The Bear Facts

August 30, 2025

Good morning! I’m Tate Foertsch!

I’m Kayden Graves!

And I’m Alyssa Haugland! Welcome to the thirty-fourth season of the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio update from Bishop Garrigan High School.

Last Thursday Bishop Garrigan honored the first inductees to the Golden Bear Athletic Hall of Fame. When nominations were solicited last year, more than sixty names were received. The first honorees include six individuals and one team. The team being honored is the 1975 golf team with Steve, Scott, and Gregg Winkel, as well as Tom Geelan and Ron Lickteig. That team won Garrigan’s first state title in any sport and laid the foundation for a long tradition of success in golf.

There are two posthumous honorees. Paul Seiler from the Class of 1964 played offensive tackle and linebacker for the Golden Bears and went on to play for Notre Dame, the New York Jets, and the Oakland Raiders. Gene Meister coached baseball and basketball from 1988 to 2013. His success at Garrigan and also St. John’s in Bancroft led to his induction in the Iowa Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.

Other individuals being inducted are Jim Geelan (who was Garrigan’s first athletic director and helped form the school’s football, basketball, baseball, and track programs), Jack Muller (who earned nine letters at Garrigan, set school records for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers), and Renetta Seiler (who won four state championships in throwing events and was an All-American at Kansas State).

The final honorees are Brad Nelson (who scored a school record 62 points in a game in basketball and was a two-time all-stater in baseball before being drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers), and Tom Froehlich (a four-sport athlete who returned to coach Golden Bear football, basketball, track, and golf teams that went to state). Congratulations to all our Hall of Fame inductees!

A lot has happened since we signed off from “Bear Facts” last spring. Sixteen Golden Bears competed at state track. On the girls side Julia Swift, Madelyn Tigges, Zoe Montag, Cate Birkey, Ava Roethler, Brooke Ludwig, Jenna Peterson, and Emmi Bartolo all went to state; while Thadd Kollasch, C.J. McGregor, Carter McGregor, Andrew Lichter, Amaury Thomas, Tate Foertsch, Trayton Cink, and Owen Murphy made it to state for the boys.

Gabby Buscher went to state in golf, and she ended up in 12th place statewide. Both the baseball and softball teams had good summers. In softball Hanna Merron, Zoe Montag, Alyssa Haugland, Jenna Peterson, and Lilly Erpelding—Wickman all earned all-conference honors, and Hanna was also named all-district and all-state.

All-conference baseball players were Tate Foertsch, Brady Galligan, Nick Leerar, Dan Meis, Carter Schwab, and Drew Muller. Dan, Tate, Nick, and Brady were all-district honorees, and Tate and Dan also got all-state nominations. In addition to that, Thadd Kollasch and Drew Muller were named academic all-staters in baseball.

The Golden Bear football team is starting the 2025 season ranked at the top of the 8-man class in multiple polls. Radio Iowa, Sports Illustrated, the Des Moines Register and the Cedar Rapids Gazette all have the Bears ranked #1, while the B.C. Moore power rankings show them #2 in the state. While ratings don’t mean all that much—especially in 8-man—we’re glad to see the Bears getting some respect.

Two-time state veteran Tate Foertsch is returning for the Bears at quarterback. Fellow seniors Ethan Marso, Carter Schwab, Kyle Bormann, Kayden Graves, Carter McGregor, and Lucas Behounek will also be leading the football team this season. Also at the core of the team are juniors Madden Miller, Mike Joyce, Nate Leerar, Weston Rosenmeyer, Matt Besch, Leo Snyder, Leo Snyder, Karson Sidles, Sawyer Herrick, and Dalton Klenz.

There are some new teams on the Bears’ schedule this year, from schools all over northern Iowa. The Bears opened their season at home last night against Kingsley—Pierson, and we hope the whole year goes well for them. We’ll preview our other fall sports teams on next week’s show.

Homecoming 2025 is just around the corner. The big celebration will be September 8 – 12, and this year’s Homecoming theme is “Let the Battle Begin”. The seniors voted for royalty this past week. The queen candidates are Sacha Alesch, Emmi Bartolo, Alyssa Haugland, and Ava Roethler; and the king candidates are Tate Foertsch, Ethan Marso, Carter Schwab, and Amaury Thomas. We’ll give you a full preview of all the Homecoming festivities next week on the “Bear Facts”.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Alyssa Haugland. Here to tell you about her is Aubrey Meyer.

Alyssa Haugland is one of the seniors who’s at the core of student council this year. This fall she’ll be leading the volleyball team, and she’s also in just about every other sport. Most recently she won all-conference and all-area honors in softball. She’s part of the choir, she works on the stage crew for plays, and you may has also heard her announcing here on the “Bear Facts”. She says her favorite class is art. We hope Alyssa has a great senior year, and we wish her all the best after high school.

Thanks, Aubrey. On our Golden Bear calendar this week, there’s a volleyball tournament at St. Edmond this morning. Then Monday there’s no school because of the Labor Day holiday.

Tuesday there’s cross-country at Mason City Newman, and the JV football team will host West Hancock that night. We’ll have mass Wednesday morning, and then on Thursday the volleyball team has their first home match as they take on Lake Mills.

Friday the football team travels to Riceville. Finally next Saturday the JV volleyball team will have a tournament at Algona High.

That’s our first “Bear Facts” for the new school year. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to catch the show every week to hear all the news from Bishop Garrigan High School.