981 and 2003.

“Pretty astonishing for a team coming out of Saukville, Wisconsin,” Thate said.

The Rebels date to 1960, when Don Didier, a member of Saukville’s Recreation Board, was umping a baseball game and was asked by a couple of children if they could play football.

Didier said if enough players were interested he would coach a team.

Friends told friends, and before long Didier had a group of football players with uniforms cobbled together from rummage sales: wool shirts with the sleeves cut off, blue jeans and helmets, some with the Dallas Cowboys’ star and others that said Allis-Chalmers.

Carol Donohue, the wife of Didier’s successor Larry, remembers paper drives in the early years.

“He collected papers for years and years with kids on Saturday to help the program make money,” she said. “That’s before we had fundraisers — pizza or candy. When some of us came on, we said there’s an easier way to do this.”

The program’s first fundraiser was a raffle for a used AMC Rambler Rebel. That’s how the team got its name.

Didier became known as “Papa Rebel,” former club president Gary Knaub said, and, after passing the program to successors, he continued to attend Saturday games at Rebels Field to run the clock.

Didier’s first focus wasn’t football, and  his successors followed his lead.

“The biggest thing the Rebels did for the community is make boys and girls into men and women,” former Rebels president Gary Knaub said.

“They did a good job of instilling values and making great people in the community. Creating great football players was not our goal. Creating great men and women were.”

Former club president Wayne Moeller had the same philosophy.

“It was about taking those kids who might have been in trouble otherwise, getting them active in something positive and giving them an avenue to express their energy,” he said.

Former coach Bill Fleischmann said he would ease into practices, asking his players how they were doing in school.

“A lot of people think it’s about the X’s and O’s — you have to do that but there’s a lot of other things that were involved with coaching, especially youth. Everyone likes to win but there’s a price to winning,” he said.

Coaches were all volunteers, and Didier led the charge to recruit former Rebels to return. The program had a strong pull and a motto, “Once a Rebel, always a Rebel.”

Knaub said he was honored to be asked to coach and loves it when “30-something year-old men come up and call me coach.”

The Rebels shied away from parents coaching their children. Some coaches had kids come through the program, but the focus was on former players who loved football and wanted to make a difference.

“That was a good recipe for success,” Knaub said.

“You kind of have a little bit more fun when you don’t have a kid in the program,” Fleischmann said.

Thate continued to coach after his son, now 28, aged out. He remembers the days of having 56 players in fifth grade alone.

“We’d have to have an A and a B team to make it easier for kids to get playing time,” he said.

Didier, 85, died on Jan. 26, and Thate hopes to keep the program he started going. The Rebels have a spot reserved for one more year in the AAYFL.

“We’re not closing the door. We’re going to do what we can to promote Rebels football,” he said. “We’re going to push hard and see what we can do.”