TEAM WISCONSIN


Team Wisconsin gathered for a meeting at the Wendts. Left to Right: Dave Bolyard, Rodney and Bethany Sanchez, Heather Prickett, Karen Wendt, John and Marie Elsner, Brad Wendt. a db digital image

BIOGRAPHIES

Brad Wendt

Brad has been running events or on the board of directors for local, regional, national, and world events for over 20 years. He has coached Ultimate teams, is currently the president of MADC and MUFA and is a great dad and husband on top of it all! (I'm not biased) (K.W.)

Karen Wendt I help behind the scenes of Frisbee events with typing, sponsorship, publicity, media connections, creating programs, and other stuff as needed. I help out wherever I can during Frisbee events in order to keep a connection with Brad and the things he is interested in. I love to follow Brad and his group around the disc golf course or overall events to take scores and spot blind holes. I enjoy playing disc golf, but I don't enter tournaments very often anymore. I was the editor of the Madison Area Disc Club newsletter for a couple of years. I have helped with WI State Overalls for over 20 years, the last five years as co-director. I have done sponsorship, player packets, check in, games, and publicity for Mad City Open- a PDGA SuperTour- for several years. Brad and I have three children; Vanessa 23, Janelle 19, and Woody 16. I spend as much time as I can in volunteer work and study as one of Jehovah's Witnesses since 1985. I am the Youth Services Coordinator at Monona Public Library, a storyteller, and facepainter. I love to read. I enjoy handmade papermaking, creating journals and books with the paper I make, and color pencil drawing. I enjoy wilderness hiking and canoeing, especially with my family. I hope you take a few extra days while you are here to visit some of Wisconsin's beautiful rivers and forests.
Karen Wendt

Rodney Sanchez

I ran my first Freestyle Frisbee Tournament in 1984 as a business school project while attending Sonoma State University in California. I have helped run Freestyle Players Association (FPA) Tour Events and the FPA World Championships a number of times. Along with Bethany Sanchez and Steve Jennings, have co-directed the Summerfest Open Freestyle Frisbee Championships that last three years running. I have always loved to watch the frisbee fly. I began my competitive career playing club ultimate while attending Sonoma State University. I quickly became interested in Freestyle and became a specialist in that discipline in the Spring of 1981, and have played and competed off and on since then. Recently I have become interested in and began competing in golf, distance and maximum time aloft. I won the Chico Harvest Open Freestyle Tournament in 1983, playing with Skippy Jammer. And won the FPA Open Pairs World Championship in 1994, playing with Gina Sample. Other life endeavors include poetry and fiction writing, teaching mindfulness meditation, and working for peace in myself, my family, society and the world.

Bethany Sanchez

The Frisbee Family has nurtured Bethany Sanchez for more than a quarter of a century, and she is committed to return the favor whenever possible. As a disc athlete, Bethany's U.S. and World titles have come in Double Disc Court, freestyle, and distance. She also set three world records in distance: the Women's record in 1987 (124.73 meters), the Women's Master record in 1995, and the Women's Grandmaster record in 2002. Bethany has served as an organizational and event volunteer for disc sports in a variety of settings. In the late 70s, she was the President of the University of Wisconsin _ Milwaukee Frisbee Club, where she helped coordinate logistics of local tournaments including regional Guts events. During the 1990s, she served on the board of directors of the Freestyle Players Association (FPA) _ first as the Treasurer and then as the Director/President. During that period, Bethany and friends coordinated several FPA organizational retreats and she oversaw the process of incorporating and obtaining the FPA's tax-exempt, charitable status from the IRS. She has coordinated most of the judging logistics at six FPA World Championships and has co-directed the Summerfest Open Flying Disc Championships for the past three years. She looks forward to this tournament as a great opportunity to “Spread the Jam” in Madison and the greater Midwest!

John Elsner

I was introduced to Frisbee when I tagged along with my older brother, Jim, to a Frisbee practice at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee in the fall of 1978. Luckily for me UW-Milwaukee had some outstanding Frisbee players to learn from (Andrew Lemann, Dave Bolyard and Bethany Sanchez to name a few). I was instantly hooked and began competing in the spring of 1979. I won freestyle at the 1979 WI state overalls. That was quite a thrill. I started organizing and running golf events after we put in Milwaukee's first disc golf course at Brown Deer Park in 1985. It was on to bigger and better things when I was fortunate to become full-time staff for the first of four years at the US Opens. Also in 1987 I started co-directing the WI state overalls, a stint that lasted eleven years until it was turned over to the very capable Wendt family. My greatest accomplishments are 1) Somehow getting Marie to marry me and 2) Pedaling a bicycle nearly 8,500 miles from Alaska to Florida to raise over $10,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.

