Appleton East beats Green Bay Southwest with late touchdown
Appleton East scores a touchdown with 5 seconds left to beat Green Bay Southwest 28-21 on Thursday.
GREEN BAY – After more than 35 years as a teacher, coach and athletic director at Green Bay Southwest High School and Lombardi Middle School, Amy Hogan can finally relax.
A rainy summer day that ruins a plan isn’t so bad anymore since Hogan retired in June at the end of the school year. She has all the time in the world to read a book or discover a treasure in an antique shop, especially since she thinks buying it on eBay is cheating.
Still, it will take some time for me to get used to not going to Southwest Stadium every day now that school has started again. Not interviewing with a new girls basketball coach. Not finding a replacement date for a game that was postponed. Not making sure coaches and student-athletes have everything they need.
Things got even more real before the first football game last Thursday, when Southwest hosted Appleton East. Hogan wasn’t at the game, but those who know her may have seen her car drive by at some point that day.
She admitted being guilty as charged.
“It hit me when football started and when all the other sports started,” Hogan said. “I thought about the coaches and the athletes. It was kind of a sad feeling. But I know this is good for me.”
“When you’ve been doing this for so long and have been part of Southwest for many years, it’s something different.”
Hogan served as deputy AD at Southwest and Lombardi before taking over the AD position in 2017 when Brian Matz was hired at Bay Port.
The Green Bay native had already worked in the school district for 29 years at that time, 20 of them as a teacher at Lombardi.
She believed that a position as an AD would allow her to advance her career, and that’s exactly what happened. Although she loved teaching children, it was a new and refreshing role.
Her work as deputy AD prepared her to take on the top job, but the transition to running two schools was still a big step.
Manage budgets. Make sure a bus is available to take a team to an away game. Hire referee teams for home games. Attend as many games as possible to support student-athletes and their programs.
That sometimes meant early mornings and late nights, but every day there was something to motivate her. She would come to work prepared to focus on one task, only to find that something else had stepped in and taken her place.
It helped Hogan to put himself in the shoes of the athletes and coaches because he had been in their position himself.
She coached basketball, volleyball and track at Lombardi. She coached golf at Southwest for five or six years.
Hogan was also an athlete in his youth, playing basketball and softball at St. Joseph’s Academy and golf in the summer.
When she became AD, she made it a point to stay in constant contact with the coaches and even stopped by for summer training sessions.
She understood how difficult it was for her to prepare to the level of preparation, even more difficult than when she was doing it. There is so much pressure on them that she never wanted to add to the stress, even though she is extremely competitive and wants to win at everything.
But Hogan’s work was never based on wins and losses. She believed there was much more to it, from the way the coach treated the athletes to the way he worked with them.
“Amy was a strong advocate for developing young leaders and fought for her coaches,” said Erin Barkley, former Southwest girls basketball coach. “She became my mentor and friend during my time coaching at Southwest. I hope she gets the recognition she deserves.”
Southwest experienced some notable moments during Hogan’s tenure.
The football team finished 11-2 and was one win away from the D2 title game in 2017.
The boys basketball team won a conference championship for the first time in 20 years in 2019.
Former girls basketball star Jaddan Simmons broke the metropolitan area’s all-time girls scoring record as a senior in 2020.
The girls soccer team reached the semifinals of the D2 section in 2022.
The former Southwest Troyettes dance team frequently received recognition at both the state and national levels.
Hogan was proud of the opening of a new baseball and softball complex at the high school in May, which included new artificial turf fields.
“Amy has been a constant presence at all events since her time as an assistant and AD,” said Jay Draves, Southwest boys and girls soccer coach. “As a coach of both genders, I have seen her advocate for the best for both. I am honored that her final competition was a girls soccer game.”
Southwest is like some other schools in the area in that it has struggled with numbers in recent years, but in Hogan’s eyes, not much has changed when it comes to athletes. Some just can’t go to sports because life gets in the way sometimes.
“The kids who play have the same dedication,” Hogan said. “When they go from middle school to high school, they don’t realize that we didn’t practice every day in middle school, but it’s different. In high school, it’s more intense.”
“When you get to high school, your job or other things become important to you. You may not have as much time. I think sports are year-round now. For some kids, that may just not be feasible. They have to work. I understand that. I understand that.”
One day they will stop working and be able to retire like Hogan.
Maybe, like Hogan, they’ll take a 10-day Alaska cruise this summer with their children and grandchildren, something they’ve never been able to do in the past.
Maybe they can cheer on a grandson who starts his first varsity game despite being just a freshman, like Hogan’s grandson Payton did for West De Pere on Tuesday. He’s even $50 richer after winning a bet with his grandmother that he’d make the varsity team this season.
Hogan still plans to watch Southwest games this year, but she won’t be attending home games for a while. It’s time to give new AD Chris Williams a chance to run the show and put his own stamp on it.
Just like she did.
“You don’t want people to forget. … They’re going to forget you and forget what you say. They will,” Hogan said. “But I think the most important thing is that they never forget what I taught them.”
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