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Author chronicles history of Edgar-Stratford football rivalry

Tim Johnson
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Edgar quarterback Justin Sinz is brought down by a trio of Stratford defenders in a 2008 regular season game. The two programs met for the WIAA Division 6 state championship that year, one of the seasons recapped by a Two Rivers author's book which chronicles the rivalry and success of the programs.

WAUSAU - Peter Schmitt was born in Chicago, grew up in Two Rivers and was sports editor of the Waukesha Freeman for five years of a professional career that moved him from Wisconsin to Alabama and back. 

But high school football in central Wisconsin is the focus of the fourth and latest book he has written since 2012. "Edgar, Stratford: A small-school rivalry with no equal" chronicles the 14 state championship-winning seasons for which the two programs have combined.

"I thought it's interesting — here are two schools from the same county, located about 15 miles apart and both have won seven championships," Schmitt said. "You look at how successful and how dominant (the programs) have been for so long and it's about as special and unique as anywhere else in the state. 

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"There's people who will disagree with me on that, too. They will point to what Kimberly has done or talk about how Lancaster has won seven championships as well. The running joke is that in some of those years Lancaster's biggest rival was its junior varsity team."

A screen shot of the cover for the book by Peter Schmitt on the Edgar and Stratford football rivalry.

Schmitt completed the book in September and will be at Edgar High School at 4:30 p.m. Friday signing copies at a tailgate party before the Wildcats' showdown with Stratford for the Marawood Conference championship. He will hold a signing at 1 p.m Sunday at LJ's Sports Zone & Grill.

Friday marks the 58th meeting — regular season and playoffs — in the long-standing series.. Edgar holds a 32-26 lead in the regular season and has won six of the nine WIAA playoff matchups between the programs. The teams have split the series in the past four years with Stratford holding on for a 7-6 win last season. 

The teams have not met in the postseason since 2008 when Stratford edged Edgar 7-3 in the Division 6 state championship game. That year is one of the chapters in the book, which Schmitt broke down by each championship season for Edgar and Stratford. 

The chapters have game summaries from that year and reflections from players and coaches from those teams. Schmitt started on the book shortly after Edgar beat Shullsburg in the Division 7 state title game and devoted nine months and about 500 hours on the project. 

"A lot of it was me spending time in libraries just looking at microfilm (from newspapers)," said the 80-year-old Schmitt, who also conducted interviews with coaches and roughly 60 former players from the two programs. 

The 450-page book is available on Amazon. It is the second time that Schmitt has written a book about a Wisconsin high school sports program. His last book recapped the run by the 1946 Reedsville boys basketball team that made an improbable run to a state championship. 

His interest in the Stratford-Edgar rivalry dates back a decade when he made the drive to Edgar from Two Rivers on a Saturday afternoon in 2007 to watch Stratford beat the Wildcats in a Division 6 state quarterfinal 

"It was a great atmosphere, there were probably close to 3,000 people," Schmitt said of the 2007 matchup. "To get that many people for a game between two small schools, that's really something and shows what this rivalry is about."

The run of continued success is something that also attracted Schmitt to the story. 

"You ask yourself how do they continue to not only win every year, but just dominate," Schmitt said. "A lot of it is due to the continuity — there's been a lot of long-time coaches and former players on both schools, but it's also the way they do the little things, too."

Schmitt pointed to Edgar coach Jerry Sinz having a saying for each day of team practice, one that he goes over with his players before they start the workouts for that session. 

"He might ask a kid what (the saying) is a half-hour in. Well, that kid better know the answer," Schmitt said. "It's that attention to detail that (Edgar and Stratford) have. You look at the success both have had and it's hard to argue with what they do."