Dave Bolyard

UWM Frisbee Club President 1977-78

Active Club member and organizer from 1977-1983

Organizer of 4 UWM Mid-Winter Classic Guts Tourneys 1978-1981

Member of UWM Guts team and Hong Kong Fireworks Company 1976-1986

Member of Son of Hong Kong and Zeros Guts Frisbee Teams 1986-1990

Wisconsin State Masters Overall Champion 1997

World Masters Competitor 1999-2000, 2002

WFDF Competitor 2001

Wiscconsin State Overalls competitor since 1977

Summerfest open staff member 1999-2002

Guts and Ultimate were my main frisbee interests in the beginning. Our club guts team gained notoriety in 1979 by placing 3rd in the Ann Arbor, Michigan indoor tournament. Our biggest tournament finish was 3rd place at the world championships in that same year. After several years away from frisbee sports, I eventually returned and turned to overall competition. My favorite events in the overall are distance, accuracy, freestyle, double-disc court (DDC) and golf. Discathon is my least favorite overall event followed by disc golf. SCF is my favorite event in the overall. I love the MTA portion of the overall events. I also love the freestyle event (jamming is FUN!) Aside from disc sports, my other favorite activities include: softball, ball golf, camping, snowboarding, x-country skiing and biking. Professionally I work as a freelance graphic designer in the advertising industry, and own a small graphics firm. I am an artist, and photographer working with both traditional and digital mediums. Other interests include music, both performance and appreciation. I enjoy listening to the latest pop and rock music and going to concerts. I play drums in several rock bands, and at my church I play trumpet, and drums (at different times of course) Over the years, I have had experience with bands like - The Front, The Flat Rabbits, Big Car, 60-watt Sarah (Sarah Kozar), Americas Sweethearts, The Lost Pioneers, the Wooldridge Brothers, King Daddy and Dr. Chow's Love Medicine.

Dave Jewell

4th MTA 1979 Nationals; 1984 WFDC Midwest all-around champion; 1985 and 1986 Midwset WFDC discathon champion; 1986 state golf champion; 4th at 1988 US Open in freestyle; 8 time Wisconsin freestyle champion; 1999 Wisconsin Grandmaster series champion in golf; 6 top five finishes at World freestyle championships; 10 year member and 5 year coach UW Madison Ultimate coach; has done freestyle shows in nearly 40 states and 30 countries including recently Cuba. Dave has directed or co-directed Madison disc golf leagues, many years of Wisconsin State Overall Championships, and Ultimate tournaments.

Heather Prickett

 

Don “Duster” Hoffman

PDGA Positions:

   Regional Coordinator (15 years)

   Board member (v.p.)Disc Golf Foundation

   National Tour Committee member

PDGA Awards:

   1990 Senior Sportsmanship (Jim Olsen Sr.memorial award)

   1994 Volunteer of the year

   1999 T.D.Of The Year

Wisconsin:

   Badger State Games Disc Golf Commissoner (11 years)

   T.D.1998 PDGA Amateur World Championships

   Wisconsin Disc Sports Association (charter member)

   Wisconsin Disc Golf/Frisbee Hall Of Fame (charter member)

Madison:

   President Emeritus - Madison Area Disc Club

   Course Pro Elver Park

   T.D.Mad City Open (9years)

  

Enjoy the event but remember "Have fun, be careful."

Marie Elsner

I first learned about competitive disc sports in 1979 when I met John Elsner. He taught me the basics of the overall events and I gave M.T.A. a try at the Wisconsin States in Sheboygan in 1980. I don't recall catching any of my throws that year, but it was great to be involved in an event where everyone is like one big family. After that I started taking disc golf seriously. John and I along with John's brother, Jim, and wife, Paula, traveled to tournaments throughout the midwest most of the summer weekends in the early 80's. I had good results at these tournaments and began to wonder how I could fare playing against non-midwestern women. It was then that Paula and I learned that there was no women's division at the disc golf world championships. We waged a petition campaign and eventually convinced the powers that be that this wasn't 1910 and women did actually enjoy competing in sports.So it was on to Huntsville, AL in 1983 where I became the first women's world disc golf champion and then on to Rochester, NY in 1984 where I became the first back-to-back world disc golf champion of either sex. From there my mind turned to thoughts of footbag, a sport John and I learned to play between rounds at disc golf tournaments. We traveled to several world championships and I came away with many titles, my name in the Guinness Book of World Records and lots of new friends. In the late 80's I lost my interest in competing. Since then I have helped out with the running of many tournaments, crunching the numbers, marking distance, etc. I still play golf every now and then and sometimes practice with the Milwaukee overall gang. They all still have hopes of seeing me return to competition next year at the Master's Overall Championships in Madison. We'll see!